I know where the kids are, I just can't find the Village!

Bang, Bang! As sudden as those sounds are heard, lives are taken! No, these are not sounds delivered by police officers in some random shoot-out on Detroit streets. These are not sounds of the latest video game! These are the sounds that tear families apart; sounds that kill unclear dreams; sounds that we've grown accustomed to in our neighborhoods; sounds that the media won’t let us forget, and shouldn’t!

Over the past week numerous shootings have taken place in our Public School system. It is kind of an eerie feeling, considering I’m no longer in that system, yet very much a product of that very system and some of the same things are still happening to this day! Students committed the shootings against other students! Whatever the reason behind the conflict it can’t account for the need to senselessly seriously injure someone or take that person’s life. As I try to buy into the notion that “The children are our future”, I’m somehow at a loss when our children decide to kill their own future by such careless acts.

As if the city of Detroit doesn’t have enough things on its plate, now we must once again, look into matters. As I was leaving high school the administrators were just beginning to place metal detectors in the schools, so I never had the feeling of being unsafe! They began to increase security by supplying schools with more Public Safety Officers. Apparently none of these things seem to be enough to stop a group or an individual that wants to harm someone else. A walk to or from school has become a greater struggle with predators attempting to harm our young ladies. Our school system is already struggling with academics, while excelling at athletics. For these children, our future, to have to endure so much just on their journeys to and from their learning institutions, it is a wonder why we are not behind even further when compared to other school districts.

With all the things that make raising children a challenge else where, Detroit has a seemingly equal if not more difficult task. Yet, as shown by some of the Public Schools successes, all is not lost! However, we appear to be too far removed from reality and have become to apathetic to truly understand and accept the challenge placed before us as a community. Yeah, I’m thankful for those activists that fight the good fight and remind us that there is far much more that needs to be done! I’m thankful for those students who at time put the adults in their places, by letting us know that all is not lost! That all kids are not bad so we can give credit when credit is do; and to those who fall short, so they can remind us, that we’re not as good as we think we are. The all to familiar saying goes, “It take a whole village to raise a child”, and I guess I’m still waiting for the village to take action instead of sitting on our hands!

As hard as it may seem to outsiders, Detroiters would love to have a school system that it can be proud of. We would love to send our sons and daughters to a school that educates more than it police’s! We would love to have a system that utilized the financial and non-financial resources with a sense of knowledge and understanding. Today, Detroit is struggling with the recent violence in our schools, but if we only take notice now, then we fail our future, our children.