Thousand Kilos of Truth

The deafening cries of a baby at 3am in the morning, the bloodshot red eyes of an addict searching for an answer, and the subtle footsteps of the dealer facing the pendulum of decisions that await the alley’s end. Is it all worth living on the verge of sanity? Is the man who sells drugs to feed his family, another decoy in this twisted bottle called society?

When the times are rough, and the cause may even seem just, we still live in a world where plain and simply put, its either right or wrong, black or white. A gray is never truly a gray, you can try to clean up the situation, but it’s still either right or wrong. So when faced with the harsh times in our economy, when jobs are being loss, and hope is being destroyed, is selling drugs truly the right answer? When most drug dealers are asked why they sell drugs, a majority of the time it’s because he needs to be a man and support his family. But what about the lives of the families he is destroying? Addiction solemnly may begin the heart of the addict, but it starts with the supplier. He sells drugs, to make a better life for his family, but yet the community he raises his family in gets more volatile every second due to the drug game.

The community becomes lost, overwhelmed, and victimized by the drug lords who are taking over the territory. The childhood dreams of playing outside, are short lived by the fear of a drive-by. Parents are working a nine to five job, to secure the hopes of a better future for their children. The pool of materialism becomes to much pressure for kids to wait for their parents to buy items on there wish list, so they take matters into there own hands. These are systemic problems in the community, which you can trace all the way back to the colonization of blacks after the civil war, and we are still trying to get it right.

The American mindset of greed and materialism, leads to the the addiction to the money. This causes an ongoing cycle in the mindset of drug dealing, that  goes beyond the point of providing for the family. A young brother gets caught up into having the money, and when he is left with the opportunity to go to school or work at McDonalds, thats not a reality when he has been accustomed to making cash the fast way and being his own entrepreneur. Finally, there is the addiction the rest of society has on using the black community as a footstool for drug trafficking and addiction. When your living in a community with no jobs, no opportunities, no possibilities, and no way out, this can be a hard conscious decision to make. However, our own humanity has to kick in some point. I don’t judge these brothers, especially looking at the odds stacked against them, but there has to be a change in the mindset. Where are the role models, the Churches, the support systems, and the schools to make a difference?

It has to start with a heart change, from the brothers on the street to the brothers in the White House, and the brothers on the block. With all the odds stacked against you, you have to tap into the greatness within yourself, and chose a path that looks like it has the least travel but is lite by others who have come up the same way. Use the gift you have, to become an asset to the community, and not another RIP header on Myspace. Destiny has to become a new fade, and dreaming again has to become a reality. We all have to step up, and pull each other through the struggle that began over 400 years ago. Its time to put our eyes on the solution. Its time to come up.