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| Photo by Saul Young/Knoxville News Sentinel |
This won't take long.
An Austin-East High School student was shot and killed by police at 3:15 p.m. the afternoon of Monday, April 12 inside a bathroom at the school. For whatever reason, he was in the bathroom with a gun and refused to surrender. He shot an officer and was killed when the officer returned fire.
I worked in Knoxville in a couple of stints as a reporter. I also was twice a student at the University of Tennessee - my first year out of college in 1984 and again when I returned to school in 1992 before graduating in 1995. Besides being here in Atlanta and growing up in Nashville, Knoxville was the place I spent the most time in my life. I have many friends there, memories there (good and bad) and it is a place that is close to my heart.
But aspects of the Knoxville I know haven't changed much since 1984.
For those who don't know much about Knoxville, it's a sort of sleepy small city in East Tennessee. It's kind of isolated from the rest of the major cities in Tennessee as Nashville in comparison is a major growing metropolis while Memphis is as far away in distance as it is in politics and racial make-up. Knoxville sits in the middle of very conservative East Tennessee.
For a while, I lived not far from Austin-East High School. It sits inside of East Knoxville, which is seen to be the heart of black Knoxville. It's a very proud, close knit area that truly supports this predominantly black school. Basketball games and football games (Austin-East homecoming games are as big as some HBCU homecomings) are like one of the main things to do in East Knoxville.
East Knoxville still struggles with it's identity and influence though. The huge development boom in West Knoxville - which is predominantly white - is completely opposite of what has happened for decades on the Eastside. Affluence is still an unattainable hurdle for many in East Knoxville.
Unfortunately - and this isn't even an East Knoxville-centric thing as this is true all over our nation - where there is struggle, there are overly negative reaction on how to achieve affluence, or even what affluence even is.
In our nation, we have a young black culture who has grown up seeking the spoils of life through violence. Anger. Dispair. Espeically those who have little compared to others. Guns are the means to quelling that dispair and getting what you want, unfortunately mostly from those around you who dont have very much either.
Hell, it doesn't even matter how much they have. Guns are supposedly the answer to whatever the question or desire is for many of our young people.
Austin-East has seen this issue bubble up too many times among its students. Too many times in just the past few months:
- While in a car, a 17-year old boy accidentally shot a 15-year old A-E student, killing him on Jan. 27.
- Two boys - one 14 and the other 16 - were charged with fatally shooting a 16-year old A-E student who was driving home from school on Feb. 12.
- A 15-year old A-E student was found shot to death in her home, not far from the school on Feb. 16.
- And a 15-year old A-E student and aspiring rapper was killed on March 9. No one has been arrested in that shooting.
Why are all these young people seeing guns as the way? Why?
Yes, it's in their music. All over it, to be honest. None of it is really based on reality. It's more like life imitating art that glorifies, overly simplifies, overstates and exaggerates this life that kids again imitate. It's all in every phase of their pop culture. Hell, it has been since the 1990s. But it's a stupid cycle.
Yeah, white kids have the same issues. But I ain't white and my issue and my focus are on my family, my people. Someone else can work on white folks issues.
Here is my nut graf (journalism speak for my point). What the hell are we doing about it? Seriously, what are we doing to stop this?
I'm completely over and tired of the cliched "So-So Strong" social media memes or adding the "I Am Whoever Suffered the Latest Tragedy" addition to profile pics. It is way past time for people, for us, to REALLY deal with the issues that keep causing these tragedies over and over again.
Many of these kids, who are running around with guns they don't need, aren't being raised anymore. They are being fed and housed, and that's it. No discipline. No parenting worth a damn. Too much buying them expensive cute clothes as babies, not enough forcus on talking and teaching them the right way as children who quickly grow into teens with their own minds.
But, they are smart. Smart enough to make their own good decisions if they are armed with reason to make those decisions. Yes, life is hard. Harder than hard for some people. Trust me, I know. I watched this all play out when I was a young in the projects and saw friends shoot each other, kill each other, go to prison or just die inside themselves too young.
But life is truly what you make it, and that's what these kids need to understand. It's not Boyz in the Hood if you dont try to live Boyz in the Hood.
We also have to parent better and community better. We have to actually talk to those who aren't great at parenting. We have to actually reach out to them. We have to go into these neighborhoods, these homes, these apartments and see them eye-to-eye and talk to them. We have to claim our community by being community. Talk to these kids, especially when they are young. Positively influence them and their parents who often need it themselves.
We have to reach people in these communities. We must. They need to learn early, and I mean EARLY in life that a gun doesn't arm you to solve an issue. That's not real life, despite what some Lil whoever tells you.
As David Gillette, an older cousin of the young rapper who was killed said to The Knoxville News Sentnel "These kids are trying to survive. I'm not making excueses for them but our community is giving them nothing else they can look forward to."
Until we do any of this, we are just talking until we are light blue in our social media profile faces. And nothing, I mean NOTHING will change.
Hi Add! I totally understand. I had a career in journalism, and also volunteered as a teen ministry leader for many years in Atlanta. We often went to rough neighborhoods and brought kids to our church by bus. The kids (some were teens) desperately wanted to change their lives and circumstances...but could not because their families were so deep into that "gangsta" life. Some made it out and into college and became productive citizens of society. Some didn't. When I tell you I've cried over though kids...it was a real struggle with some many factors...I cannot count. We prayed for them do much. For example, some of our teens had seen multiple people shot in their families, some had already started in sexual relationships, some were being abused, others were basically raising themselves with no stable person in the home. It takes a village to raise our children... ironically our program ended because we felt we were raising them alone and it became more than we could handle...no one including the parents weren't willing to make sacrifices and a commitment to these kids, their future, and overall well-being. It makes me sad.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who also once worked and lived in Knoxville, it pains me to hear about this violence (frankly any violence anywhere). East Knoxville is rich with history and lovely people, but all of that doesn't shield it from some of the issues affecting communities across the country. Thank you for drawing attention to this matter.
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