All I Want For Christmas

Most people have heard the children’s holiday song “All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth.” Here’s my list of what I REALLY want for Christmas this year.

• Violence and lawlessness continues to rip our community apart. Yesterday, my oldest son was robbed at gunpoint as he got out of the car to go into a store to buy Christmas candy treats for the children in the after-school program where he works. I thank God that he was not physically hurt, but it is a moment that he will remember for the rest of his life. Not only did this criminal threaten my son’s life, but also he literally stole from the mouths of babes. What is even more disturbing is that black-on-black crime seems to be escalating at an alarming rate. I know that people are suffering economically…so are we. But why do we continue to allow these people to prey on our neighborhoods each and every day? This thug lifestyle is even glorified on television shows, movies and especially music videos. We have a whole generation of people who believe that this kind of lifestyle is not only normal, but also expected. As a professional journalist, I’ve reported on these kinds of stories for more than 30 years and I know that the outcome could have been much worse for my son. But I never knew the pain until it hit so close to home.

• Hazing, bullying and intimidation must end immediately. I went to college in the 70s in the days of the Black Power Movement when there were serious questions raised about the relevance of being “Black and Greek.” I have never understood how getting my butt beaten would endear me and bond me to my “brothers or sisters” in any sorority, fraternity, organization or group. It just doesn’t make sense to me. In fact, it seems like the same kind of activity that is used to initiate people into gangs. Schools continue to tolerate this behavior as more students die, are seriously injured or even take their own lives when they feel like they can’t take it any more. Why aren’t we doing things to encourage achievement in all of our schools, from elementary to the college level, instead of creating an environment where children are terrorized and young adults fail academically because they think it is more important to be part of the “in crowd”?

• Multi-million dollar athletes and celebrities may provide different kinds of entertainment. But what does it say about our society when we engage in. celebrity worship of gangsters, gold diggers, hussies, pimps, booty shakers, one-hit wonders and the ‘low lifes” in our communities? Everybody wants to get rich quick rather than work to earn those millions. What happened to the concept of paying your dues? The real heroes in our society are the teachers, health care professionals, lawyers, emergency responders, engineers, legitimate business owners and others who give back and make a difference in the lives of others. Even though I work in the media, my profession is a co-conspirator in perpetrating this warped view of the world. Now, anyone who blogs, tweets, posts or be-friends others on social media think they are journalists. Forget whether there is an ounce of truth in what they say or write. Most news organizations and other media have abdicated our primary responsibility to be society’s watchdog, to provide a voice for the voiceless, to comfort the affiliated and afflict the comfortable, to speak truth to power. Instead, they are in pursuit of the almighty dollar.

• Every day, the news headlines are filled with the latest and greatest report about child molesters, sexual predators, child and elderly abusers, forced laborers, human traffickers and other culprits. Whatever you call it, this is modern-day slavery. There are many who believe that slavery no longer exists in this country and around the world. There are many organizations and individuals fighting to stop these heinous acts. But they are usually ignored because the alternative is viewed as much more sensational. What has happened to our priorities and our sensibilities? We must immediately end the mistreatment and disrespect of others.

• Finally, all I want for Christmas is for our religious leaders, politicians and those in power to get a reality check. America is not the same as it was 50, 25 or even ten years ago. One of the issues we are afraid to discuss is race in America. Why can’t we have an open and honest discussion about the things that continue to divide us and make us immediately suspicious of people who don’t look like us? There have been minuscule efforts to deal with race and ethnicity but those efforts are drowned out by the noise of ignorance and intolerance. People continue to live under highway viaducts, families are living in cars (just ask Sly Stone from the hugely successful R&B group, Sly and the Family Stone who now lives penniless in a van) and thousands line up every day at shelters because they don’t know when and where they will get their next meal. The only thing that is constant is change. If we don’t learn from the mistakes of the past, we are doomed to repeat them.