The score keepers

People ask what it felt like to be shot. I don’t have a good answer because for me the pain wasn’t being shot; it was knowing that the shooter had help, that he wasn’t alone in his hatred for me.

He was the product of an established media design to implement self-hatred in Black communities. Showing negative images in mainstream media implies that all Black people live in a culture of violence. Excluding the vital positive actions and responses that are currently being taken against multicolored violence has the effect of systematically demonizing Black people.

This is painful, but I still stand for peace. I practice my tai chi and kickboxing routines, the same as before the failed attempt on my life. This helps dispel the pain in my body from physical wounds that are still healing. It also helps my mind and soul overcome anything that feels like a limit, healing me spiritually. It helps keep me focused on the injustices dealt to my fellow man, rather than my own suffering.

A higher power governs right and wrong, good and evil. It’s so common for people of color to play the race card and place blame on Whites. In many cases, we are justified in doing that. And yet countless times the violence against Blacks is by Blacks — which is what happened to me.

Black youth are twisted by substance abuse, domestic violence, and over-sexualized images of themselves in the media. TV endlessly details how to do crimes, cheat on spouses, and engage in unhealthy practices.

Seeing all that, I have become somewhat obsessed with wanting to know if peace also brings out violence. Does lack of aggressiveness open you up to betrayal?

A passive-aggressive or directly aggressive attitude is what’s expected of a Black man like myself. This is the reason Black people are often shot without any reason or warning, as I was. This is the reason I strengthen mind, body and soul.

Why do we target fellow Blacks, the social order’s most victimized citizens? In my opinion it’s our cynical way of profiting from the school-to-prison pipeline. It reflects the rising price of housing in low-income communities, the unequal wages and job opportunities.

Some of that comes from lack of educational support and from racial bigotry that hasn’t gone away. (In fact it’s getting worse.) But some of it is cultural: a Black hairstyle can cost you a job. And as I have found personally, holding on to faith in non-violence can also be isolating at a time when getting in someone’s face is seen as the only way to keep them from getting in yours.

The result of this cultural gap is well known: drug use, dealing, fighting, shooting, ignorance about other people and also about yourself. These individualized problems make up a larger collection of issues that halt progressive change throughout the city.

In order to fight this undertow that’s dragging the nation down, we need to identify the mind, the body and the soul of America. Only then will we be able to heal the broken bonds that make this country home for so many people of different ethnic backgrounds.