Sunday, May 2, 2010

"Shattered Dreams" by Rev. Burton Barr Jr. & KOBALT BOOKS

When I was a child, I was afraid to go down south. I saw the news reports on television about George Wallace, Bull Connors, and the Ku Klux Klan. I heard the stories of how they killed, lynched, and terrorized Black people.

I saw the magazine articles that described how they beat, shot, and gouged out the eyes of 14 year old Emmett Till before throwing him into the Tallahatchie River because he whistled at a white woman. I read about the bombing of The 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama and how four little girls lost their lives because they went to Sunday school one morning.

I watched in horror as the police would sic vicious dogs on young black children because they wanted an education, and how black men and women were savagely beaten with nightsticks and sprayed with powerful water hoses because they wanted the right to vote.

The Klan did everything they could to shatter the dreams of an entire race of people. But there is a new kind of Klan in America. They don’t wear white sheets that hide their faces and they don’t carry burning torches. Instead, they wear baggy pants that expose their behinds and they carry AK47s. There is a new kind of Klan in America.

They don’t lynch our young boys for whistling at white women. They just drive down the street and shoot them down because they are standing on the wrong corner. There is a new kind of Klan in America.

They don’t kill our boys today because of the color of their skin. They kill them because of the color of their clothing. I’m telling you, there is a new kind of Klan in America today.

This new Klan does not terrorize our people by burning crosses in our front yards. They intimidate us by disfiguring our neighborhoods with gang graffiti. They don’t destroy our churches with bombs. They devastate them with burglaries. They disrespect our women by calling them B’s and H’s, and they disrespect the rest of us by calling us the N word.

In case you don’t know who the new Klan is, they are some of our young black men. They are destroying our communities and shattering the dreams of our people in ways that George Wallace, Bull Connors, or the original Klan never could.

In the days of the Civil Rights Movement, it was the church that stood up and fought for our people. But today, many of our churches have retreated to the safety of their sanctuaries. As a result, we are losing more and more of our young people to drugs, prison, or an early grave.

There was a time when our young people were filling the jails because they loved one another. Now they are filling the jails because they are killing one another. But African Americans are no more criminal than anyone else in this society. Yet, for as long as this country has existed, blacks have gone through this nation’s criminal justice system and have always been found wanting.

In St. Louis, Missouri, 97% of the population of the youth detention center is African American children. Our young men and young women feel that they have no stake in this society. They have become disenfranchised. They have no jobs and they see no future. Their dreams have been shattered.

I know that this week’s blog is a little longer than the others, but this is too important. We are losing too many of our children. We have to embrace our young people and teach them how to dream again.

AUDIO: "Shattered Dreams"

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