News Flash: Hell is starting to freeze over.
And many former critics of the ‘Just-Us’ criminal system are carrying bags of ice.
I guess I should not have been surprised that longevity brings with it a reassessment of our values and community standards.
But witnessing the shift to the right in response to the pandemic of local violence caught me off guard.
The tipping point last week was the discovery of the body of three-year-old Major Harris in a garbage can, days after the murder of his mother, Mallery Musenzenberger.
Both were apparently murdered by 20-year-old Jaheem Clark, who ‘fittingly’ committed suicide moments before police caught up with him on the northside.
Days earlier, police arrested a gang of young Black teens whose 13-year-old leader viciously murdered a sister while stealing her SUV.
While several other sensationalistic murders were sandwiched between those incidents, those two seemed to tip the scales of ‘Just-Us’ among older Black tribal members. Some of them expressed their concerns on social media and talk radio.
One long-time activist expressed irritation. Clark committed suicide before being caught by neighborhood vigilantes.
He also demanded the 13-year-old terrorist, Jayden Adams, who murdered a Nigeran woman while stealing her car in Wauwatosa, be tried as an adult (which he has been).
One of my friends wondered how a community could produce someone like Jayden, who maliciously drove over 47-year-old Sunita Balogun several times before joining several ‘criminal peers’ for a joy ride in her blood-stained jeep.
Adult prison is also where another social media brother, a long-time community activist with the battle scars to prove it, hoped Jayden would take up lifelong residence.
The other teens involved should also spend their formative years running from Big Bubba.
The viciousness of Jayden’s actions defies logic and humanity, but it is also an indictment of a new cultural paradigm that is eating away at our community.
Unprecedented young teens are acting out video game fantasies with us as their victims.
And they are more vicious, uncaring, and immoral.
While we can say they are in the minority, the truth is they have our community in a state of siege:
- Parents are forced to teach their children to drop when they hear a loud pop.
- Elderly folks spend a percentage of their limited incomes on security systems or barred windows.
- Several Black churches are hosting concealed carry classes, and it seems like half the community is now armed, with or without concealed carry permits.
Over the last week, social media and talk radio discussions have focused on the horrific carjacking and the sad conclusion to the Major Harris tragedy.
Several callers to radio talkshows remarkably described Jayden as a confused and naïve child who should be tried in juvenile court, rehabilitated, and returned home when he turns 18.
However, the overwhelming majority believe Jayden’s callous and pre-meditated actions are worthy of adult imprisonment, if not the death penalty (which Wisconsin doesn’t have).
Several people noted that the juvenile justice system’s revolving door for teenaged carjackers not only glorifies their status but abates future crimes.
The recent epidemic of killings hit home to those of us who literally grew up in a black and white world.
Few of us could envision our community producing the hundreds of Jayden’s who roam our streets, terrorizing any and everyone, including our elderly.
Those of us who marched for justice led campaigns for Black empowerment and to end systemic racism could not envision our community imploding as it has.
Nor could we see (through reading glasses) men abandoning their families, the Africentric mores and values we fought to instill being dropped by the wayside along with our spirituality, communal spirit, and educational passports.
Having spent our lifetimes fighting for something that exists only in King’s dreams, the insanity we witness is heartbreaking.
Thus, I should not have been surprised that some former advocates for creating a Black nation within a nation are now ready to provide Jayden with a bottle of salad dressing as he enters the world of ‘adult injustice’ (if you get the pun).
One brother, who lost his government job due to his advocacy for Black justice, suggested Black vets form a ‘community justice’ patrol.
The retired brother cited several publicized incidents that have sent him over the edge: the killing of a young girl during a reckless car chase, a woman shot in the face during a carjacking because she didn’t move fast enough, and a teenaged girl murdered over a pair of jeans.
He noted that Milwaukee’s murder rate has nearly doubled in the last year, a large percentage being fueled by teenage terrorists who care less about our civil rights struggles and sacrifices.
The auto thief rate has also doubled last year, pushing Milwaukee to number 12 on the national list.
A significant percentage of carjackings, shootings, and reckless driving incidents are perpetrated by individuals who are not old enough to pee straight. And that includes the girls.
As Sherwin Hughes said on his show Monday, as he revealed less than 60% of the murders were ever solved, “crime is so bad (in Milwaukee) it’s embarrassing.”
One brother I talked to over the weekend suggested we need to bring back public humiliation.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have a retort for him.
In fact, the thought occurred to me the brother was on to something.
Maybe public ridicule—punishment– is a viable option.
Obviously, nothing else seems to be working.
First, let’s separate the thugs and thugettes from the groupies and easily influenced.
Put those punks and punkettes in tiny cells for 23 hours and record their reactions for public consumption.
If they display sincereity, offer them realistic alternatives to crime, which probably would not include returning them to their environment unless and until there is family intervention.
Make them do humiliating community service: Clean the streets while wearing orange jumpsuits with their crimes written across their chests.
Make them cut grass—or plant it and maintain it.
Make them serve as church ushers (still wearing their outfits). If they are first-time felons with redeemable qualities, make them record PSAs that will run on social media and television, specifically during ‘Maury’ and ‘Family Feud’ and Bucks basketball games.
Conversely, put brutal thugs like Jayden in mobile glass cells that will be left on street corners throughout the week.
OK, I’m overly facetious, trying to shock y’all into reality and action.
But, be honest, do you believe the $40 million the state is allocating for anti-violence programming, or the millions the city is sitting aside, will significantly impact the status quo?
Part of that money will probably be used to print more ‘End violence’ signs along 35th Street (the route Clark took before dumping Majors body).
While looking at a gallery of those signs along Capitol Drive Saturday, I couldn’t help but wonder if Clark read them before or after he killed Major and his mother?
Our problems run more profound than a heavy foot or available guns and won’t be solved by signs, pre-school, or paid White suburban women invading government schools trying to convince students that sexuality and gender are fluid (whatever that means!).
And the suggestion that the juvenile correctional system (a redundant premise today) is a cure-all is nothing short of ridiculous. Wasn’t it just yesterday that we were talking about the inhumane treatment of offenders at Lincoln Hills?
Are there records of how many of the released boys end up in trouble within months or days?
These terrorists-in-training return to the same environment that bred them. They return to inferior educations. To the same dysfunctional families. Generational poverty.
Just two weeks ago, many of us were reeling from the comments of a young, single Black mother—Felisha Kelly– whose 13-year-old son was caught stealing what he proudly proclaimed was his 20th, 30th or 40th car.
He’s stolen so many cars, he lost count.
Likewise, his mother has tried 20, 30, or 40 times (she’s lost count) to steer the man-child away from his life of crime. She has since given up.
She reportedly declared when they (juvenile ‘Just-Us’ system) release him (as they will probably do unscathed), she doesn’t want him back in her household.
Or her neighborhood. Or her state, for that matter.
And therein lies another reason so many of my colleagues have moved to the right.
Kelly acknowledged that her son has been in and out of detention, meaning even though he is a known member of a gang of young thugs and thugettes who call themselves the Kia Boys (a reference to their targeted vehicles) and post their actions on social media, they realize little will happen to them if caught.
The Kia Boys and Girls (true gender equality) specifically target Kias and Hyundais because they are easy to steal.
The last couple of years has witnessed many Christians and liberal Black seniors sounding more and more like those evangelical nuts who consider Donald Trump a role model.
They have witnessed, as I have, our community disintegrate and implode. And some believe the problem is rooted in our abandonment of Christian tenets.
The values and mores that allowed us to be self-sufficient—albeit segregated and separated by systemic racism and racists—have gone the way of dial telephones and black and white television.
The Black nuclear family (marriage) is all but extinct.
The latest state academic assessment test results show less than 20% of Black students in government schools are proficient in any subject other than basketball.
Unable to read and write, and with abysmal futures, a large percentage of our youth turn to crime; when they are not creating babies who will follow in footprints made by their grossly expensive Jordan sneakers.
On my social media link, one frustrated sister theorized God/Nyame has turned His back on Black America. She cited as evidence the community-wide prayer to find Major Harris. Alive.
If it makes a difference, the diehard Baptist went through a litany of scripture to support her point and noted how we have abandoned most of the tenets of ‘our’ religion.
Obviously, she said, God is ticked-off.
The sister theorized the pandemic of terrorism is a signal of the end days. If she’s right, no need to stay frustrated or angry because the end of the world is just around the corner.
If she’s wrong, we need to wake up and maybe take coordinated and desperate actions before hell completely freezes over and the devil buys the house down the street with a 30-year mortgage.
Right now, Big D is just visiting 53206 and 12. But the house he’s interested in buying is north of Blackfish Bay.
I don’t expect him to venture into the suburbs because those folks have been stockpiling weapons for the last decade. Not for him, but for what they assume is his Black disciples.
Of course, we can continue believing those White knights with the big ‘D’ on their chests (Democrats) will save us from us.
In truth, they are part of the problem.
They played a rap tune on the ‘hardware’ entertainment system as they sold us the shovel we’re using to dig a deeper hole.
Us older griots and community elders refuse to participate in that self-destructive process. Our feet are still sore from the miles of protesting. And our hands are blistered from holding those signs.
Instead, we’ll sing some old school and pray the youth hear us before it’s too late. Maybe a little ‘I’m Black, and I’m Proud.’ Or better yet, the Impressions, ‘People Get Ready.’
But if you know that song, it’s the light of God-a -coming, but the freedom train id being engineered by people who profit from our problems.
And the passengers sitting in the front seats because of our campaigns are terrorists and thugs who have no idea how they got such privileged sitting.
Hotep
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