http://kron4.com/2015/03/10/mother-of-three-fatally-shot-in-oakland/

I’ve been avoiding posting this on my page since it happened, mainly because this deserves more than just a post, it deserves something I wish I had the answers to. This is the most tragic of love stories that should have never been. Anyone with minute level of empathy is going to feel for the emptiness and psychological trauma those children now have to live with. The way I look at it, this could have been one of my sisters with my nephews & nieces.

I really want there to be that same fervor of justice our communities have against the dirty police, against the perpetrators that look like us, but I don’t know how realistic that is when most of us within these communities have grown up with some of these same perpetrators and hear these same stories monthly if not weekly our entire life. It’s become our norm, our narrative. One of our primary conflicts is that we reluctantly allow “those playing the game to play the game” until it affects someone that isn’t in the game then it turns into this huge ripple of effect of blind revenge and condemnation.

I understand that at this juncture in life, this is all the result of cause & effect from systematic and historical injustices. It’s frustrating when you wish you could prevent the trajectory of a course that took decades to reach this critical point. When you’re younger, you have all this hope in change & healing but it develops into a callous/scar when it seems like the band-aids keep getting ripped off of wounds we all keep on trying to heal from on a constant basis. But once again, I understand it took the destruction and dismantling of an entire generation of families for us to get to this point, so in return, it will take the unification and empowerment of an entire generation to fix it.

Chances are if you’re reading this post, you are probably doing fairly well. We are the products of our environment that have triumphantly survived our circumstances and overcome the odds. It is upon us, with able bodies, minds, and spirits that desire change and resolution, to start engaging, involving, and loving everything in our environment & communities, from the people to the streets to our local businesses to our food sources and water and etc. It shouldn’t feel like a burden to do such a thing, it should feel like our civic duty because hell, we want something better. Our elders & ancestors took pride in it. Despite the circumstances of negative government intervention, they had their communities on point with love & pride (except between the 1980-2010’s, an entire generation). It was their lifestyle and should very well be our own if we truly don’t want there to be any more heartbreaking stories like Chyemil’s.