By Erica Tolber – I’ve notice in our community we justify the way people are by saying, “that’s how June Bug is.” We tend to let everything slide saying that a person is just that way. Earlier this year I was dating a guy, and he sexually assaulted me. I went to the police and he had been charged previously but the city did nothing about her case as well as mine. After he had the audacity to blast me on social network about it, other women begin emailing me telling me about their encounters with him. But the one thing that everyone said was, “Everybody knows how he is.” It’s sad that in our community we allow so much violence and wrong doing amongst each other and we excuse it with “That’s how they are.”

I was having a discussion with someone about their children being lowdown last December and the mother said this about her children. “Everybody knows that my son takes things that don’t belong to him and everybody knows my daughter talks to everyone any kind of way she doesn’t care how grown they are that’s just how she is.” I was baffled! This was coming from a woman that takes her children to church every Sunday. The Bible says in Proverbs 22:6 “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Growing up, I always heard Pastors use this Bible verse to tell parents to bring their children to church.

But the way I interpret that verse is, if I continue to allow my child to steal and I tolerate the stealing, I’m training that child in the way of larceny which is a crime in all 50 states. If you are not training your children on how to keep their house clean, you are training them in a way of living in filth.

If we don’t allow our children to see us reading and we are not reading to them we are training them to dislike reading. If we are not taking an interest in our children’s education, we are training them not to value education. If all the men that are exposed to your children are into criminal activity you are training them in the way of becoming a criminal. Remember you love your children; other people WILL NOT take the things from your children that you are willing to take.

Once we let go of that saying we can begin to build up our community because believe it or not “that’s just how they are” is destroying our community. The government since before it was founded has never been “pro black’ that’s just how they are. Our government for years has created laws that have been a threat towards the black community, “that’s just how they are.” Drug dealers or as I call them serial killers have been killing the black family for years, “that’s just how they are.” The education system in urban black communities are all underfunded, ‘that’s just how they are.” It’s imperative that we take stand against everything that is the way that it is.

We CANNOT allow change to move in every time we sit back and allow things to be the way they are.

By Erica Tolber