His Point of View

I don’t know how many of my readers follow me on twitter but if you do, perhaps you read a tweet I sent out a couple weeks ago about hearing a song mentioning a person (or people) you know.  The long and short of it is that I happen to have grown up in a neighborhood with a few people who have found some success in the music industry.   A couple of weeks ago I heard a song by one of these individuals which mentioned the fact that one of my closest childhood friends was murdered.   I had to play the song about 10-15 times to make sure I was hearing the lyrics correctly.  I made a few phone calls and my family could not confirm it, nor could the only other person I grew up with in the neighborhood that I still have contact with.  So I sort of dismissed it as perhaps it was another person the musician knew with the same name.  The band that made the song in question came to DC this past weekend and I got to spend a few moments catching up with the band member that I knew growing up and sadly he confirmed that he was talking about my friend.

The fact that this young man lost his life in such a senseless manner is bad enough, but I could not help but to think of his remaining family that has been hit so very hard by death.  My deceased friend, lost one of his older brothers when we were very young and his mother to cancer while we were in middle or high school.  I could not help to think of the pain his father and remaining brother  must have experienced.

The second tragedy is that this is the fourth young man from the single block that makes up the neighborhood that I grew up in that is immortalized in the lyrics of a song, who is now dead and no longer here to hear the songs written about him.

The third tragedy related to this issue is the fact that I am the only young man from my neighborhood within a 5 year age range that is alive, currently not incarcerated, and has never gotten caught up in gangs or drugs as far as I know…(there is 1 other young man who I really didn’t know growing up from our neighborhood, and I have no idea of his status over the last 11+ years since I left East Point, GA).  My neighborhood was squarely upper middle class, suburban (continue reading…)

“When folks break your heart, if there’s anything authentic about it…theirs usually ends up being broken too.”

That is statement I read this morning, and it shed a lot of light on things that I have seen in other peoples’ relationships, and in my own past relationships.  This simple line explains a lot.  This simple line explains why after relationships end some people can become very extreme with their words and/or actions.  Think about all of the things you have seen or experienced after a “real” relationship ends… does this phrase not seem to address just about everything you have seen/experienced?

Stop being stupid people…This week I have read of 3 cases of murder all because of a dude flipping out over a woman. In ATL a guy allegedly murdered two women that he had previously attempted to date, and both women ended up cutting him off, so the story goes. And the third case involves the young rapper Dolla. Now the facts are blurry but allegedly the murder suspect says the altercation started when he bumped into a woman associated with Dolla 2 weeks prior to the murder he committed in “self defense”. Well we may never know the truth since Dolla is no longer able to tell his side of the story.

Both of the situations mentioned above are senseless and plain stupid. There is no reason for violence unless you are protecting your own or another life. There is never a reason for violence as a result of emotional distress or damage to your ego. If you find yourself in constant conflicts over your woman either your are an overprotective meathead (and you need to seek help and work on your trust issues) or she is not the lady you think she is. A real woman knows how to handle most issues before they escalate and a realer (more real) woman knows how to avoid putting herself in situations that are likely to cause conflicts. So I say to that “check yo self befo you wreck yo self” fool…

Your decisions either create happiness or destroy it. Abuse,murder, and jail all destroy happiness for yourself, the victim’s family and the people who love you.

It’s 2009 people we need to create happiness for ourselves and those around us.