Queen Ifrica has a great chorus to her song “keep it to yourself” which goes “Yu feel like a bad man (Keep it to yu self) Doan bring it to Jamaican (Keep it to yu self)…. Wi can’t tek no more slackness.” I felt like this chorus was important to open with, it reflects on a lot of the things that have been going on in our community. I don’t if I was oblivious to what was going on around, but warm days aren’t as enjoyable as when I was young. I remember going out in my neighborhood and actually playing till the street light come on, well with my pops when the first light started blinking. Now the laughter and cheers from the heat are disturbed with the screams of a gun piercing through the flesh of sons, mothers, and infants.
I really don’t understand where the minds of our youth are these days. Our history reads we were beaten, hung, raped, and abused during and post slavery. We were owned and sold and put on display as if we were an animal. And now-a-days these kids have enslaved themselves to a STREET NAME. Not a physical person or thing, but merely a name of a street or a project. How someone could “hold down” a project which was pretty much set up to hold someone down deprive them of even thinking about advancing.
For a few weeks I’ve thought about what I wanted to say regarding the stream of violence. It’s like some people choose not to speak on the community genocide, violence against one another lead by adults, but using children as the pawn in their game. These unruly events are really uncalled for. For example the story about the 2 yr old that received a flesh wound from 16 yr old shooter that was shooting random shots into a convenience store. Than there’s a mother being shot and her own child witnessed it. I mean really where does end. There was a point where I felt like maybe people weren’t mad enough, like no cared until it hit home.
But recently after the murder of young Soheil Turner and the mother of three, I’ve seen an outpour of people coming together to do something. With Soheil Turner it was great to see that people were stepping forward and making it known that this is allowed in there community. And as crazy as it sounds I was so proud to here how a crowd of 100 (maybe even 20 it changes) chased down an alleged murder, although it wasn’t right person it showed people were mad, and fed up with these so called thugs controlling their well being.
It’s great that the local police are finding ways to keep people safe from being labeled a snitch or a rat (yeah the statement is sad, but people have a reputation to uphold I guess). No longer should we become imprisoned by the people who are imprisoned mentally with street names or territory, but let us be the one to put things into action. I don’t have all the answer and if I knew how I’d love to put into action ways to save our street, but it takes a community and a nation to bring change and impact to the streets of Boston. I do my small part working with the youth, but I know one person can’t tell a youth the do’s and don’ts when there are about five friends who try to counter my words. But it is in faith I hope that my words do have meaning and had set up a foundation.
Honestly someone is going to read this today and do something, and even make a change in there life, and the reality of it all someone else probably didn’t even finish hearing the truth, or cared much but its okay I hope for their sake they turn around and bring forth the change. Till than “Yu feel like a bad man (Keep it to yu self) Doan bring it to Boston (Keep it to yu self)…. Wi can’t tek no more slackness.”
