First, I want you to know that as 2pac said, “Say there ain’t no hope for the youth and the truth is, there ain’t no hope for the future.” If we don’t do a better a job at protecting the youth, showing them that we love them and will help them become successful to the best of our ability, we are going to have a major problem with this generation. My story is complicated and I have been through so much. I was raised in a broken family and my grandparents had to take care of me. I don’t know who my biological father is; I was raised in a poverty stricken area. I was forced to be separated from my brothers and sister because we all couldn’t be raised in the same place since it wasn’t financially possible. I was placed in Special education from 5th grade to 9th grade. I was labeled, teased by my peers, misunderstood and still I rise. I was diagnosed with Skin lupus when I was 10 years old. My great grandmother that raised me died when I was 17. My grandfather which took me in and raised me as well was diagnosed with dementia in 2009 and died in 2013. I have had many peaks and valleys in my life and the only thing that saved me was connection to spirit and unconditional love from my family. School assisted me in building my mind but my family taught me how to learn and empower myself with knowledge. If it was not for the love they gave me, I don’t know if I could be writing you as I am right now. Outside of my family I went to amazing camps that help me understand diversity and taught me how to get along and interact with different nationalities of people. I have had some beautiful teachers; basketball coaches, mentors and people that have help become the person I am today.

Now as a twenty-nine year old man I look at the current state of our country, and our community and I don’t like it. I don’t see the same support systems that help me become the person I am today. When I was young I went to PS. 35 in Brooklyn NY, and we had a camp called Carmel, located in Upstate NY, that we would visit twice during the year and we would go in the summer for three weeks. This is still one of the best experiences in my life. I grew to love and become family with my friends. We learned how to work together and get along. We were able to work on our social skills and become better individuals while having fun at the same time. The boys had their own cabin and the girls had their own cabin but when it was time to eat breakfast lunch and dinner we all eat as a family. I will never forget what Carmel did for me; it will stay with me forever. My point in that story is that we need more successful programs like this for our youth.

Recently in the news, there has been coverage about a young girl named Aniah Ferguson, who was involved with in a fight in McDonalds with four other girls. They beat another girl up, until she was unconscious. Currently she is in jail with a $500,000 bail and is facing 25 years to life. In addition, she is also being tried as an adult. From my current research, her mother said that her daughter was a troubled child who needed help. Aniah’s mother said the first time her daughter was arrested she tried to get her daughter help, but no serious help came. As a Social Worker in-training, I’ve learned that situations like this don’t just happen. Situations like this stem from other problems. It could be a mental issue, or it could be a lack of family structure and positive role models in her community. Aniah could be dealing with some type of emotional issue; it could be an array of different factors that led to this McDonalds incident. Should we just cast this young queen into a jungle and watch her rot in prison because her community, her people, and this bullshit ass justice system failed her. Should we forget that she is 16 years old and should not get tried as an adult? Should we forget that, currently, jail is the “new slavery” for Black people, and it doesn’t offer any real chance of rehabilitation or hope that this young queen can change her life? It will just put her in a more messed up environment that will add to her issues, make her angrier, more violent and lead her to even more trouble after she gets out of jail.

It’s sad that so many of our people died and gave their lives, so we could be something and do something positive with our lives. This generation of people would rather sit back and watch this young girl suffer instead of standing up and fighting for our queen. You know kids her age were a part of the Civil Rights movement. They marched and fought, so the media can label our young queen as a “savage”. You know who the savages are? The savages are the people that stand by idly while our people get mentally and physically enslaved, and don’t do anything to fight against oppression. You’re the savage, because if it wasn’t for people getting hung and killed for standing up, you wouldn’t even have the right to voice your bitch ass opinion. I think the problem is that a lot of black people have been mentally brainwashed and they don’t realize they are working with the oppressor. Anytime you disrespect your people around other nationalities, you are working with the oppressor. Anytime you agree with something like a young teenage girl being a savage because she is not getting the help she deserves, you are working with the oppressor. Anytime you stand idle while your people are experiencing injustice, you are working with the oppressor. You see the proof is in the pudding and I’m not saying that my people don’t do wrong. What I’m saying is you will never see me go against my people ever. The effects of slavery and Jim Crow still vibrate through my community as we speak. So before I call Aniah a savage, I will call the whole United States government savages because they sit back and watch my community suffer. I am not saying that this young woman should not be held accountable for her violent actions, yet look at the root causes as well as the disproportionate punishment. To be tried as an adult and set bail at $500,000 is excessive for a 15 year old and will not solve the problem.

Let’s look how the drugs got in our communities in the first place, where did all the guns come from? Like Jay-Z said, “they gave us drugs and then turned around and investigated us.” All the problems that exist in Black communities were not all created by Black people. Poverty is a system that is specifically designed for those in the system to fail. It doesn’t matter what your skin color is in this day and age, if you’re in that type of system, the odds are stacked against you. Black people have never had a break, after the Emancipation Proclamation, they instituted the Jim Crow laws, after the Jim Crow laws, guns and drugs were introduced into our communities, and then most of the men were sent to war. After society destroyed the Black family structure, they changed the laws around so we could be locked up for selling and using the drugs they gave us in the first place.

Now 60 years later, you label our young queen as a “savage”. Wait, is this the same country that hung Black people in the streets, raped our woman, killed our children, and took away our rights? Is this same country that convinced the whole world to hate Black people that are calling this young girl a Savage? You see if you take a group of civilized people and you throw them in an environment where they have to act like animals to survive, then that group of people will act like animals to survive. But if you take that same group of people and you give them love, support, and you give them the resources to better their lives that same group of people will do so. The problem is we all do not have the same resources and since we don’t, and we know that we don’t, we cannot judge the youth for trying to survive in a community that resembles the jungle. Don’t blame the kids because if the community is messed up. It’s not their fault, it’s ours, we are the adults, we know the difference between wrong and right and we stand up and fight for the youth. Don’t just wait until it’s your kid that get shot by the police or locked up for 50 years, and then you want to stand up and fight for a cause. Stand up right now because an injustice to one of us is an injustice to all of us. If we could all agree on that we could change this world around faster than the axle it’s spending on. In my opinion, African people will stay in enslaved until we unify and start loving one another. Until then we will always stay divided and conquered.