PARENTS POWERFUL OR POWERLESS

The Holiday Season places a Great deal of emphasis on embracing your loved ones as you step out on Faith and lend a helping hand to others. I look at my three children and I say thank you God for blessing me with my babies no matter what their current age(they will say they are not babies anymore).

I also sit back and reflect and ponder on all the children that are losing their lives daily to crazy people with gun access. We all know that guns are not responsible for deaths, it is the people that pull the trigger that have the ultimate blame; but just like anything else in life, their needs to be restrictions. If I think about all of the people that would have felt my wrath if I had access to a gun at the time of my anger, I would seriously be doing hard time right now. I believe if you want a gun you should be allowed to have one (to protect yourself or for hunting), but we all need to pass a background check, and we do not need access to assault weapons.

Sometimes in life we allow our emotions to control us without thinking and we act, we cannot take back our actions after pulling the trigger. We cannot change what our immediate thought and actions were at the time we had that gun in our hands. The truth is even Police Officers and other Law Enforcement Agents have reacted out of emotion and have caused the loss of life of many civilians.

We believed that the Wild Wild West days were over, but the crying in the streets because of children losing their lives daily is not a movie, but rather real life and true reality.  We believe that these cries and pleas for help are being voiced by other people without realizing that the chances are we can become those parents crying; if we do not take stronger and more serious action to stop this massive violence plaguing our homes, communities and streets. I have two sons and a daughter, and I place my faith in God daily to protect them as there are no longer any safe havens, not even in our schools, to keep our babies safe.

Our children are being killed when they do the right things, when they are in the right places and they are following the right rules. If a child sits down in a classroom and is shot down like a beast in the wild, something is definitely wrong with this picture. I am a mother and I fear for the safety of my children. When my teenage son tells me how other children speak freely about shooting or taking the life of another child because of a mere disagreement, whether with malice intent or fabrication to sound important it can no longer be taken for granted.  THIS IS REAL. I AM CONCERNED WHEN THERE IS NO LONGER A HIGH VALUE ON LIFE. LIVES ARE DISMISSED DAILY LIKE IT MEANS NOTHING.

We ban marijuana in some states, we place restrictions on cigarette usage, drugs and alcohol, but guns are there to help us stand our ground, where do we live in Tombstone? The outrage to gun violence comes at the death of young children; and now all children are more fearful than ever before as they are exposed to the reality of the detrimental violence in this world.

Black youths have been murdered at alarming rates in many states and yet their cries for help have gone unheard and unnoticed. I believe the results of so many young lives being taken at one time is where the disbelief has now been unveiled. Reality is beginning to check in and comprehend in the minds of all. ALL OF OUR CHILDREN, NO MATTER WHAT CULTURAL BACKGROUND ARE AT RISK..

What does it say about us as a Society about the children that have always believed their Parents to have the POWER TO PROTECT THEM? We the Parents are becoming POWERLESS IN PROTECTING THE LIVES OF OUR CHILDREN. Do we have to spend our days at work wondering if we will see our children again? We cannot control everything, and it use to be just problem children would be effected by gun violence and those other communities, well now it is being recognized that all communities are being effected. We as Parents need to take back our Power and control and give our children the reassurance that we will be there for them, that we will do our best to protect them. No more senseless shootings and killings, no more parents sobbing with no relief in site. We have to take control and protect our children. People are not animals, if we have the knowledge to go to the moon, we can control gun violence.

I don't want to be another parent crying over of the loss of a child, WE HAVE TO STAND OUR GROUND AS PARENTS AND TAKE CONTROL OF THIS WILD, WILD WEST MENTALITY. WHY DOES ANY LAW ABIDING AMERICAN/CITIZEN NEED TO HAVE ALL OF THESE WEAPONS, ASSAULT RIFLES ETC. ???

WE AS PEOPLE, PARENTS AND CONCERNED CITIZENS NEED TO COME TOGETHER AND SAY NO MORE, WE WILL PROTECT OUR CHILDREN. WE MUST STAND POWERFUL AND NOT BE POWERLESS..

HEART COLOR

Not sure if people realize that the only color the heart knows is red, the color of blood that keeps flowing through it as it pumps. The pain that people experience because the color of their skin determines their worth in the eyes of some people is unimaginable.

People say that words do not hurt, but in all reality they do and it can be detrimental in some cases. I remember growing up and hearing comments that today or any day would be considered racist, but growing up in New York we called them cracking on one another. Just like momma jokes they were to get on people as we would go back and forth with the cracking of banter to see who could be the funniest and get the most laughs. Today this format would be considered bullying and has been labeled as a source of teen suicide. This format has weakened many and pushed them to the edge of life. So these comments and culture has overflowed into the workplace and government as well; adults are experiencing this same type of color and bullying banter. 

I remembered hearing jokes such as you are so black you sweat coffee, or you are so black when you smile you light up a room. Today we say kids can be so cruel, back then it was strength that kept you witty and trying not to allow these wise cracks to tear down your person and character; your goal was to be able to bounce back and come out stronger next time. Many young people pretended it didn't bother them because they did not want to appear weak, but some of them had really hurt feelings and your goal was to not be crushed by the jokes of someone else. 

We are all more mature now and know that this type of banter is not acceptable, especially when we do not want our own children on the receiving end of this type of bullying; yet the same things are said to our young people and even worst today. The worst part is that due to the web, these comments can be heard throughout the world, whereas growing up it would only be the immediate group since we lacked the universal technological resources to spread such negative vibes.

Our hearts all hurt the same way and when we as people constantly divide ourselves according to our birth identity we hurt the world. We as people need to seriously take a step back and look at the messages we are sending our children when we say one color is better than another. When our children color with their markers and crayons in their coloring books, do we ask them to take out the black, white, red or green crayons? The answer should be No! We allow them to use all of the colors of the rainbow and more to make their artwork or colored drawings more beautiful and that is how it should be, we have to stop with this nonsense about color division. Light skinned, dark skinned, brown skinned, solely white etc. We teach our children how to discriminate and become racists, this is not something that they are born knowing. We are basically a culture that teaches our children how to hate and it is wrong.; so many of us teach our children how to love and yet the miserable few teach just the opposite.

The United States is the melting pot of different people from all over the world and when we try to determine that some people are less worthy than others, solely on the basis of how God created them, we hurt Ourselves, Our Children and Our World. When comments go across the airwaves that a whole group of people are lazy, do you mean to tell me that not one person in that whole race believes in employment? 

On a personal note, I grew up with both of my parents in Brooklyn, New York, both of my parents hailed from the beautiful island of Trinidad & Tobago, my mother didn't have to work, but she choose to work when we were old enough as teenagers to take care of ourselves. My father always provided food, shelter and love. My father was a strong man that retired from his job after 25 years, he got up every morning like clock work and went to work, I rarely remember my dad being sick or calling in sick, he had to be crying death to stay home in bed; so when I hear the ignorance of some journalists, politicians and commentators making comments about a group of people wanting handouts, it makes me boil. If they would take the time to get to know people, rather than assume they know them, they would know that those comments are out of line, out of order and completely disrespectful. Our hearts know no color, they all break and feel pain the same way, and it hurts when people have the audacity to make them.

We all know that every race has people that cause chaos and conflict, but to label a whole group of people is wrong. The bottom line is when you try to label a group of people as unworthy or not significant factors in the world, you eliminate the best attributes of these people and everyone loses out on sharing in their contributions to the world. You basically are trying to diminish the blessings and shared gifts of a whole race of people. This world was not built by a select few, everyone has paid the price, laid the brick to help form a civilized world, and the actions and comments of a few cannot take away that fact. We as people need to stop allowing the degrading of people and not allow class warfare or color warfare to dictate our future. Class warfare, color warfare and entitlement are causing havoc and it needs to come to a halt. We are all people wanting the best for our families, and we should all have the same opportunities to achieving these goals without the mean spirit or suppression by others.

We have to begin healing as a people and as a nation and realize that true and real love knows no color, it feeds off of the heart being utilized to embrace all people. We have to learn to love all of God's children from all walks of life, because we are the very fabric that keeps enhancing the beauty in the world. Our hearts are meant to love, not to hate. We have to learn and know the difference and put our ignorant ways of thinking in the trash and move on to embrace and engulf the future in a positive manner, through the Heart Color called "Love".

By Sharock P.