“Violence: The Feel of Pandemic Proportion”

The love and admiration I have for my city of Youngtown, Ohio, I’m sure in many ways is no different from what someone may feel for Chicago, Cleveland, New York, Los Angeles etc… However, what I feel right now is the hand of a wretched sickness that is suffocating the life out of our urban communities. In fact, this sickness has found a home in host across this country abruptly making itself normalized in the psyche of many Americans. History will note, a man by the name of Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (H. Rap Brown) who said “Violence is as American as cherry pie.” This spoke to the prevalence of its normalcy in his day. How far have we evolved as a society when we can hear of or witness violence then race our minds on to the next thought?

The sickness of violence in my community of Youngstown, Ohio reached a new plateau. This week its members said good-bye to 10 year old, Persayus Chanell Davis who was struck by a bullet at home. As I looked at the picture of this precious little girl on the local news, she actually depicted the image of a princess adored in a princess outfit wearing a crown…..If I’m off with the depiction of her, make no mistake about it, that’s what I saw. Yes, someone’s baby, another princess, queen gone. It was at this moment, I began to recant in my mind like so many before me, “How long?” However, my mind would not dare begin to fathom the answer “Not long.” The sickness of violence has created a culture of numbness where much of our reaction becomes a commonality of condition until it hits home. Violence has mutated into various capacities morphing and positioning itself to impact another context of one’s reality. In fact, I would say that its woven itself in the fabric of this country’s existence: taking on a wicked life of its own. Preceded with tension, at times we can feel its approach in the air. It is disheartening when we can take a look around and see we have so much in common with the violent occurences of your Chicago’s, Cleveland’s, New York’s, and LA’s. My friends, there is a suffocating feel in the air. It appears at the moment, the vastness of violence spans as far and as wide as a spiritual eye may see.

Society, to the extent of its moral capacity can understand the peril of our time. However, what has been proven is that this era of violence in the black community has a feel of pandemic proportion. Its impact is far reaching and people tragically suffer it around the world. Undoubtedly, we know the staggering accounts of violence in the black community and ultimately around the world. Its impact has exposed a fragility of life, touched by its deliverance of emotional pain which can bring the strongest to their knees. Take a look around and witness a black mother at a crime scene crying out for a young black man who is still her baby, victim of the violent pandemic.

In Youngstown, Ohio, it was reported by local news source WKBN that “there have been over 80 shootings this year, on track to surpass the 98 shootings in the city in 2020. There have been a total of 18 homicides this year.” Allow me to say, if one looks at these numbers and tries to convey braggadocios comparison to their own city, I am afraid that he/she may be part of the problem. One life in one city is too many. “Violence: The Feel of Pandemic Proportion” is raging in the black community. However, there is a cure, where the dose of economics and education must meet. There is a cure, where the struggle of self-hatred can be treated with the love of one’s image designed in creation. Our cure can be found in the spiritual and its application manifested in tangible terms. Violence: its feel of pandemic proportion has a cure but it will take a “renewal of the mind” in our current reality.