We are being assaulted in so many directions, I just want to discuss some of the current abuses. For example, our children are being terrorized daily.

Every day when they walk into schools in under resourced urban areas, they are being terrorized. When they walk to and from school in drug and gun infested environments, they are being terrorized.

The other day, I attended a meeting of a social services organization. One of my former colleagues asked me had I listened to the news and heard about two of our former students. I responded “no,” every time I try to listen to that racist s***, I get disgusted and turn it off. I did not tell her that part.

She informed me, two of our former students, robbed a bank and one got shot, it was not lethal. I only had a minute to process what she said because we were about to start the meeting. When we had the young men they were in elementary school.

I saw one student very clearly because he was so troubled and so sweet under his “I am so tough persona.

” His mother was gone and he lived with his Grandmother and her children. One of the children was his age.

He was so needy and always doing something to bring attention to himself.

I had numerous conferences with him and his Grandmother. Yes, I feel as though the system failed him and so did I.

Our children were saved in previous years because we shared a community. In that community we typically had a safety net. If Momma needed some help one of her family members or the elders in the community would take up the mantle.

The church and it’s many committees was highly functional. They provided a framework to assist us in living in a hostile environment. There were various social programs to assist families in remaining whole and integrated.

We also had Community Centers, the people that worked in the Centers, the business owners, the teachers, the church hierarchy were forced to live in the same area. They helped to form the African American community. By the time I reached aged 12, the African American community was being dismantled.

I made it a practice to live where I work. So many of my colleagues consider my actions inappropriate and crazy as h***. Why live in the hood with all those people? We have to come back home. To help our babies.

They are my people and we are being terrorized daily. Our schools lack the necessary funding to provide our children with the help they need. If they have a f***** up morning at home they are automatically thrown into the classroom, no time to diffuse a crisis. They are guaranteed to have a f***** up day at school.

The teachers decide, hell I can’t teach in this environment, “they” don’t want to learn. Since the schools have about 70% white women as teachers, they are totally lost, the children and the teachers.

When middle and upper middle class people return to the hood, our communities can be rebuilt. The school board members and the city councils can be challenged. They will only change under pressure. When I attend those meetings, it becomes obvious that the majority of them are resume building.

They think their s*** don’t stink because they are board members. Typically, they are rubber stamps and they continue to sit on their a**** on those f****** boards and do nothing to change the organizational problems in the community they pledged to serve.

Come on people, we need you to move into African American communities and rebuild them. The is our base. Develop a home!