Sick With No Time To Be Tired
Last week, I sat on my stoop and watched three of the young men, who I have spent years teaching, learning from, inspiring, and watching go from eager boys to misdirected young men – get arrested in front of the building next door for smoking weed. Moments before, I was having a conversation with them about the state of the neighborhood, society & goals. And before they were arrested I was thinking about the fact that we all used to spend hours sitting and talking on my stoop, and that maybe I should go sit and talking with them instead of having a stoop to stoop conversation. For one, I’m glad i didn’t cause I seriously doubt our friendly neighborhood police would have believed I was just talking and not participating in their weed consumption; but thats a whole other tangent. After the arrest the older brothers of one of them passed me and causally exclaimed “they gonna learn some way, right”. What exactly is it that they’re gonna learn is my question.
Days later that same older brother, another young man I watched grow was shot (not killed) around the corner from my house. I’m sitting here thinking about a few things,
1)Their mother – how must it feel to have a son arrested and a son shot in less than a week, and how many mothers and families experience such a harsh reality?
2) The fact that the young around my way, find all of this to be normal, not overtly shocking.
3)The fact that this came as no surprise – which is what’s most alarming , that you can see it coming and do little to prevent it.
My Brothers and I have spent seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years teaching, providing examples for these young men, showing them the way, dedicating time to their well being. Society has spent much more time, reversing all our efforts, how can you tell a child school is important when once they make a mistake the school uses systems such as cut schedules* – which usually lead to truancy. How do you promote school when teachers openly express the fact that they will be paid regardless of their students participation? In these days of hyper materialism, how do you quell the young’s hunger for money and things and stifle their temptation to resort to illegal means of financial gain when there are no jobs. How do you convince any self respecting young person that guns are not the way to go when they feel the need to protect themselves and survival of the fittest is the code of their environment.
Sounds hopeless?, I would believe so if I and many of my associates weren’t living examples of the reality that these obstacles can be overcome.
We need to continue to teach and lead, it is a game of survival, those of us who learn, pay attention, adapt and create a way to push through must be active examples. Society will not change for us, we have to be the change. I am sick of what I see going on around me, but there’s no time to be tired, we must stay in the race, belive it or not there really isn’t a finish line, but we can definitely loose.
KEEP ON RUNNING -daoud
*cut schedules are when the school gives a student a schedule of in-consecutive periods throughout the day, sometimes with hours between classes, it makes it impossible for a child to gain all the credits needed in one school year.
Live To Change Something, Teach The Babies, Word from The Creators | Daoud *Brooklyn Sheikh* August 19, 2009 | 
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