On Tuesday, news broke that four-year-old A’Mea N. Gee, who suffered critical injuries in a hit-and-run crash while crossing the street last week at North 22nd and West Center Streets, had died.
A’Mea’s six-year-old sister, Lisa Z. Gee, was killed at the scene of the crash, which was caused by a reckless driver who was driving around vehicles that had stopped for a red light. The cousin of the girls, 10-year-old Drevyze Rayford, was injured in the incident and remains in the hospital.
Milwaukee police have arrested individuals in connection with the incident and charges are pending.
The craziness on the streets of Black Milwaukee reminds one of the lawless wild west.
Wrong-way driving, excessive speeding, passing from the right lane, running stop signs and lights, weaving in and out of traffic have made our streets unsafe for other drivers and pedestrians.
Add to those “street” concerns a string of freeway shootings, and a string of road rage incidents that have many stakeholders deciding to drive around, instead of through the central city.
It’s the new normal of abnormal human behavior in our community. It’s an epidemic in need of a cure.
One MCJ staffer saw first-hand why these incidents are happening at a level that seems to have gotten worse within the last four or five years.
As he was driving to take care of personal business and pick-up a late lunch, the staffer witnessed drivers running red lights several times as he and other drivers waited patiently for the light to change to green. One driver ran the light without even slowing down.
He watched as other drivers were speeding down the street as if they were in a NASCAR-sanctioned auto race. While waiting at a light at the intersection of Teutonia Avenue and Cornell Street, a car pulled up next to the staffer on the driver’s side in the turning lane.
But instead of turning left, the driver speeded straight off through the intersection once the light turned green and before any other car could move, seemingly oblivious to whether a car turning the opposite direction (the right) would turn in front of him or her!
On a radio talk show earlier the same day, callers shared their own experiences driving the “wild, wild streets of ‘The Mil’.” One of the show’s guests likened the behavior of these drivers to a devaluation of human decency, respect for the law and the rules of the road!
The guest, who works in the mental health field helping members of our community deal with mental health issues, explained there are a number of factors for the reckless behavior of some of us who get behind the wheel.
He noted the residue of enslavement, the impact of White supremacy/Jim Crow, buying into the myth of Black inferiority that leads to low self-esteem, an oppressive criminal justice system, a broken public school system, self-medication via drugs and alcohol, family turmoil compliments of a disintegrating traditional family structure.
Even our diets and technology have become the new culprits warping our thinking and behavior toward ourselves and each other.
As a result, we explode using hurtful speech, fists, guns and, now, cars!
We noted earlier we are in the midst of an epidemic in need of a cure. That cure—in our opinion—is to reconnect with those norms and practices that buoyed us through slavery and Jim Crow, that were the links in a chain of Black unity and self-empowerment that pulled us through the long night of American apartheid and within close proximity of the promised land Dr. Martin Luther King waxed about so eloquently and fervently.
We must strive and work as a community to reclaim normalcy and the type of behavior that will eliminate this epidemic using education and peer pressure.
And we can’t just take solace in the fact the Milwaukee Police Department, Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Department, and the Wisconsin State Patrols are combining their efforts to combat reckless driving with saturation patrols in the areas most impacted.
We must get off the sidelines. Each of us has a vested interest in enacting the cure to this problem. Civic involvement provided the police with the evidence to arrest the perpetrators of the North 22nd and West Center Street incident. If we are to take a serious bite out of crime, we must assist those sworn to protect us from these type of thugs who terrorize our streets.
As Milwaukee County Sheriff Earnell Lucas said in a recent article on a news website about this urban problem: “Our community knows that it’s necessary and it’s needed (the saturation patrols), because the recklessness that is in our streets is unacceptable.”