Build More Prisons

I'm struggling with something. I've been trying for years to understand what the (National) Urban League and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People actually accomplish these days. So I did what every other logical person in the year 2006 would do. I check out their websites.

Let's start with the Urban League's site. On the homepage, I find something that looks promising: "What are the ABCs of Empowerment?" so I click it and am treated to the following info:

National Achievers Society - Through the generous support of caring people like you, more than 20,000 young people have been inducted into the National Achievers Society, which recognizes and awards middle-school students who excel academically.

Read and Rise - In collaboration with Scholastic, the National Urban League helped launch the Read and Rise initiative to strengthen the reading skills of African-American children - and help them develop a lifelong love of books.

Urban Youth Empowerment Program - This thriving program has helped participants increase their reading and math skills by 40 percent. And 25 percent have earned their GEDs or high school diplomas

So, these are the ABC's? The fundamentals? The building blocks? The foundation upon which our race is grounded? The cornerstone from which the principles of our empowerment will be built?

But wait – a quick diversion. For some reason I clicked a few more places on the website. And now I have enough material for a minor diatribe.

I foolishly clicked my way into the News section of the NUL site (and I mean "News" in the loosest sense of the word, by the way). In any case, the section contains a hodgepodge of poorly written press releases. Of all of the release titles, my eyes honed in on one containing the phrase, "Questionable Tactics Used by Police in Sean Bell Shooting Case." Here is some inane press release (who on earth are the press that are going to release this?? Oh, wait – am I inadvertently giving audience to this article by referring to it??) which I realize in a quick glance contains Al Sharpton's name within the text. On that basis alone, I KNOW the article is a must-read because it includes a reference to a man who sports a pompadour in 2006.

Sean Bell, a 23-year old gun-toting-crack-selling miscreant, was partying with a bunch of his friends at a Queens, NY drug trafficking operation masquerading as a strip club. He was to be married the next day to the mother of his child (a refreshing change – marriage in the 'hood). Instead he and 2 of his friends were shot by undercover cops. Sean was killed & his friends were hospitalized. Sean and his injured buddies were unarmed. Apparently, at least Sean was legally drunk. Allegedly, after they left the club the police approached their vehicle and the young men tried to run them over. Unquestionably, 50 rounds were fired by the police.

So here comes Al Sharpton and every other We-Shall-Overcomer protesting, marching and screaming police brutality, racism, conspiracy, etc.

Give me a break. THE IDIOTS WERE TRYING TO RUN OVER THE POLICE. They clearly wanted to DIE! Can we just acknowledge the inevitable and build enough prisons for the 75% of black men who belong in prison, wait for them to do something stupid and then just throw them in and lose the key? I don't care if we build more prisons than schools – all it means is that more black men belong in prison than school. What's so wonderful about all of those young criminals that makes us want to save them? Why do we spew all of this it-takes-a-village-to-save-the-illiterate-child-of-a-crackhead-mother rhetoric when we truly know we can't undo all of the bad that the child's mom, Quanzanisha, and the absentee father (if Quanzanisha actually knows who he is) have done?

All of the Sean Bell's are going to be dead or in prison before they're 40, so why bother constructing all the safety nets that we know won't work? Yes, let's empower the children and adults that want to be saved, but seriously, can we stop wasting time, money and energy on people who have proven that they're only interested in ignoring the laws of this land? Can someone please give Al Sharpton something else to do with his time – like open up a beauty school since the brotha's hair looks better than mine?

So, later this week I'll check out how the Triangle Urban League is progressing on the ABC's…I'm prepared to be underwhelmed.