Who knew? Maybe one day they’ll get around to passing that Civil Rights bill, let black people vote, Affirmative Action, become a  billionaire, a Governor, a Congressman, a Mayor, the President, or dare I dream, let a black man join the NBA.  

All these years I watched black bodies pile up in Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, Cleveland, Memphis, DC, Boston, and St. Louis, not to mention the #Bringourgirlsback and all the hard work people did typing on twitter. We really showed them Black Muslim terrorist how angry we were – from the safety of our own homes.

I’m going to say some more totally politically incorrect, but truthful things. You see the real question, the one CNN, MSNBC, and all those protesters in the streets are too COWARDLY to ask is: Do black lives matter to black people?

Last week, I was preparing a group of teenage inmates for the Parole Board. I called a young sixteen-year-old black boy into my office. He was very happy to make it to the board. He violated his first parole by catching a robbery case, but lucky for him, his victim refused to come to court, so the charges were dropped (this happens quite often with gang offenders, and victims who live in the same neighborhood). 

Anyway, this boy was happy, and asked me if I could call his mother. He wanted to make sure she attend the parole hearing and take him home afterward.

I called her, spoke to her briefly and then handed him the phone. Almost immediately his smile dropped and he began crying.  His fourteen-year-old brother had been shot and killed by rival gang members on the Southside of Chicago at 2am. He was the second of three brothers to die within a year, with no one charged for the murders.

The next day at the Parole Board, the boy was denied parole and given another 90 days for breaking curfew, and violating other rules of his first parole.

After the kid left crying, I approached the senior Board member who denied the teen.

“Mr. Jackson, why did you deny Marcus; his robbery case was dropped, and he just lost his brother? Since it was a gang murder, we cannot take him to the funeral.”

The silver haired black man looked up at me and said, “Lance, I’m trying to save his life for three more months. Do you think his mother or anyone else out there will try to do that? If he left today, he’d have a gun in his hands tonight, and God only knows who would be dead tomorrow.”

I couldn’t disagree with him. The number one killer of young black males in America is homicide. No other race in our nation can say that, and 93% of black people are killed by other black people.

No media came to interview that boy. No one marched for his brothers. CNN did not interview his mother. And worst of all, the dead teenager was only one of another dozen black males to be killed that same day in one city.

Yet, days later a group of students protested in downtown Chicago, and staged a sit-in at City Hall because a white police officer killed a black man resisting arrest in New York. They made no mention of all the young black men who died in the streets of Chicago that very same day.

Look, there is a reason I used the word cowardly. I did so because nothing I wrote is unknown to anyone in America. The reason why people protest the police killing of black men is because the protesters know that the police will not kill them. They cannot say the same about gangs and criminals. If people protested in front of a gang house or a trap house, the thugs inside would come out and beat the life out of them or kill them.  

When I was a kid my younger sister used to fight everyone in the house from my mother to me. I remember talking to my grandmother about it. “Grandma, I think Tracy is crazy, she loves to fight.”

“Baby, your sister ain’t crazy. If she loved to fight she would go outside and fight the first person she saw. She would fight the girls in school. Does she?”

“No, but why not, if she's always so mad?” I asked.

My grandma smiled at me. “Cause’ she knows those girls at school don’t love her. They’ll beat the hell out of her, but she knows her family may get mad, but you won’t really hurt her. A crazy person is like a courageous person. They’ll take on anyone, but a coward knows who not to mess with, and seeks only easy  safe targets.”

I have never forgotten my grandma, she was old-school and helped shape who I am. She was right about cowards. You will never see protesters lying on any street named Martin Luther King Boulevard, or in the neighborhoods where most inner city black people live. I bet you know why too?

Also, who are the mothers, sisters, uncles, fathers, and girlfriends of gang members and thugs? They are the community, and the last thing they want to see is their son, boyfriend or baby daddy dragged off to prison. Ask yourself: who are the natural enemies of criminals? Yes, it’s the police. So, it only stands to reason that the police would not be liked or trusted by the families and loved ones of the criminals. That is the real reason for the distrust between the police and the black community.  Sorry, someone had to say it, and for my next post, I will suggest solutions to the problems. Be forewarned, some may not like them.