It is NOT OK Mr. President and Madam Mayor

Mayor Stephanie Blake and President Barack Obama

Today is Thursday, April 30, 2015

Words can hurt you. In the larger world, it frames how people think about you, and it can hurt you in lots of little, subtle ways.   Nathan Myhrvold

Words are really powerful. I don't believe that axiom at all - words can absolutely hurt you. Words can wound. They can do a lot of damage. I think they can do way more damage than sticks and stones. I'll take sticks and stones.  Mary-Louise Parker

Mary-Louise Parker

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As a way to promote self-esteem, many have adopted the position of thinking that "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me."  It is a nice rhyme but if one follows evolved thinking, incidents affecting those individuals  known and personal examples, "words hurt".   What is said by family members, friends, those you interact with everyday and those in position of power can make or break one's self-worth, self-confidence and self-achievement. Words matter.

Words are from perception, right or wrong - as is seen in those given special privileges due to income, family position, education attainment, positions of power, and race.   Implicit and explicit thinking allows individuals to think positive and negative about an event, individual or group.  We see in the marketplace where youth and adults are bullied, bashed, discriminated against, brutalized, disenfranchised and treated less-than creates short- and long-term impact distinctions.  Perception connects to the way we treat one another and definitely what we may say to one another.

Speaking specifically of the negative statements of "thugs", "idiots", "criminals" related to the recent outcry of African American middle and high school students in Baltimore is damaging to discussions and building solutions.  It creates and promote implicit and explicit biases.  The heat-of-the moment explosion should not and can not be diminished to negative terms of demonizing and simplistic determination.  The words "thug", "idiot" and "criminal" speaks to conditions of time and overtime behavior.  That is not why there was an eruption.  The eruption came as a result of neglect by those with power - not addressing, not caring, not showing care, discriminating, disingenuous statements, use and misuse of massive funding planned for, given for to erase Enduring Concentrated Poverty, but given to the haves (Caucasians) with NO CHANGE.  

Are these people called "THUGS", "IDIOTS" and most of all, "CRIMINALS"?  You certainly could make case-after-case, we have actors that daily promote thuggish, idiotic and criminal behavior in our highest offices of government, business and cleric positions.  They have been given a wrongful pass.  Let's get it right.  Let's correct that behavior.  It is NOT OK.

Therefore, for me and mine, "It is NOT OK for  President Barack Hussein Obama,the 44th President of the United States and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake of Baltimore, Maryland OR anyone in authority and/or journalists reporting the news to call the students involved in the melee on Monday in Baltimore thugs, idiots, andcriminals."  NO ONE IS EXEMPT.

By-the-way, the collateral damage from displaced aggression, is a negative result of the boiling over, and perception of helplessness from harm.  It is a cause and effect that one sees when an individual or group of individuals are threatened.  It is also the collateral damage Americans and others justify the killings of war.  The good news, the GREAT news, luckily NO one died as a result of the melee unlike the murder-after-murder of African American males in America. The deep perception and reality in African American neighborhoods.

For African Americans, words have over-and-over prevented us from our true calling, positioning, quality of life and economic development.