How often do we have the opportunity to hear the life story of our fallen youth? To hear the stories that make them the people that they were at the time of their death and a permanent fixture in our souls.
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Life will often take you off course, only to bring you right back to the spot you thought would be best addressed at another time. I was asked to do a follow up too last week’s post: (Classroom Discipline Cycles for Boys…Fidget, Discipline, Repeat), but fate intervened. Saturday evening knocked me off of my writing course emotionally, but brought me back to the topic at hand when it comes to our boys…their true stories are often silenced by the noise of stereotypes of mass media.
In the classroom, the fidgety behavior that is often labeled as “bad” is repeated because we do not LISTEN to our young men. Adults often find it easy to move forward by managing what has been labeled as “bad behavior” in our boys with misdiagnoses, medication and mistreatment. Our young men are convicted, tried and sentenced in their classrooms without proper representation, sentencing or an opportunity to take the stand in their defense. We race to fix without understanding if the youth actually needs fixing. The same occurs in the criminal justice system, especially for our boys. Adults act as judge and jury in the court of public opinion, but never know the LIFE story of the one being condemned.
This past Saturday, I had the privilege of attending Letters To Trayvon, an event that was not only a celebration of the legacy of Trayvon Martin, but was also an opportunity to hear Trayvon’s story, not the story that the media has written, not the story of a victim, but a story of LIFE…a story of LOVE.
How often do we have the opportunity to hear the life story of our fallen youth? To hear the stories that make them the people that they were at the time of their death and a permanent fixture in our souls. Stories of daily love shared between father and son, stories of sons who were everyday boys; sports, pets, and family and not just about ho they would have become in adulthood.
We also had the opportunity to hear the stories from youth who continue to struggle with his demise, the youth who refuse to forget and will always remember. The participating youth spoke to healing, change and progress, as opposed to speaking to retaliation, revenge and stagnation. The 1st place winner poignantly pointed out how similar he is to Trayvon Martin, and how he recognized that societal change was necessary so that #IMatter becomes a reality for all children in our nation and not just a hashtag, Kudos to Mission Incorporated and The Black Male Development Symposium for collaborating on such an important event.
I look forward to the day that national media networks provide as much coverage (in both medium and duration of coverage) for the positive events that our young sons find themselves engaged in, to strive for balance in reporting, to not forget that our children have stories that are never shared on repeat. Saturday was a day of healing, but also a day of learning. A type of day that should become the rule, not remain the exception.
Photo: Osbornb/Flickr