the wheel speaks on 2013 – an endangered species black like me?
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THE WHEEL SPEAKS ON 2013 – An Endangered Species Black Like Me?TRANSCRIPT
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THE WHEEL SPEAKS ON 2013 – An Endangered Species Black Like Me? Youth and being exuberant is a part of the journey referred to as growing up in the 60’s & very early 70’s I simply loved being a kid. Where I live in Jersey City New Jersey on a block called Bergen Avenue with Clinton and Communipaw Avenue on each side. What a place to live as a young boy we played for hours and hours every day traveling from the houses all day of each friend picking one another up every weekend especially. And literally within the radius of the three mention city blocks it was nothing but pure unadulterated fun. We of course played sports on the neighboring adjacent side blocks where the traffic wasn’t quite congested like Sacket Street or in the lot we’d play stickball or in the summer when it snowed tackle football. Disappearing from our homes for hours and even in those of civil rights and known racism I can honestly say I was never scared when we played in the streets, and my mother felt safe as well allowing her three boys the reasonable freedom we’d exercise distance wise from home. Just as long as we as a collective group together as brothers be accountable and made in home like many of our friends at a time or should I say universally when the street light came on (especially during school nights). On the weekends or the summer of course we’d be allocated more time to stay out but at least then a parent was comfortable.
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As a kid it was marvelous and overwhelming feeling of happiness each and every day just laughing and playing with my friends everyday. Next door in the entire building 505 there was the Chandler family and if I named everyone of them I’d have to write a full chapter lol I loved the entire Chandler family my partner in crime back then was Nathanial aka Tanny. Or in 507 we had the Benjamin family or the Caldwell’s Simms and Mincey’s I would literally walk straight into every apartment in that building too. I’d be welcome freely to eat or do anything I wanted as long as I was on my best behavior of course. And in my building 503 the Williams brothers Harry aka Hamburger –George aka NY-‐Gary aka Nike-‐Jerry aka LA and big Eddie aka Buzz Prioleau was like my big brother along with Charlie Chandler back then. Closely knit family a parents dream come true not having one minute ever to have to worry about your child but of course mine still did. Imagine having 3 boys all one year a part in age from one another the fears my mother probably lived with everyday? We did absolutely everything together and I mean everything. We had the same friends played the same sports and at times my brother even stole a girlfriend or two of mine lol but we did it all together. At night we’d all converge on the steps of the Miller Branch Library and fraternize listening to music at a very moderate level respectfully talking singing snapping jokes and playing chess. Yes all of the boys young and old Bobby Stewart who was always a chess wiz beating people almost twice his age. Jessie Jackson being a great player then as well. People coming from all around at our meeting place one big family nothing but young black teenagers the best time of our lives. A place where we all cried like the following day when our big brother Alan Chandler died I remember who I couldn’t stop crying for over a month everyday me and Tanny were heartbroken. I remember Herman Chandler giving me a quarter every time he saw me no matter what or Odell Chandler calling me asking me about school in the middle of a ball game. Or me and Dereck Aycox reciting Bugs Bunny episodes word for word spontaneously and laughing as the rest of our crew thought we was crazy the best times of my entire life I thought it would never change. But one day it did I remember maybe being about 12 I think and we were playing baseball on Sackett Street near the lot. A man appear from a van that had stalled out apparently running out of gas right in the middle of our game. He ask us all to help him push the van to the side we all compiled he then produce the keys holding them up. He then ask “who here is the oldest” Nate aka Tanny replied “I am” the man then appointed him in charge of the van stating he’d be back soon to get in. Only one I repeat only one door work throughout the entire van it was so funny it became our unofficial club house and after two weeks there it was the main hangout for the boys in my age range. Especially since the older teenagers didn’t always include us in everything. And on one night while seemingly every kid in our neighborhood was inside the van the police came down the block with lights flashing. It was like a fire started kids
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jumping out of one window on the passenger side remember the doors were not working screaming and hollering and pushing it was comical all until the police approach the vehicle and they did something I have never forgotten about my entire life. As Greg Chandler I believe tried to exit the vehicle one of the Caucasian police officers place his gun on the side of his head while he was exiting the window and said loudly “make one more move nigger and your dead”. The pandemonium was unbelievable kids screaming and crying begging the cop not to shoot our friend as his partner a police officer who we knew who was African American (Mr. White) looked on then he implored his partner to holster his weapon. Then the Caucasian officer order ever single kid who hadn’t escaped the van to lie down face first on the pavement on the street with the flood lights of the police cars pointed directly at us. Lined up in a row maybe about 8 to 9 kids ranging from ages 11 years to 14 years old with their faces on the ground. The only thing I could think of was the beating I knew my mother was going to give me as my brother Brad kept saying it over and over again from a distance on the side. Then suddenly as I look to my left to the main street Communipaw Avenue while in tears laying on the right side of my face I saw a green colored Le Sabre slow down and then back up and stop. My worst nightmare had become a reality my mother had arrived on the scene. The first words that came out of my mother mouth not evening knowing her own son was on the ground was directed right at the police officer she knew Mr. White was “what in the hell are all these young black kids doing on the ground in the middle of the street” telling Mr. White you’d better get these kids off of these ground right now, Mr. White was a bit tentative of speaking up to his partner who was obviously a racist but if you know my mother of course she had no problems speaking up. By then she’s already notice I was one of the kids on the ground and not one time did she say anything was motivated because of me it was because she was protecting every single child on the ground at gunpoint. She curse the officer out so bad and threaten officer White like there was no tomorrow and finally White got his partner to release all of us. My mother told everyone to get home in the house asap and told me “when I get home you’re going to wish you went to jail”. She stayed behind I was told reading the riot act to both the officers having no regard about what they cared or said she was only worried about the children not just hers each and everyone that laid on the ground at gunpoint. Our children in this society today all of them in particularly African American children are all being held at gunpoint one wrong move comment or gesture and in an instance their lives can be taken away. Is it a child’s fault today that he growth spurt today is accelerated because of what’s injected into food products today and the kid has the body of a mature adult? Is it the fault of a child that when he’s wearing a garment like a hooded sweatshirt that an insecure man might view it as imposing? But the question that must be ask most importantly is should a child be victimized or targeted just because he is of African American decent?
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Our children are an endangered species and black like me it is true but I am wondering if every man of African American decent who can speak up will speak up? No more pictures or headlines no longer speaking as a politician or standing with one? No longer doing it for a brand or for favor doing it for simply one reason and that is because it’s the right thing. I know African American men who are doing well who simply don’t care at all about where they once may have lived and currently may even have family living their still. Living for themselves exploiting their own people and that makes it so easy for anyone to do anything harmful to us when we are cognizant or even acknowledge the fact that we are now truly living as if we’re an endangered species. Our children are an endangered species and black like me but sadly I wonder how many of us even remember that we’re black?
Pray for the family of Trayvon Martin. And always in my hometown #prayjcpray. Respectfully, THE WHEEL (The Way Humanity/Hudson Expects Everyone to Live)