PRAY FOR OUR BLACK YOUTH

PRAY FOR OUR BLACK YOUTH

By: Deon Joseph

I had to take a moment to calm down before I wrote this. I know for those who have bought into the narrative that law enforcement is the biggest threat to young black boys, this may be upsetting.

Statistically, that is the farthest thing from the truth. So, for those of you who have a cult-like belief in that, you may not want to read this.

Today, I went riding my bike with my three sons in the community I grew up in. I got ahead of them a bit on the way home. Two gang members pulled up on my son. One asked him if he was from a particular gang. My son told him he was no gang member. The gangsters told him where he was from as a warning to him and then drove off.

That could have easily turned ugly. When these individuals have the urge to kill, there are usually no right answers. When my sons caught up to me they told me what happened.

I cringed on the inside. As a father, there was this urge to kill.  As a black man, I was overcome with sadness at how a black is simply not allowed to just be. 

I thought back to when I was almost killed a block behind my house at 14 years old by three gang members asking where I was from because of the jacket I wore. If it wasn’t for the gang member in the back seat, who I could not see, who recognized me from church, I wouldn’t be here.

I remember them driving off. I remember how helpless I felt. I remember there was no cover to protect me. At 14 years old, I had never gang banged. I never hurt anyone, but my life was about to be taken by three self-hating men who saw me as worthless as they saw themselves. I was an expendable black life who didn’t matter.

Now three decades later, I’m sitting on my couch with that same feeling after what happened to my son.

My son never gang banged. Never hurt anyone in his life. Has talent. He’s helpful and thoughtful, and today, because of the color of his skin, someone did not see his value. That he was loved.

Across this country every year, not a few dozen, not a couple of hundred, but thousands of young black youth lose their lives this way. Not in the heat of a tense moment. Not because they struggled with a cop, or were running from one, or in the commission of a crime.

But simply being in the skin they are in and wearing a certain colored shirt, or a hoodie while exercising, or on a date, or an initiation, or an order from a prison.

I always prayed my sons would grow up in a safer world. I thank God for his protection over me decades ago, and today my son.

But when are we as a people going to face this issue? When are we going focus on trying to stop the tens of thousands we lose as fervently as we focus on the couple of hundred the media and activists only want to focus on for ratings or to push an issue.

Do you know how many lives we could save if we did that?

I’m done. I’m going to go pray now to find it in my heart to forgive. But I won’t forget. Too many of us are dying for me to forget.

I’m not up for any debates on this.  So, you can save your “yeah buts.” 

Please pray for our black youth tonight.