I am calling out to the masses, calling out, almost crying out, to the parents in my town. I want to know why it is that we are allowing this within the borders of this town where we are all raising our kids. I take these sorts of things personally, and also, with a quiet vengeance that is all Love, all the time, for the people of Pomona, CA. We do not deserve to go backward, not when we have come so far.
This is home to us, Pomona, and right now I want to know why it is that the town in which my kids are growing up seems to adhere to its violent past like a two year old with a vice grip around his favorite toy. We can have good memories, if only we would believe this about ourselves collectively. We believe nothing at all if it is not here and in our faces. And please, do not tell me we cannot fix this, because we can, but we have to work together at it. Instead, we sit looking at each other wondering why this is happening again. Yes, I said it - it does not have to be this way.
Why is it that we are all just accepting without trying to change the things about this town, and why is it that we are just accepting it as "the way that it is." I do not believe that, not for a moment, because for a long, long time, there was not more shootings to think about, at least not the way that there have been here lately, and there was no such thing in this area where people were out and trying hard to hurt our children.
You can be mad at me all you want, and you can say awful things to me and about me, but this writing is not about what other parents are not doing as much as it is about our kids growing up violently. It is far too long ahead and into the game called "Peace" to be having people shot for no good reason. It is too far along in our history as humans to have to live in fear. In Pomona, the time has come, not to repeat our violent past, but to seek ways to continue to live peacefully, or at least without shedding the blood of our kids.
Does anyone else think about the idea that we can have peace here, but that peace has to begin at home, and parents at home have got to stop being scared of other peoples' kids, or is it only my thought and that of school officials and administrators and yes, of course, the kids, too? They are bored, but whose fault is that? They are bored, but there are things they can do, and it is the weight which must be borne by us, the parents of these kids, and we are failing them, some of us are, and it needs to stop. We need to pay attention and we need to be involved and more than much else, we need to have things for them to do OTHER than drugs, having sex and doing things that cause a mother to mourn the death of her baby.
The problem is not that they have nothing else to do, but more that they have nothing to be proud of other than having had the control and the power to take another person's life. That is not power. That is not anything that is positive. It is hurtful. It makes people afraid to be at home. It makes an entire population of people know that ours is the stain of abuse gone rampant, ours is the black badge of children dying in our streets and parents who believe that nothing can be done. Lots can be done. Lots can be done and we are doing none of it, sitting idly and waiting for the schools to do something about it or the city's leaders. Whether you believe me or not, it all rests in OUR hands as parents. We have the be the ones to exact this thought in their head, and we have to be the ones who will sacrifice on their behalf our fun, our "me time" and I say it because a parent who cares more about their "me time" has kids who will also only care about their "me time," and that "me time," we see, is spent with other kids who also feel this way, and in our town, that can be a matter of life and death, as well as the difference between the two.
Yeah, I said it, so deal with it. I am sick of hearing the gunshots late at night, tired of knowing that somewhere in this town, a set of parents is mourning the loss of their baby. This is not right. We have to come together, not be torn apart by the fear spawned by the madness that comes from feeling helpless. We cannot turn to the rogues of society, cannot think that going backwards somehow is what we need to do in order to move forward. Gone are the days that we have to prove anything to anyone, but the mentality is that of a pack of wolves, menacing those in their environment, scaring the good people in this town, and scarring the entirety of us with the deep red stain of the blood of innocents.
This is not a good feeling, not at all, to know that not very long ago there was a shooting, and over what? This is Pomona - I am sure that I do not need to expand on what it was over, because it is always over who is claiming what and who is with what set and who is allowed to make the calls and who is going to claim this corner or that corner as theirs. I cannot sit here and tell anyone that they need to change, because it should never have to be said.
We have moved backwards, not forward, and our children are again at risk.
Violence at home begets and becomes violence in our communities. There needs to be no more bloodshed, no more mothers crying over the loss of their sons.
There just needs to be no more children dying in our streets.
Know it as our Community's Kuleana, as our being the Village who has GOT TO come together to save the children in our midst....here is proof that pictures speak volumes louder than words...
I Love You All
ROX
Rev. Roxanne K. Cottell (Reverend Roxie)can be contacted for coaching sessions, to book her for a public speaking engagement, or for any other reason by clicking here
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