What about the CHILDREN?

I am up early this morning. Many a things floating around in my mind. I won't sleep for those that have to, because they didn't have the chance to stay awake for long.

This week and last week as most of you have read I have been preparing for Freedom School. I'm so anxious and excited and I was so motivavted by the training. On Monday I will open my classroom up to a fresh bunch of beautiful minds that want to be explored and fine tuned. I take so much pride in that. The babies. Our babies.

On Saturday morning I went to work. I purposely wrote "Happy Juneteenth 1865" on the dry/erase board. I explained to them the history of this event at breakfast. Some of them knew small fragments. I told them I would take them in the afternoon, even though I knew what the day could hold. I did take a group in the afternoon. It wasn't bad at all. They had a lot of fun. My family was there. All my little cousins, my niece, babies, children and women. I remember leaving thinking, maybe there won't be any violence this year.

When I went in to set up my classroom yesterday, I met with my co-workers for small talk. I heard of 2 homicides and one random shooting in 2 minutes. One of which was a 29 year old father, with a child on the way; the other an 18 year old fresh out of high school. The 18 year old was shot in the face on Saturday just a few blocks away from the Juneteenth celebration, tryna get out the way of flailing bullets. He died shortly after. Just a few days before that the 29 year old was killed, and just a few days before that a shooting where a friend of a friend was shot in the stomach for just a few dollars.

Violence is not new, but we cannot adapt and continue to desensitize ourselves leaving our babies in plain view with a bullseye on their back.

What I am saying is this: we have a responsibilty to teach. Whether it's in the classroom or at the dining room table, on the corner, at the mom and pops shop, the barbershop; whatever. We have to be accountable and hold each other accountable. Black people WE are a comm-unity. WE are a collective, we have dispersed, but we have to pull together(Harambee). I have scanned a couple of pages and read blogs, and we all share the same pain. whether we know these people personally or not, we feel for them because were human, but we also know the black experience in this country is two-fold, so it's especially painful. Like the salt water poured into a slaves wound. Wake up and tune into that. OUR BABIES CAN'T WAIT. They need us NOW. Answer the call. I'm gonna answer the call on Monday.

One love, one voice, one fight. I'm serious. Do I need to repost "Deterioration of the Black Family: Letting the Cat Out of the Bag"?