Where you at?

Excuse me, Kings and Kweens, but there’s something that I need to speak on that has been weighing heavy on my heart. I’ve been watching the events unfold in Ferguson, Missouri, as most of you probably have. If you’re out of the loop, allow Jah to catch you up.
A young black man, Michael Brown, was shot and killed after a confrontation with a police officer. This is a highly sensitive matter due to the previous deaths of Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Oscar Grant and Sean Bell. They were all shot and killed by Caucasian men, some being police officers. Ferguson was the first city to respond to the killings by protesting and rioting in the streets, but I have some feelings about all of this that I would like to share with all of you.
I agree that the deaths of these young men are horrible, but the truth is that young black men kill each other in greater numbers, at a much higher rate, and also for far less reasons than these travesties I’ve just mentioned. What has me vexed about all of this is that no one riots or organizes marches in protest of these senseless murders. So, I ask all of these people that are currently standing against these crimes committed by white men, where you at?
Black men riddled a young six-year-old girl in Kansas City, Missouri with bullets when she was coming out of a store with her father. Where you at? A week later, a 10 year-old girl was killed while sitting in her living room watching television. It is believed that a person of color, driving down the street shooting up homes, caused the murder. Where you at? In Fort Worth, Texas, a grandmother and her five-year-old granddaughter was killed when a black man walked up to the granddaughters party and opened fire. Where you at? A 17-year-old high school student in Dallas, Texas was beaten and stomped to death in his front yard by a group of black men. One of perpetrators was said to be a friend of the victim. He was beat down over a petty argument. Where you at?
We seem to complain when someone of another color murders one of our own, but, we become mute and invisible when we kill one another. We must take the plank out of our own eye before taking it out of another’s eye. Meaning, we must show a concern and interest in the Black on Black violence that is decimating our communities before we complain, speak on, and protest the violence coming from outside of us. No matter how you justify it, murder is murder. We must concentrate on saving ourselves instead of killing ourselves.

Peace and Blessings,
Jah Soul

No More Complaining ~ Part 2

Some say white men taught us this schism to hate one another. I don’t know but lets check history. Before the times of Willie Lynch, we were on the motherland fighting selling our brothers, sisters, mothers, cousins…etc.… into slavery before the white man came. They only took our offer and then conquered our nation. Do we not remember Shaka and the Zulu’s? We destroyed our own people and villages before any white person gave us a hand. Hey, they just finished what we started. Let’s quit blaming the white man, we must do like Michael Jackson said and look at the man in the mirror.
Let’s quit asking for handouts and go get what we want or need. We say we want better education so we need to go get it. We say we want a future for our children, let’s build it. Let us teach our children to be more than athletes, movie stars, and entertainers. Teach them about computers, economics, literature, aerodynamics, and mathematics. Make them technicians, physicians, and dieticians.
Show them how to be architects; builders of buildings as well as builders of their lives. Stop giving them X-boxes, PS4’s and give them books and tools. What are we waiting for? Are you still waiting on your 40 acres and a mule? Really, if you were to get it, what would you do with it? Probably not a damn thing!! Knowing us, we would probably sell most of it back to the same white man we claim to hate and despise. Messing the money off on cars, clothes, and things of no value and importance. Then you will probably be blaming someone for that too. It’s time we stop complaining and start taking action.

– Thomas D. Payne