Imagine a 91-year-old great, great grandmother diving on her living room floor to escape being shot by a stray bullet.
It sounds like something happening in a war-torn country or a third world territory. However, this foolishness is taking place in the historic Acres Homes community, as well as other neighborhoods nationwide.
Too many elders are starting to feel like prisoners in their own homes; strangers in the very communities they scrubbed wealthy White folks’ toilets to build.
There is an ancient African proverb that says, “A village without its elders is like a well without water.”
One of the great sins of modern society is that we do not give our elders the honor that they are due.
When shoes become old, it is okay to throw them away. That is understandable. However, to throw our parents away once they have become elderly is inexcusable and punishable by God. It is sad enough that so many of our elders have been forgotten, but it is sickening on a completely different level to see them fear for their own lives in the place where they should feel the safest – in their own homes.
I visited with the 91-year-old great, great grandmother mentioned in the first sentence. What a beautiful Black woman. It broke my heart to think that she should have to live the sunset years of her life in this way. Her neighbor, a grandmother by the named Ms. Cynthia, called me to inform me that her home had been hit by stray bullets on the same block. What I saw disturbed me tremendously. Several children were running around and playing in her home. The bullet holes in the wall were a reminder that one of those children could have been killed.
The homicide rate has increased 36% during the COVID-19 pandemic. It seems like there are less jobs, but more guns. Violence in the inner cities across America is exploding at meteoric levels. More and more, youngsters are choosing the streets over online schooling. Too many parents have lost total control of their children and those children are now becoming “crash dummies” for America’s criminal justice system.
There is so much work to be done on the streets of Black America that sometimes it is hard to even know where to start.
The best place to start is in your own whose actions were eerily similar to that of those who followed religious cult leader Jim Jones, stormed the once-sacred grounds of the U.S. Capitol and violently took it over as members of the House and Senate had reconvened to certify the electoral victories of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.
The breaching of the U.S. Capitol is an act that has not occurred since the War of 1812, when a foreign enemy from Britain set fire to it and other public buildings.
With the amount of money American taxpayers spend on the military and law enforcement, who in the world could have imagined that our own American citizens could accomplish such a feat, let alone overtake the U.S. Capitol, of all buildings?
These violent domestic terrorists, mostly White, were successful. They made it their mission to wreak havoc on the U.S. Capitol and were prepared to take on and harm anyone in their way, including law enforcement officials who were tasked with guarding the U.S. Capitol.
What was the result? Carnage and even death was the outcome.
U.S. Capitol police officer and military veteran Brian D. Sicknick was killed. Several Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police officers were seriously injured during the melee, including one officer who suffered severe facial injuries after being hit with an object and another officer being taken to the hospital after being pepper-sprayed.
On top of these officers who were impacted, four of the participants in the domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol died, as the violent mob continued to take over the Capitol, search for elected officials to potentially harm, vandalize the facility and assault police officers.
Of the four violent mobsters who died, three were reported to have died of medical issues, while 14-year Air Force veteran turned insurrectionist and domestic terrorist, Ashli Babbitt, was shot and killed by a U.S. Capitol police officer after ignoring the commands of the officer as she tried to climb through a window and breach security.
The response by law enforcement to these mostly White domestic terrorists, pales in comparison to the response that has been given to peaceful protestors who have gathered in Washington D.C. and other places to protest police brutality and the unjust killings of Black people in this country.
Law enforcement officials always seem to be overly prepared to deal with Black Lives Matter protestors or any protestors who convene to combat racial injustice. Just last year, Black Lives Matter protestors in Washington D.C. were met with law enforcement officials wearing military gear, deploying tear gas, pepper-spraying them, harassing them and arresting them.
Oh, and check this out.
According to data taken from the Metropolitan Police Department, which is the primary law enforcement agency for Washington D.C., law enforcement officials arrested more than five times as many people during several Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020, than the number of violent domestic terrorists who were arrested during the January 6, 2021 takeover of the U.S. Capitol.
On top of that, in looking at the data, it appears that the people who were charged during the Black Lives Matter protests last year were charged with way more serious crimes than the violent insurrectionists who took over the U.S. Capitol.
Oh, and did I mention that they were all allowed to walk peacefully out of the U.S. Capitol after being gently ushered out by law enforcement officials?
Let that sink in for a minute. How is that possible?
It clearly has everything to do with the color of skin of the protestors, which is hard for anyone to dispute.
America and law enforcement officials seem to be fine with allowing violent insurrectionists, angry that their candidate didn’t win, to invade the hallowed halls of Congress unscathed. They appear to be as fine with allowing a well-known White domestic terrorist entity, known as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), to parade up and down the streets of this country with no problem. They appear to be fine with allowing violent White supremacists wearing khaki pants, toting Confederate flags and carrying Tiki torches, as they march up and down the street unchecked.
The Bible says in Galatians 6:7, “For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
What we saw on January 6, 2021, was insurrection at its highest peak, and the fruit of the seeds that have been sown for far too long in America.
President Trump is America’s wayward child and America has served as his surrogate. America has carried the spirit of President Trump in its womb since this country’s inception and although many are now trying to, it is too late to abort him.
President Trump is the splitting image of his parent and the entire nation and the entire world has gotten to see it come to fruition before our very eyes.
President Trump is America’s gift and curse to itself, primarily because of what America has knowingly allowed to carry-on here for years, especially during his tenure as president.