Tuesday, September 15, 2009

THE GHETTO: ¿STATE OF MIND OR BEING? – BABIES HAVING BABIES…





FAMILY: where generational blessings OR Curses are passed on to children because the majority of ADULTS do NOT know themselves…I can remember being a boy no more than the age of 10 and my mother telling me that she didn’t want me; and who could blame her? She was 19 didn’t finish high school, met a man that told her to let her uncle take her and her baby because he wasn’t interested…After hearing how she tried SO many remedies to bring forth her period by drinking various homemade concoctions I felt sorry for her because here she is a female that thought she was in love, giving herself to a man that planted a seed which he didn’t want to nurture… MY mother was A BABY HAVING A BABY…

How does a woman in her shoes grow up and be a mother when she herself lost her mother @ an early age? I know that a mother’s instincts take over and she somehow knows how to take care of a child, but when you are a baby yourself, how does she share her life with a child when she is barely an adult? She grew up in a sex-taboo culture that skirts around issues of condoms and birth control. I remember when my sister first got her period, my mother told her that she is going to place a plastic bag on her room door and when my sister sees her period she wants to see EVERY single proof…her reason? Well because young girls today are too slick…Now I know her intentions were from a good place, but I can’t help but think that she missed A GOLDEN opportunity to talk to both my sister and myself about sex and being responsible (though I  already was sexually active @ that time).

How does a mother deal with a young boy who has developed a taste for sex by the time he was 12/13? I grew up with tons of family around me and NO one talked to me about the changes going on in my body, I had to experiment with masturbation to find out that the white stuff that is around the head of the penis needs to be cleaned DAILY! (Gross I know, so imagine how I felt?) We are all wired to have sex; well most are, so shouldn’t there be an URGENT need to prepare the next generation as to the pitfalls associated with premature activity that can lead to so many complications including disease and unwanted pregnancy, and even death? I asked this before and I will ask it again, how can a young woman such as my mother teach me when NO one has taught her?

I know what I am talking about isn’t just a GHETTO problem, but I find that this is largely the case for SO many folks living in the “GHETTO.” What becomes of the SANCTITY of the mother AND father when it turns us into more of the same? It is SO rare to go back into my childhood neighborhood and NOT see a female that I grew up with who does NOT have @ least 4/5 kids. I know babies are a blessing, but these women ONLY care about their hair, clothes AND getting that next man to take care of them. The mindset of many of today’s parents living in the GHETTO is a detriment to us all; and it is my belief that if we are to correct this, we are going to have to look deep look within ourselves for the cure. SO many of us just sit and say but what are they to do? Where do they turn? How can they change what they didn’t create?

I suppose I have way TOO many solutions in this head of mine, but how about we take the proactive approach much like the way the medical community would handle an epidemic? That is, we have to take preventive measures while simultaneously treating the ailments. Attacking cultural plagues will take time and we will have to employ studied and measured responses. From what we have here today, it is OBVIOUS that when persons are left virtually on their own to give meaning to these concepts, we end up with a lot of confusion. But if we were to take what I write here seriously and take what happens when BABIES HAVE BABIES, wouldn’t the shared sense of the sacred , be  that which is @ the essence of all things?

FOR FAR TOO LONG WE’VE USED “THE LAW OF PARSIMONY,” WHICH EMPHASIZES THAT THE SIMPLEST POSSIBLE EXPLANATION OR THE SHORTEST POSSIBLE ANSWER IS THE BEST ONE TO DEAL WITH THE ISSUES THAT KEEP THE GHETTO WHERE IT IS. IS IT THAT DIFFICULT TO HOLD EACH PERSON IN THE GHETTO ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE LOVE THEY SHOULD SHARE WITH EACH OTHER? WOULDN’T A SHARED SENSE OF THE SACRED, A CLEAR DEFINITION OF WHAT THAT MEANS, INSTITUTIONS TO DEVELOP, FOSTER & IMPLEMENT THE DESIRED CONCEPTS, IDEALS & LEADERSHIP TAKE THE GHETTO TO PLACES IT HAS NEVER BEEN? IF WE CAN UNIVERSALLY GET THE GHETTO TO LIVE UP & HONOR THIS MOST PRIMAL OF IDEALS, WOULDN’T WE MAKE A MAJOR STEP IN THE REHABILITATION OF OUR GHETTOS? WOULDN’T SOMETHING LIKE THIS SHAPE OUR FAMILIES, SOCIAL, CIVIC N’ RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS?

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