Commentary And Insight From New Jersey's Native Son - Brother Umar Muhajjir of ENDEP ENTERTAINMENT
My eyes are wide open for the first time in my life. I understand the lives of ordinary people and the harm I'd done while engaging in criminal behavior and destroying our neighborhoods.
For as long as I can remember, Black men have had no trust in the one place we should have felt the most comfortable, home. The cities we lived in most of our lives usually do us the most damage. The Police officers we've grown up with are usually the ones stalking and harassing us daily, and the people we call our neighbors look at us as a threat and typically harbor secret animosity. I can start that way, and I know people think they understand the direction of my article, but no, you're mistaken. We, as Black men, have brought this behavior on ourselves.
Between mental health issues and the lingering effects of Jim Crow laws, we weren't taught how to treat the next Black man with genuine, neighborly love. The system taught us that there were classes of Black depending on how much money we made or the color of our skin. Still, instead of abolishing those heinous thoughts along with the Jim Crow laws, we began to adopt the same theories into the natural folds of our lives, so instead of seeing another Black man as our brother, we see them as a threat. Robberies, Murder, and all violent crimes continued to rise in Black communities throughout the decades following the ending of slavery until now when the Black-on-Black crime rate was at least 50x the rate pre-Emancipation Proclamation.
I have so much hope that the American Black Man will not continue to be the pariah of our nation. One day, we will unite and walk the same roads civil rights leaders of our past, such as Dr. King and Malcolm X, wanted us to discover and gain control of a nation we built from the ground up. We have to eliminate the hatred we have in our hearts for our Black brothers; this is the only way for us to not only climb our way out of the trench the American government has deemed worthy of us but also reach a helping hand down and help the next Black man out. I vow from this day forth that instead of hurting my Black brother to help in any way possible, I will be the first of many to help mold the next generation of Black men.
We are the descendants of Kings, the discarded vertebrae of the nation, and we are Black, and if this article reaches just one other like-minded individual, I can sleep better knowing that this article was a job well done.
By Umar Muhajjir
Courtesy of ENDEP ENTERTAINMENT
