Years and years of ill placed anger have led our society almost to the brink of civil destruction and national catastrophe, meanwhile burying the qualities that our nation fought to create. We have endured countless battles between the races and pointless wars within our own distinctive cultures, but we have yet to find that common ground called peace. It seems the horror that has been foreshadowed upon our future is being overlooked. I picture the world as beautiful but still crutched by the flaws people will not put behind them. It is time to create a new era of thinking we cannot allow disaster to be our only source of unheralded inspiration when it comes to change in our societies. I watch and observe poverty stricken neighborhoods and gang violence everyday but those stories go on unheard. I watch the unemployment rate rise to 9.8 percent in September and crime rate increase just as rapid and those stories our under publicized. Change is inevitable but it starts from the ground up.
I am hurt by the ongoing tragedies that have surfaced over these last few months. Mainly the death of a young boy named Derrian Albert, who was beaten to death as he walked home from school. I don't know the full details but I do know the beating was caught on tape and it sparked something in my heart to write this blog. I have been witnessing our youth become more and more violent, I am still considered a part of the youth so I believe it impacts me and my peers as much as teenagers. This violence expressed by young America has to stop and it has to stop now, it is becoming clear that somewhere in our society we have put so much on the shoulders of our kids until they hold grudges. This is no time to blame others, this is a time to confront ourselves; I refuse to watch more kids be killed without saying something. I feel the movement to change has to start with the marchers, and out of the marchers the general will be formed. It should not take disasters like the Tsunami in New Zealand, or tragedies like Derrian Albert for the world to see we are in some dark times. Violence has become the answer to a lot of foolish things, and if the marchers/ the people do not make known that we want change it will never happen.
Acting is more effective than just hoping for change, and this is the attitude President Obama has been trying to communicate to the world. We can all sit here and talk and feel sorry for one another but it is time to put our hands together and lift each other up. I read a letter from acclaimed rapper Nas that addressed the youth of America as "young warriors," he said "we have the ability and mind power to change the way we are looked at," his words are the spark needed to push our youth forward. We will not survive off ignorance and being taught to be violent. We are all warriors but we should not have to fight one another we should turn our energy to fight the War on Poverty, and the War on this economy. If we aim our frustration at better means, better results will follow. R.I.P. Derrian Albert and love to his family, use his death as a spring board for a better life to come for the next young man or woman.Think about it...
