Decay of the Black Family

After the outrage of the videotaped beating death of Derrion Albert reached a boiling point we are all looking for answers as to “why.” We’ve all heard the staid and stale excuses and solutions that we can recite in our sleep.

• We need more police.
  An increased presence with no clear direction can aggravate an already volatile situation.
  
• We need more afterschool programs.
  These killers wouldn’t have ever gone.
  
• We need more money invested in our schools.
  No amount of new books, tech gadgets, or shiny new auditoriums would have prevented Derrion’s death.
  
• It’s society’s fault.
  Okay, does “society” have a last name and an address so we can go arrest him?

If we are honest with ourselves we know that some of the reasons lie in the decay of the black family and the too early loss of innocence in our children.

My definition of a family isn’t married with 1.6 kids and a dog. My family was a single mother, grandparents, godparents, and a few neighbors. No matter the imagined mischievousness I wanted to get into as a child my family had put the fear of God (a subject for another post) in me. I feared them all.

Not only did I fear them, I also loved them and didn’t want to disappoint my family.  I was certainly no angel, but my mischievousness had its limits. And surely would not have been allowed to escalate to the point of physical violence without an intervention involving a belt, a switch, a home-made “scared straight” program, and other assorted punishments.

Piss poor parenting is the culprit. These predators were once young boys full of hope, life, and innocence. At some point the respect for self and respect for others was lost, or never was nurtured. The fear of disappointing a parent or elder disappeared. The shame of disappointing their parents became obsolete. Respect for their grandparents evaporated as they saw their parents disrespect their own parents.

The neighbors didn’t care. There was no sense of community, only fear and disaffection for men-children who once rode their tricycles as young boys.

To be clear, this does not excuse their heinous behavior. I refuse to give them victimhood status. At a certain point, regardless of how crappy your childhood, you take full responsibility of your actions. They should be given the harshest sentence allowable. Too bad they can’t arrest their parents for voluntary manslaughter.

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