Baltimore pastor: Let’s take back our children and our city
I kind of recall hearing a report about a shooting involving several young persons after I returned home from our midweek worship service on Wednesday, Jan. 4, but it didn’t really register. When I woke up Thursday morning, I heard a second report with greater clarity: Five Edmondson Westside High School students had been shot in the Edmondson Village Shopping Center’s parking lot, just outside of Popeyes; and one of them, 16-year-old Deanta Dorsey, died from his wounds. In all honesty, it was the mention of Popeyes that caused me to pay attention.
When the nature and tremendous impact of what had happened hit me, I realized that I had fallen victim to the normality of such dastardly violence, barely registering the tragedy the first time I heard it.
Young people have been in reports of violence in and around Baltimore since the year began, starting with the fatal shooting of 17-year-old D’Asia Garrison, one of two shooting victims in the Madison-Eastend neighborhood just a few hours into New Year’s Day. By week’s end, on Jan.
6, a shooting had occurred near another high school, Benjamin Franklin in South Baltimore. This time the victims were a 15-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy. Thankfully, both are expected to survive, unlike the 15-year-old boy who would be shot and killed on Jan. 21 in Milford Mill in Baltimore County, or the 15-year-old shot and killed in Northwest Baltimore City on Jan. 25.
Each unfortunate occurrence here and nationwide should shock us back into reality, serving as wake-up calls to every unacceptable pulled trigger. If the news of a 6-year-old shooting his first grade teacher at the Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia, doesn’t alarm us, then I don’t know what will. So many unanswered questions, to say the least.
What in the world is going on? My mind goes back to so-called “flash mob” attacks in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere in the past several years, groups of young people randomly attacking bystanders. Here in Baltimore, large groups of youth have caused havoc in and around the Inner Harbor, and last month, over 200 young people caused a major disturbance outside of Towson Town Center; seven of the eight people arrested were minors.
Over and over, youth are dominating headlines and controlling the narratives. And, herein lies the problem: Children are controlling our city; adults are abdicating control of our city.
From dirt bike riders to social media bullies, and from squeegee kids (workers) to juvenile mass shooters, children have all but seized control of our day-today existence. Too many of our once-little ones too often come of age only to exist outside of their potential. Have you read some of their extensive rap sheets? They roam around terrorizing neighborhoods and communities. Meanwhile, adults are in fear while walking their dogs, driving their cars and having to stop at certain intersections, shopping at the mall or grocery store, attending concerts, plays, firework displays and sports events. And, I’m sad to say that these children who are acting out are mostly ours.
They’re our African-American sons and daughters, and by and large we are to blame. In so many ways, we have acquiesced or abdicated, starting with the dereliction of parental responsibilities. Moreover, we relinquished, as adults, our power. Needless to say, once such power
is given up, it’s almost never returned or regained. Still further, as adults we have come to ignore or tacitly accept and coddle the negative, bad and/or violent behavior of our youth. Perhaps we are living results of the adage, “if you give them an inch,” especially given the recent years of allowing misdemeanors and petty crimes to go unpunished and not prosecuted.
I almost wasn’t allowed to participate in my high school graduation from Baltimore Polytechnic Institute in 1979. I, along with several others (who will remain nameless), helped plan the graduation dance, including the selling of tickets. After the dance took place, our senior class adviser recognized that the number of tickets collected at the door exceeded the amount of money collected. The Monday after the dance, I found myself in the school’s security office with the resource officer and two city police, among others. These men put the fear of God in me. My father had to come to the school and pay restitution, and I was sent home for three days. By God’s grace, I was allowed to graduate, and I was still allowed the honor of reading names for my graduating class during the ceremony as they received their diplomas, because I was Class Senator. My point, however, is that even with such foolish behavior, I was held accountable and, to some extent, so were my parents.
What’s happening now is our youth are allowed to get away with just about anything. And they’re not to blame; we are. The ancient proverb still rings true: “Train up a child in the way he/she should go: and when he/she is old, he/she will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6) Throughout much of my almost 40 years of ministry, I have asserted that it’s not a child’s fault if they come of age and discover that they have nothing to depart from, or even come back to, because nothing substantive and meaningful was ever instilled in them in their youth. They haven’t been trained. The only reason the Prodigal Son was able to come to himself and return to his father’s house, in the parable (St. Luke 15:11-32) is that he
knew where he’d come from and “something” had been instilled in him before he left for the far country.
Our youth no longer see us as representatives of authority, trust, admiration or even fear. And, therefore, there’s no respect. Most of my generation, in spite of our acting out, came to the awareness that Momma had God in her. Our teachers had God in them. Our nosy neighbors had God in them. And, yes, our father had God in him. Our culture and present generation is existing, not thriving, because we’ve become self-indulgent and humanistic; we have left out God. Our youth see very little principles, ideals, sacrifices, acts of faith in us, because we’ve all but forsaken Martin Luther King’s God, Sojourner Truth’s God and Grandmomma’s God of love, peace and nonviolence.
Their God “came” to us — came to get us, whether we liked it or not, because the adults literally came to get us. They weren’t our friends. They weren’t our equals. They were above us, and we had little choice but to look up to them. They were semblances of God to and for us.
Who’s going after our youth, today? Who’s coming for them, in their time of need? Yes, there are God-fearing parents, teachers, mentors, religious/faith leaders and counselors, but not enough — especially in the areas where the most attention is needed, the areas where most of the abandonment and negative influences occur.
The day of Freddie Gray’s funeral, which took place at our church eight days after the 25-year-old died in police custody, a number of significant things happened. Among them was this: As students left Frederick Douglass High School they made their way through Mondawmin Mall only to end up in a major confrontation with Baltimore
City Police, on Liberty Heights Avenue. A mother by the name of Toya Graham, having seen her 16-year-old son, Michael, on live TV, throwing rocks at police, left her home in search of him. When she
found him, she hit his head and forced him to take off his ski mask. Ms. Graham would later say to the media, “That’s my only son and at the end of the day I don’t want him to be a Freddie Gray.”
Former Police Commissioner Anthony Batts, praised her actions, as did many, many others, but he lamented, “I wish I had more parents that took charge of their kids out there” Many would go on to call her, “Hero mom” and “Mother of the year.”
History proves, however, that, although the maternal influence is highly effective and necessary, boys need positive paternal influence; boys grow up imitating the behavior of, as well as seeking the approval from, their fathers starting at a very young age.
Wouldn’t it be grand if given the current God-given confluence (I believe) of African American male leaders in our city, if they would convene themselves for a summit, sending a New Year’s signal of strength and solidarity? I mean, it’s unprecedented that the governor of our state, mayor of Baltimore, state attorney general, city state’s attorney, City Council president and a police commissioner are all African American men. Their physically standing together would send a significant message. Still further, they could, even with others, say that their unity is a clarion call for all of our sons and daughters to aspire to similar heights. This moment in time should be taken advantage of all the more since we are such a visual culture.
Such strong and influential African-American men could even be joined by local athletes, media personalities, faith leaders and business owners in a social media campaign, as well as billboards, etc., promoting the message to our youth that “We’re Coming To Take/Bring You Back.”
Let’s take them back, and take our city back.