Reckoning (eBook)

“1985”
The beginning of the end of the Black community

There’s a saying that says, ‘You have to know where you are to know where you’re going. And to know where you’ve come from to know where you are.’ Those of us who are not familiar with history are destined to repeat it. Which is why I must start in 1985. I was born and raised in Compton, California, and had a front-row seat to the beginning of the end of black families and, by default, the black community. How could I make such a claim? How can I say I was at the epicenter of the beginning of the end, being that I was in Compton, California?

We all know that California, being on the West Coast, along with New York, being on the East Coast, have the ability to set trends. Once those trends are set by the East and West Coasts, no matter the trend or its effects, they spread to middle America. Drugs and crime in the black community, we’re no exceptions to this rule.

The beginning of the end

In 1985, I was in the eighth grade at Willowbrook Junior High School in Compton, California. Rock cocaine was not only introduced to Compton and South-Central Los Angeles but to most black communities. Our neighborhoods were divided into three groups: those who sold rocks, those who smoked it, and those of us trying to stay out of the way of the two groups.

As I was only in the eighth grade, so were most of my peers. There were days when I would be sitting next to a kid in one of my classes and hear by the very next morning that he had been killed. The cause—gunshots. Reason—usually drug- or gang-related activities. And, of course, by the hands of another black man.

By the following school year, the ninth grade, I knew someone in all my classes who was selling drugs, in a gang, or pregnant. That’s right! Fourteen- and 15-year-old kids who were well-known drug dealers or gang members in the community. Often, the two went hand in hand.

How could something like this happen on such a large scale? What does this have to do with black men? What does this have to do with black men and black women not being married or not being able to get married? Thanks for asking. But you must be patient and allow me to set the stage.

Black men took full advantage of a bad situation!

Most wars and other catastrophic events leave behind droves of widows and orphans. This event was no different. Because of the mass incarceration of black men due to drug offenses and gang-related killings, there were large numbers of single black women, adding even more single women to an already absentee father community. With hundreds of single black women, 60% women compared to 40% men, let the pickings begin!

But make no mistakes about it. These men weren’t looking for wives. They only wanted to have sex! Not, let’s see if we can get to the bottom of this to help the black community and help save our young people from the streets. Oh no! No talk about helping their communities! Rather, let’s see who can get the most sex out of the situation. If the woman or girl came up pregnant, deny that the baby is yours and on to the next one you go. That’s right! Lots of black men in the community preyed on the bad situations of the community.

(Starting in the late 60s through the early 70s, black men started threatening to leave black women for white women. To my understanding, the only explanation that they had for leaving black women was white women gave them more bedroom fun. They made no mention of black women not submitting to, or cooperating with their leadership. Their complaint was the lack of oral sex from black women along with not being able to get their women to participate in other sexual positions. Black men really started acting ugly in the mid-80s during the drug epidemic. So, black men abandoning their wives and families is nothing new to the black community.)

I started working a full-time job at the age of 19. During my bus rides, I would overhear black men discussing their sexual encounters with girls as young as 13 years of age! “Hit it and quit it” was one man’s advice to another man when he spoke about having sex with one of his 14-year-old neighbors. They talked about statutory rape as if it was a part of their normal routines! Why didn’t I get involved and try to stop these grown men from speaking this way? Are you nuts? The first and last time I got involved with someone disrespecting young ladies was when I was 16 years old. A few of our neighbors, in their mid- to late-20s, were trying to exchange numbers with a couple of my friends, who were my age. When I intervened, those guys called me everything but a child of God! I felt bad for trying to protect my friends. But I also never got involved again with anything like that until much later in life.

The 20-plus year old drug dealers were impregnating young girls, sometimes as young as 13 years of age. They were also putting the younger boys, as young as 13, up to selling rock cocaine. And as with most criminal activities, lots of these men ended up dead or in jail. The younger guys ended up dead or went to juvie. What about black women and young black girls? With their boyfriends or children’s fathers dead or in jail, it left many of them single mothers.

Finish her! (Black Women)

Then of course came the rappers! The so-called gangster rappers. Black men and young black boys were gunning each other down in the streets, which was bad enough! But various rap groups had to put their thumbs on the scale, especially when it came to the degradation of black women and young black girls.

Inflammatory lyrics, often about women, blasting from car stereos. Black women were already used and abused in the black community! And for those of us with a shred of dignity left, the so-called gangster rappers made sure to step in and knock us down.

The 90s

Sometime around 1981 or 82, I remembered one of my cousins having an adult book in his possession. There were two pictures printed in black ink, a nude man and a nude woman in two different sexual positions. Boys in the neighborhood passed that book around as if there were pictures of real women inside. I didn’t understand how difficult it was to get ahold of nude pictures back then, especially for a bunch of 10 through 12-year-old boys.

By the early 90s, all you had to do was turn on the TV to see half-naked women. Leading the charge with half-naked women strolling across TV in the form of music videos were the gangster rappers. Bouncing cars, bouncing breasts, and bouncing butts—all performed by black women. And of course, right there to capitalize on it all were not only black men, but men of all communities.

What does this have to do with anything, you might ask. Nothing, except a little something called trendsetting. A few women notice that the girls in the videos, who are half naked, are getting lots of attention, and away we go!

Clubbing in the 90s

The first time I went to a club, I was 19 years old. How did a 19-year-old get into a club? After all, don’t you have to be at least 21 to get in? Sure, you must be at least 21 to get in if you’re a five and under (your looks) or a man. But don’t you need an ID? Of course, you do. I had my aunt’s driver’s license. She had her expired license as she and her husband stood in front of me in the same line to get into the club.

I remember it like it was yesterday, the Red Onion in Lakewood, California. Club security looked over the license I gave him with a flashlight, then handed it to a bouncer standing behind him. “We sure have lots of Lizz’s here tonight. And two of you came here together and happened to have the same exact last names and birthdays? What a coincidence,” he said as he gave me the license and stamped my hand to get in. Once we were inside, I noticed right away that the only girls asked to dance were pretty girls, as one would expect. If you were average or under, you had to be near naked to be asked out on the floor.

A couple of years later, when I was 21 years old (in 1993), all the girls had to be near naked to be asked to dance, pretty or not! By the time I was 23 years of age (in 1995), men were no longer asking women to dance. The women had to ask the men for a dance. What’s wrong with asking a man for a dance? Nothing, or so I thought. But there was more to it than that.

What I was seeing was a shift in culture. Black men were reasoning, “Why should all the rappers and thugs have all the fun? Why not keep our mouths shut and blend in? No one has to know we’re not drug dealers or rappers. Dress the part, act the part, show up to their events, and we will have our pick of women to mess over too.” And I wouldn’t understand how big a problem that was until a few years later.

Most of those women who attended rap events, rap video shoots, low rider shows, and other events were girls who usually dressed and behaved like hos. Not every girl at these events was a ho. But you do not get to dress the part and act the part, all while saying you’re not the part (a ho). As all the men attending those events weren’t rappers, drug dealers, low riders, or troublemakers. But of course, both men and women did what they could to blend in and take advantage of loose conduct.

Now these same men and women are in their 40s and 50s, crying foul! Especially these men! They have hijacked a platform created by millennials, YouTube, and taken over the platform. All to cry about still being single and childless in their 40s and 50s. All while attempting to make the case...