Bet you Didn't Know

Bet you didn't know.

Bet you didn’t know that redlining is an illegal discriminatory practice in which a mortgage lender denies loans or an insurance provider restricts services to certain areas of a community, often because of the racial characteristics of the applicant's neighborhood.

Bet you didn't know that the projects, the hood were the designed as way to dismantle, not rebuild.

Bet you didn't know that at first there was white middle/high class families living in the hood but as it got diversified they moved South to get away from the change.

Bet you didn't know that with them businesses left. Funds to schools left. Kids reading worn out books, while other schools getting mac books.

Bet you didn't know that it's like a cage. The corner store right there, the liq store, the church, and the school.

Bet you didn't know that it's a jungle. Not everybody has the book smart to get out, or they in the position to step in for their family.

Bet you didn't know that many of the teachers fail them. Most say I wanted to come here cause I want the experience of serving in an underserving place, treating it as if it's a field trip. In five - ten years they are gone to a top tier school with all their loans forgiven.

Bet you didn't know that, emotions are held in like a cannon, cause the world they live in made them hard. Nobody taught them how to cope with the shooting of a love one while they were 5, 9, 10, and who has to go through that.

Where are the counseling services for these communities? The ones counseling are the a representation of the minority population or is it someone with ten degrees stepping into the community as if they been there for the same length of time.

It’s (UN) Common Knowledge that more mission trips need to happen close to your home. You get on your plane to go overseas but push down the plight of those crying out daily who live nearby. You see the news and more bodies pile up from shootings and you sit there and call them names and say if they only had this or that they wouldn’t have died. We are quick to be critics while we are not in danger of dying. We listen more to the news and media than we do to those we can actually see.

That is true (UN) Common Knowledge, because a lot of times we speak before we listen. We label before we understand.

For a child showing certain erratic behaviors, we are quick to call them bad and write off their future as if we are the author ourselves. That child might have a lot going on at home. Or with their minds not fully being developed they can overthink the simplest things and not be able to find a way to work through it. But adults go through the same, and we do not label ourselves in the same way.

Bet you didn’t know about boundary lines in communities, keeping in what they want and preventing others from coming in. School a minute away from my house and I couldn’t even go there. Controlling how money operates and towns like mine are skipped over, seeing who is living there and they take things away and give it to other towns.

Bet you didn't know but now you do. What's uncommon knowledge to you can become common, if you take the time to read the pages in between the front and back cover.

School is for education right? So understand something you have to learn. So, we have to stop talking and labeling and get the information from the true source.

Bet you didn’t... now you know. It’s time to stop living for ourselves and start seeing the issues plaguing the communities, the world around us. You are not ignorant to this knowledge anymore, start acting your age and put down the milk.