The Oakland streets claimed its 99th homicide, and all Mayor Brown can do is place blame on ex-felons. It appears that Brown has run out of ideas on how to help make his city safe. Mayor Brown solution of placing blame on a convenient target, ex-felons, is just that convenient. 

The victims’ families have had rallies, protests, and wrote letters to City Hall for solutions to stop the killings long before Oakland reached number ninety-nine homicide. No matter what your positions is, local, state and federal governments cannot seem to address this issue of killings. 

Our present government cannot even address the present issue of how to get oil from the Middle East, except by means of war and killings. And this government cannot address what has been going on over the past twenty years, the wars that have been going on right here in the streets of the United States. 

Young rappers wrote strongly about it in the late eighties and nineties. African American leaders have been preaching about it just as long. The only solutions that lawmakers and politicians come up with are ways to produce legal slavery (i.e., three strikes law, proposition 21). 

The problem went into full gear when Ronald Reagan took office. One, the elimination of programs and funding for low socioeconomic areas, organizations and schools. Two, the removal of factories and plants where laborers could reap the benefits of living middle class lives. By doing these things the nation was preparing for the outcome. 

Now, many African Americans are not doing well in our educational systems. They are being schooled to be the workers in your stores and office buildings. Therefore, they are making minimum wages and have to work at least two jobs. Some are under-employed and do not have the time to seek out resources that maybe available for them because these menial jobs threaten to write up or fire them. So we have children raising themselves. 

African Americans are learning how to survive these awful life stressors and juggle through. But resentments and hatred are engulfing our streets because of the struggle. Life isn’t fair to most, and many have nothing to smile about. Many people live like robots with foolishness from mainstream to entertain them. Brainwashing the mind to accept the nonsense of values and morals demonstrated by way of the mass media.

Hey, Jerry Brown, then who was to blame for the tragedy at Columbine High? 

Another major change that took place during Regan era was the flow of narcotics that reached the poor neighborhoods throughout the United States. Here, the rich man's high has now become the poor man’s dream. The poor man dreams of economical gains. I guess we can thank the Bush’s and Noreiga’s, etc., for that.

Cocaine went down from $60,000 a kilometer to $16,000, during the Reagan Administration. Guns increased and were prevalent in urban neighborhoods. Teenaged kids were riding in limousines to funerals of their peers. Dysfunctionalism became the norm, and an education or goals of becoming employed became less desirable.  As this new wave of the drug culture went into full force, our culture was targeted to become its salespersons.

During the Reagan Era, unemployment was high among African American families. During the Reagan Era, grandparents became parents, and babies were making babies-teen pregnancies. During the Reagan Era, homicides, suicides, rapes, incestuous assaults, high school dropouts increased, and, sadly, parents became afraid of their own children, and some children had no parents, thanks to the drug epidemic. 

All the while this was going on, architects were designing new prisons and jails. Small towns planned to build their own prison, privately owned. The police forces increased and more Correctional officers were being trained. Prisons would have its place in the stock market. And policies would be designed to enforce slave labor, while policies were made to increase poverty and ignorance.

Some of the baby boomers of the eighties are in the streets today, thugging, killing, stealing, and selling drugs. Some have no awareness of what a functional family is, what love is, or what a goal is. Some grew up feeling they are owed something for growing up so hard. And don’t pretend that you don’t where I am coming from, because you have been conditioning us for failure for centuries. Just check out the environment in the Black communities, and you will find a liquor store on just about every corner. You know the ones, when you walk in to pay for an item, and as you look at the salesperson, all you see is alcohol behind him/her, with signs of a female displaying liquor. That is what the children growing up in these neighborhood see, being conditioned to seek out that culture. 

Thanks to plots and plans, we went through and are going through an era, where our youths are not taught how to navigate and negotiate the triple quandary, which are mainstream, minority, and Black cultural. Much nonsense is taught in the schools and displayed by mass media--the new caregivers in this age of technology. 

The schools in the poor neighborhoods do not have the proper funds for strong curricula for our youths. The ones that took advantage of the technology era were Caucasians and Asian. How many Blacks work and live in Silicon Valley? African Americans were targeted to become your legal slaves, and this is why we represent over 89% in the American jails and prisons-genociding progress. 

Mainstream America promotes violence and claims to be peaceful. Mainstream America promotes the deterioration of morality and values. Look at television, listen to the news, listen to the radio, and/or watch some of the cable networks. Sure there are good people in this world, but they don’t all have the power to make things happen.

Our nation is proving to the world that they do not have the capacity to negotiate for peace, but that violence is our answer, in a country that pledges allegiance to a flag, rather than to God; in a country that says prayer shouldn’t happen in schools; in a country, where swearing is rampant on the radio and television, and children are taught that these behaviors are the norm. Now tell me, where are the morals and values these politicians campaign for manifested? 

In this country, the poor are getting poorer, and the rich are getting richer, all at a price. A price were prepared for. This present government let it be known in uncertain terms that they would destroy anyone who gets in its way.

From slavery up to the civil rights era, African Americans stuck together. There was a real sense of family even through the hard times. There was a real sense of unity and community during those times. Since the Reagan era, our families became divided (some) because we did not know what we were up against when crack was introduced. We didn’t get help until the epidemic reached mainstream middleclass families; such as in the days of prohibition of alcohol. 

Mayor Jerry Brown wants to blame ex-felons, and he isn’t the only one. The media flashed his words to brainwash us and condition us to believe that Blacks are violent people. Seeing that his words came after the 99th victim was gunned down in a Black neighborhood. 

The government, politicians, policy makers, and big corporations need to be checked. Their greed is to the destruction to civilization. They along with the government are the ones who took away programs, workshops, employment, funding, support and businesses, which were once available to help those, who were from low social economic backgrounds. 

All of the callous actions since Reagan have a rippling effect that has been deteriorating and genociding our culture for years. And all Mayor Jerry Brown can do is blame ex-felons for the conditions that some of Black Americans are in, blaming them for the killings, when politicians have been selling us out and killing us off for decades. 

The politicians offer no solutions that will benefit the Black community. The citizens of Oakland have been demonstrating for a change, and Jerry Brown's solution is to get in contact with the governor, etc., to put a stop to letting out ex-offenders from incarcerations? That is sad, and it represents a solutionless mayor! 

We deserve more than the political blame card. We can do that ourselves. Mayor Brown and his peers should get together and come up with real solutions, and not convenient blame.