Tuesday, November 9, 2010

We must put a STOP to this madness!

By: B. Brown

Good morning everyone. I am sharing my thoughts with you this morning with a lot on my mind about the demise of a very large segment of our young people today. My Prayers go out to Bobby Maurice Tillman and his family. May God be with you. God is your strength and refuge!

If you have not seen or heard about the story, here it is: In Douglasville, GA on Nov. 7th around 1am, Bobby Maurice Tillman, an 18 year old young man was stomped to death by four (4) other 18 - 19 year old's for absolutely no reason at all. One (1) of the 4 assailants was quoted as saying "the next male that walks by I'm going to hit him" and that type of mentality is what has taken Bobby Tillman's life. Now five (5) lives are ruined.

The overall scene was a house party that was supposed to be for 10 people, but due to calling, texting & tweeting, 70 young people showed up. The parents of the home did the right thing by saying no to these uninvited guests, but no one called the police for assistance to clear the street, and some young ladies got into a fight outside and that's how everything escalated into Bobby being murdered.

Now, as a parent, I am truly disgusted at the fact that all these young people witnessed this tragic beating, but none of them obviously attempted to break it up and save Bobby. Obviously they enjoyed watching it and that's another problem in itself. Are our young people this blood thirsty and insensitive to life in general? Did they think that this was a video game and all that needed to be done was to hit the reset button and Bobby would jump right up? A too large amount of our young people are disillusioned. The group of young people I'm referring to don't understand what they are supposed to be doing (terrible decision making skills), they have poor work ethic and actually want to be given everything.

When are we as adults and parents going to look in the mirror and realize that we are the cause of this tragedy. We must take responsibility for raising our children better than what we have been doing. These lost young people actually crave for love, attention, direction & yes even discipline! It is ok to discipline your child! Discipline helps everyone make proper decisions. If a person thinks before they act, usually they make the right decision.

Once the parents let the uninvited guests know that they couldn't come in, they should have made sure that the young people dispersed completely and possibly this tragedy never happens. If these young men that murdered Bobby Tillman had any love and discipline instilled in them, they never would have jumped on Bobby. Proper thinking would have prompted one of the many young people watching to call 911 or jump in to save Bobby. The proper way of thinking would have made all these young people just leave and go home, but if no one is teaching these young people how to think properly, what just happened is what we are going to get. I know Bobby and his family, along with the neighbors on the street would have appreciated some "proper thinking" at the time of this tragedy.

Then I hear, and have read that some parents & the NAACP are concerned about the witnesses being put on a Police Bus and being questioned by the police to find out who did this horrible thing. Are they kidding? What if that was their child murdered?

Let's wake up and put maximum effort into teaching our children how to think properly at all times! It starts when they are in the womb. Our children can learn and be great, but we have to instill some love, work ethic & discipline in them to achieve greatness. Parents, we have to do it!!!

One Love!

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

What President Obama says our role is in regards to education.

President Obama on our role (from Ebony Magazine Cover; Sept. 2010):

"The most important thing for me is that every single Ebony (Ebony Magazine) reader help to parent our kids and set very high expectations for them."


"Education is the civil rights issue of our generation." - U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan. (from Ebony Magazine Cover; Sept. 2010)

Hip-Hop Youth, Education and Parenting!