'You keep runnin' them streets': The third option

“If you keep runnin them streets, you’ll either end up dead or in jail.”

Raise your hand if you’ve heard this before.  (Raises Hand)

The problem with this threat….?  The third, and most likely, result is missing. 

The third option is generational poverty.  We spend so much time in the streets destroying our credit, leaving lapses of time blank on a mediocre resumes, drinking, smoking, having a good time and never thinking about the future.

So when we hit 25 and realize we’re not dead or in jail, we look at our lives and can’t really tell the difference. We’re in jail to debt, past evictions, stacking cost of court fees and two baby mamas or daddies.  We are dead to politicians that claim to defend us, churches that claim to pray for us, and black leadership whose only desire is to pretend we don’t exist.