mekka okereke Mar 15

Domestic violence is never OK. Not when adults are beating kids in foster care. Not when a 15 year old abused foster care kid hits back at an abusive parent.

But when you talk about police and Special Victims Units, understand that police cannot and do not effectively protect kids like the rapper Xzibit from abuse. And understand that US cops expose millions more to what he experienced.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=moQW2qg6BAo

"🎼🎶You see I don't like to reminisce about the past
Lower class, no clout livin' hand to mouth
Each and every wrong move the police keep count
Makes it real [] easy to get stretched out

I was at the funeral when it all began
You know the painful transition from a boy to man
I lost sight of my mother at the age of nine
Didn't understand death. Nearly lost my mind

But see, life moves on and broke brothers can't change it
At age ten, new step family arrangement
At thirteen, I started gettin' hair on my D
And noticed me and my sister were gettin' treated like S

I would forever be hit with anything in reach
Then my father would proceed to go to church and preach
about forgiveness, patience, all the stuff that he lacked
Didn't jump when he said and that head got cracked

Physical contact was in the form of a slap
At the age of fifteen, Xzibit now hit back
Courtesy of my stepbrother, who taught me to scrap
Left my stepmom on the ground with her eyes on Black

Ran away from the house of Teresa and Nate
Into juvenile detention where I built up hate
I don't remember the date, of the judicial debate
But legally I was now, in custody of the state

And brothers wonder why I sit up in the club and drink
Say what's up to Xzibit and I still don't speak
I'm trying to contemplate the next move to make
Gotta find some way, to release this hate

And brothers wonder why I sit up in the club and drink
Say what's up to Xzibit and I still don't speak
I'm trying to contemplate, the next move to make
Gotta find some way. Xzibit carry the weight.

And now it's worse than the treatment I was gettin' at home
Only now I was messed up, plus all alone
My father talkin' all crazy to me over the phone
Turned age sixteen, now I'm on my own
Started running with cats who carried guns cause they had too
No hesitation: lock, load, then blast you
"

Xzibit - Carry The Weight (Instrumental)

YouTube
scottleyMar 15
Show threadmekka okereke 

(Instrumental audio version because I can't find a clean version of "Carry the Weight" online.)

You can't make the US safer by making 10 million+ traumatized young men in poverty and desperation. That has the opposite effect.

If you create a society where the only safety and companionship and brotherhood that people feel is through violent self-preservation groups, then the outcome is inevitable.

Mar 15 at 6:48pmWeb
Show threadGhostOnTheHalfShellMar 15

@mekkaokereke

Your post resonates with me particularly because just this last week I completed jury duty for what is my second criminal trial.

The short form of the case was an individual decided to attack two social workers over being asked if he was a tenant or visitor during regular weekly coffee social. This is standard for that organization and never has anyone refused to answer much less attack to women over it.

..

Show threadGhostOnTheHalfShellMar 15

@mekkaokereke

Each of them have sustained injuries of different duration let’s just say, but the other impact is their outlook with respect to work has been completely transformed from something they enjoyed to something they dreaded when they heal enough to return to work.

Something like this also affects the staff and the residents. This experience underline for me how much housing and safety is a right. A society without it is inhumane.

Imagine this shit happening in front of a kid.