The power of a tear.

In the words of the late Tupac Shakur, "How many brothers fell victim to the streets? Be a lie If I told you that I never thought of death, my nigga, we the last ones left, but life goes on”. Moreover, what the late Tupac Shakur was brilliantly trying to do was challenge us as people to think about the seldom asked question. Of how many brothers fall victim to the streets? Furthermore, it’s sadly been almost twenty-four years since 2pac first asked us that question from his 1996 album titled “All Eyez on Me” that society has yet to answer. However, the truth of the matter is we have slowly begun to lose count in the black community. Of how many black men and black women we have lost throughout this country. I can’t begin to tell you how many friends, family members, and acquaintances I have lost throughout the years. Or how many funerals I've attended, or mothers of friends I’ve watched cry or had to hug, and painfully watch them hold onto a casket of the last image of their child. Unfortunately, this is a reoccurring experience in low-income communities across this country that has now forced us to become numb to the loss of life. The screams of ambulances rushing up the street that used to wake us up in the middle of the night have now become silent.

Consequently, even the simple rhetoric of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr has now only become a distant memory or sadly holds no truth in adolescents today. Besides the bigger question, we must start asking ourselves as communities. We have started to become powerless? In this case, we must individually address that invisible elephant in the room. As well as exercising what Dr. Maya Angelou stated: "humility says I to have a responsibility don't let anyone slide"? To once again become that beloved community, we have to continue the work of keeping the memories of those we loved in our minds. Something that always resonated with me as a kid was the piercing words of 2pac when he stated, “It’s time to bury another brother, nobody cry.” I remember these words because, like 2pac, I, too, have lost a brother to community violence. Consequently, I was taught at an earlier age by my older brother, who grew up in the streets, that it was a sign of weakness to cry. Sadly by this time, he had grown accustomed to not attending funerals of his friends that had lost their lives to community violence. This way of thinking followed me into my adult years. Believing to be a man, it wasn’t okay to cry or show any sign of emotion when tragedy strikes.

Because of this, I held onto years of pent-up frustration of losing friends and relatives to community violence. Often leaving me hopeless inside as if my hands were tied behind my back, preventing me from helping those impacted by the same issues. It was until I began working in community organizing in San Francisco, CA, I discovered what some might call “The calling” that God had placed on my life. To give back to the very same community that help raise me in beginning the work of preventing community violence. It was there I had the opportunity of meeting a community organizer from Charlotte, NC, named Stephen Leeper, who helped me discover myself. Through long heartfelt conversations, I began to realize the untapped potential that exists in all of us. That allowed me to go back to Bay View Hunters Point, a once predominantly black community located in the southeast sector of San Francisco. And begin my efforts of educating African American children of the harsh reality that continues to exists today. Despite my efforts to educate black children, we are still faced with Ahmad Arbery and George Floyd's tragic deaths.

Often leaving me with the painful thought of this too could happen to me. If I was jogging in a secluded area by myself, would I too be approached by three white men asking me the last question I might ever hear “Did you steal something”? Or If I was to go into a convenience store, would I be accused by the store clerk for having a counterfeit bill. In short, would my life be slowly taken by a cop with a knee to my neck? To sum it up, we as a community cannot ever forget the late Tupac Amaru Shakur's words, who challenged our way of thinking? By asking us the rarely asked question of how many brothers fall victim to the streets? Because of my nigga we are the last ones left.