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Afraid to Live But Not Afraid to Die: The Autobiography of Young Black Men

I often wonder what has changed to make folks, especially African American men, less concerned, apathetic and even irresponsible about their lives. The behaviors we display are not productive, and the things we do — from fighting, to not knowing how to use a belt, to making it rain in strip clubs, to gang culture makes me ask: Are black men afraid to live more than they are afraid to die? Biggie, now deceased, said it best with his Ready to Die album.

I ask this in all sincerity in an age where it appears that a large corpus of young black males would rather take the easy way out, denigrate the importance of education and think of all outcomes in terms of money, yet not show any penchant to work for what they want. I do not know if it a sign of the times, or the veneration of a culture that reveals drug dealing and making music about sordid topics more than the sustainable values of family and self-determination.

From ghetto street fights on Youtube to videos that display women as being nothing more than meat, many of us promote this under the guise of "keeping it real." We have more knowledge about the mundane than that which may assist our personal growth and development. We can make time to know about Lil Wayne but nothing else of substance.

Why? I cannot answer that question. Maybe it is easy to look at that which affects us the most or least in the form of media and parental influences. From clubbing to our concern for designer clothes and Air Force Ones, young males value a host of "things" more than intellectual development in an environment of an excessively sexually degenerate culture. Ours is a problematic state of being, for we lack knowledge of self, which is what causes us to participate in our own self-destruction. Maybe that is why we sing and have the bling-bling but no books.

Yes, I may be wrong in my terse examination of the state of young African American males, but I will state what I think is an objective reality. Gone it appears are the days of children wanting to be professionals and valuing education. This is the autobiography of young black men today, many are afraid to live but even more are not afraid of dying.

bet they wanna be rappers

It is apparent for me that we have some serious problems in our community. I mean serious, for any time a young man walking home from school can be beaten to death, in day light, while folks watch and think nothing of it, and even video it without considering that said person may need help, or what they are watching is not right, is a true indication that something is amiss in our beliefs and world view.

I have noticed that there is a difference in general behavior when I look and my parents, myself and the present generation. As a father with a 17 year old son, I am proud to have been a part in raising a fine and responsible young man. An honor student, an athlete and a gentlemen is what best describes my son, yet although he has made it to the 12th grade, I still worry and pray that he continues on his path of success with the next pointy of entry being graduation.

Often we fail to see the difference between blame and problem solving in such matters. Fo9r we get defensive and tend to see ourselves in the problems that we are confronted with. Whether it is that we are single parents, or our environments, we forget that the issue is not blame or deflecting blame but solving the problem. It is not difficult for me to discern what the differences are. I can reduce them to one simple area – media influences. My folks didn’t have to deal with television at all and the music, well let us say it was not as graphic and vivid as it was in my day. In contrast, I grew up with 4 channels on television and they went off before midnight, and the music, albeit it was the beginning of hip hop – the lyrical content was mild compared to today.

It is no wonder that we have folks feeling and displaying penchants that evince appropriate behavior as beating someone to death or watching someone getting beat to death without the consideration of helping. I won’t blame this all on parents, for objectively; I know they can’t control the media influences that bombard their children each day of their formative years. And I know folk will say media, or movies or music cannot make a person do something – I agree, but they can impact the way folks think and define personal standards of behavior. For example, I would assert that most African American males currently would have desires to be professional athletes, producers, Dj’s and rappers because of what they see. Not the jobs per say, but rather the fame and avarice and wealth associated with the aforementioned. Especially the music. I bet if I went down the playlist of any top urban radio station – I will see the likes of idiots inclusive of Gucci Mane, Jeezy, Lil Wayne, Jay-Z and Plies. Songs that contain lyrics espousing staying strapped, shooting folk, fucking ever girl in the world, and having pockets full of money and following ones owns rules.

So understand where I am coming from, and feel my pain as a parent for although Derrion Albert was not my blood, he was my son and I have no problem pointing fingers at the folks above for five to one, the folks who did the beating probably know all the lyrics to your songs more than the formula for slope/intercept and even worse, want to be rappers. The new KKK strikes again so let us bow our head in silence for we still dont know that we are both the hunted and the prey.

sunni or latter

With all this election stuff, it had almost slipped my mind that we were still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan and trying to contrive 5 speed boats as an act of war with Iran. Then there is the northern end of Iraq, where the Turks and Kurds going at it. But as expected they say things are going well when to me they are not.

I mean if I was an Iraqi and running the government of Iraq, I would move to take our state back and urge all, Sunni’s and Shite to join in battle with the Kurds against Turkey. This may engender nationalism of my people for Iraq, and at the same time anger the US, who move for a unified Iraq but really don’t want one – and did I add, would likely be forced to help Turkey if such popped off. But this wont occur for we have effectively divided the country and encouraged secularism in the country with our pre-emptive policies and morosely laconic foreign policy.

We are now, since the surge (what ever that is) recruiting villagers of Iraq that are members of armed Sunni groups known as Awakening Councils. In theory they supposed protect their neighborhoods with the help of the US military. Haven’t we been down that path before? In 2005 The U.S. military command in Baghdad acknowledged that they paid Iraqi newspapers to carry positive news about U.S. efforts in Iraq and we saw what that got us.

Now paying folks that want to see us dead an we know they want to see us dead like that’s gone solve the problem and make the country whole and safe. The Awakening Councils are estimated to be 70,000-strong and growing. Such short sightedness tells me that the US has not even thought of the long-term implications of empowering folks that hate and want us out of their country and who also have sever disdain for the Shiite-led government established by the US. I mean these folks are very well trained and well armed. Which begs to ask what will they do when we eventually withdraw troops (cause they will leave one day – just like the British).

Not to mention in November of last year, audits revealed that some 17K of these folks were being paid but not standing post. But what can one expect when u hire folks 10,000 at a time and pay $10.00 a day (quarter billion dollars a year).

But as I said and back to the main point, the country is divided and I am not the leader of the government nor Iraqi. The Kurds up North, the Sunnis and the Shite down below. We are funding the well-armed folks in the Sunnis who hate us and let a mainly shite government set up in the country. So we funding to rival militaries and expect that we leave, the country will be all peachy keen.