.38 Hot....

So I had to think back a minute at how much violence is a part of our everyday lives. The title of this post is actually a phrase I learned my freshman year of college from my roommate who was from Miami. One day she say’s “Man, I was .38 hot!” I pause, look around and say “What?” (cause being from Michigan I know that 38 degrees is not hot so I needed some clarification lol). She proceeds to tell me that when you fire a gun the barrel gets very hot and as some folks occasionally will use the term hot in place of angry when describing how they are feeling, .38 hot was born as a slang term. Now I never got clarification on how 38 was chosen but I guess it sounded cooler than 22, 45 and 9MM hot…but that’s just my guess J 

So there has been a lot of talk in the news about the ridiculous amount of gun violence and overall general violence going on in cities like Chicago, Detroit, Miami, Los Angeles and pretty much any major city in the U.S., plus the stupid killings of children and innocent movie goers in Connecticut and Colorado. The sad part about all of this is the fact that none of this is new, the sadder part is that it is only now making major news because it affects the people that the news actually care about. How many years have the communities of the urban inner cities been dealing with major bouts of violence and no one so much as batted an eyelash? What really pisses me off even more at this time is the fact that we as an American society have allowed big business to take control of what we want to do in order to correct mistakes or at least slow down what everyone is finally realizing is a big issue. Are you freaking kidding me that we allowed the NRA and all of its money to make us vote down a bill that would ask for stricter laws to get a gun? You mean to tell me you are more concerned with my background in order for me to get a job and pay taxes then to get a gun? Come on now, that is just ridiculous.  Do you know that on the streets it is easier to get a gun than a library card? Does anyone care that nowadays people will reach for a gun more than they reach for a book? Taking it even more old school, what happened to fist fights to settle disputes? Has everyone turned into such a punk that we now just pull out a piece and shoot first and ask questions later as opposed to squaring up in a true battle if it comes to that?

My brothers and sisters, when are we going to stop allowing the gangs, fighters, hoodlums and everyone else to run our communities while we sit back shuddering and hiding because “Snitches get Stitches”? You are aware that if we stand up and say that we will not allow violence in our communities without there being repercussions that they will either move on or shut it down right? Think about the bully that picks on everyone until that one person stands up to him and whoops his a#$...makes him think twice about picking on someone else, destroys his credibility and no longer makes him the big bad wolf. I mean things have gotten so out of control we got YouTube videos out here of people fighting, jumping people, slapping people and whatever else and we pass it around for laughs and kicks instead of sending them to the Police and pressing charges, so that we will stop glorifying this mess and regain some control of these bad ass kids. It’s time to stop making excuses for kids who have no respect for elders and apparently no home training. I say we not only make the kids take responsibility for their actions regardless of their age, but their parents as well-these kids are learning these behaviors somewhere and I will put money on the fact that it’s from their own house. We see parents fighting at schools and sporting events when they are supposed to be setting examples. I know that had I gotten into a fight in school my momma would have kicked my behind when I got home. That’s not to say that she didn’t want me to protect and defend myself but I BETTER NOT be the instigator of the fight-that would’ve been all she wrote.

At the end of the day, I’m tired of seeing these news stories about young teenagers, babies, innocent bystanders and everyone else being shot in the middle of the street because everyone is out trying to prove their manhood or don’t want to work for their own things and want to take everyone else’s. We have to be able to come up with the next plan to take back our streets, take back our communities and take back ourselves. Hopefully we can all stand up and make a change to redirect our kids into going to college as opposed to prison. Even better, lets have all the people who want to walk around with a gun join the military-at least there they would be able to learn discipline and respect and become viable members of society.

#Bang 

Twitter: @FromMySoapBox