A Message for All Hoods...

Shit is getting ridiculous. Why does this woman have to bury her son? What is the purpose for a young man losing his life when it only began twenty years ago. There isn't any peace in the streets. Its a never ending cycle. Violence will prosper as long as we allow it to. We grow up complaining about how the hood holding us back. That's not why, you let the hood hold you back. Instead of letting these sub-standard circumstances motivate us, we let them further implant us in the hood. Now ignorance is so deep rooted in our brains it seems we will never be free. This is a message from me to anyone who hold that title, "Hood nigga", "Gangsta", "Thug". Its only one way out. Aint no retirement plan for that shit. Do we want to live in the hood? No. Can we control where we are placed in this world? No. But we can control where we are going. You gotta get out of the life, because chances are you will lose yours trying to hold onto it. Even though I know this plea will fall on deaf ears, the only thing I stress is, get out if you can. Don't let what rappers say influence your decisions. Rappers get paid by record companies to say that shit. You're the one who is out there dodging bullets, doing jail time, and shit while they're sitting in a boardroom discussing album sales. Think about the niggaz out there still selling crack. It's just as addictive to sell as it is to use. Drug dealers dont live the life they wanna live. The petty dealers only scrape enough to live and the top niggaz always get snitched on or killed. Why the fuck are you still trying to make it? The hood life seem flashy, it seems fun. But aint shit fun when your homeboy gets murked on some dumb shit. Aint nothing fun about losing a loved one because somebody got mad... WHAT THE FUCK PEOPLE? I hate the fact that we praise this lifestyle. Aint nothing in the hood worth staying for. If you never been to the hood you may be dying to visit. But if you been there, you lived that life, you understand we're dying just to live. Not to mention trying to leave. Please educate yourself and do better for yourself. Then the communities will follow suit. It seems as if we are proud to say that we are selling poison to each other and killing our brothers. It hurts when I hear about a young life lost. Why? We cant blame it on the music. We cant blame it on the drugs. The drugs dont sell themselves. We gotta blame it on us. Its time for US, as young black men and women to strive for better. Why are we doing the same things or parents and grandparents did. Its time for us to be motivated. Inspired to change. Inspired to be better, and not just at what we do. But it is time for us to be a better as a whole. Ignorance will not get us anywhere. Instead of reading the lyrics of our favorite rappers we need to read more books. Increase our vocabularies and raise test scores in our public school systems. Things will never get better unless we put the effort foward to do so. A little earlier tonight I saw a video of Clifford Harris, better known as T.I. speaking on similar topics. If an 8 time convicted felon, ex-drug dealer can speak on change, then why cant you? Maybe you still have a chance. Nothing is impossible. Nothing. Lets work on ourselves instead of judging and hating others so we can be better as a whole.



R.I.P. Isaiah "Barry" Sanders... you will be truly missed, but never forgotten. Foolishness ended your young prosperous life. Yet you are in a better place, and God makes no mistakes. Forgive the one who murdered you, because God forgave him. I pray for your family that they remain strong in this time of bereavement, as I also pray for better days.