Home Up

100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care

Crime & Cancer

During the early morning hours several weeks ago, I had to respond to the hospital to speak with a young man who was shot and under arrest for possession of a gun.  The shooting took place while he was inside a night club.  When he and another patron in the night club became involved in a dispute, the other patron pulled a gun and shot him in the chest and shoulder.  His life was saved because he was wearing a bullet proof vest at the time.  When I arrived at the hospital to interview him, it was discovered that he also had a gun hidden in his car.   

While waiting for the doctor to finish giving the young man medical attention for his gun shot wound, I could not help but notice another person sitting in the emergency room.  He was a middle age man that had a pale look to him.  I asked the nurse what was his condition and she stated that he was one of their regular cancer patients that came to the hospital for chemo-treatment.  She further shared with me that only a year ago he was a healthy vibrant man, but the cancer changed that. It started in his colon and because he ignored the symptoms it slowly eroded the vital organs of his body and brought him to the brink of death.  Like many young people, she continued, he payed more attention to his outward appearance instead of concerning himself with his body's internal needs.  According to the nurse, the doctors gave the man one month to live.  

After we finished speaking I could not help but to think about the degenerating affect of cancer.  The process is not instant but it slowly erodes one's body organs.   As I stood over the doctors working over the young gunshot victim I could not help but to see the parallel between cancer and crime.  

Crime is the cancer that is eroding away the body of our communities.  The erosion does not take place over night.  It is a slow process and when it goes unchecked it will slowly eat away the vital organs of our communities, our children.  Nice homes and late model fashionable vehicles are all external cosmetics that cover up the slow degenerating effects of crime. According to all the warning signs around us our cancer is no way near in remission.  It is spreading at an alarming rate and much of the cause can be traced directly back to our neglectful actions.  

It is irresponsible that we allow our children to support clothing manufactures that place profit over public safety, such as those who make undergarments and other clothing that have hidden secret compartments in them.  These designers openly advertise that the hidden liners in the clothing is for the hiding of guns or narcotics.  To further complicate the issue our community openly accepts use of profanity in the music, movies, and conversation of our young people.  There are no neighborhoods in our community that is free from some sound device blasting out lyrics that degrade man, woman and child.  

Young mothers rob the childhood of their boys by dressing them like street gang members and dressing their girls like street walkers.  Magazines that target young people, openly flaunt advice on how to make a lot of money by becoming a female-strippers.  We mobilize to fight for better teachers in our schools, yet remain silent when sixty-five percent of the school age children who had to attend summer school in order be promoted to the next grade did not bother to show up.  Young men don't stand up to give the elderly a seat on public transportation and young girls don't sit down when they are in the classrooms.  The word "Mr. and Mrs." are rarely if ever spoken and the line that separate adult in children conversation is constantly crossed.  

We can bring our form of cancer under control by regaining control of our communities.  It is time for men to come off the basketball courts and allow the children to play on them.  Mothers telling their daughters "no I will not baby sit every weekend," you made the decision to have a child now you will raise her.  Adults listen to the music that comes in their homes and become your own rating system for the types of movies your child watches.  We all are aware of rules of decorum like theses, because we were taught them when we were coming up.  By combining simple rules with the traditional African village concept we will start the process of bringing the cancer of crime into remission.

Eric Adams

Co-Founder of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care

7/24/03

To post your comments on the discussion board click on the notepad.
 

TOP OF PAGE