The city of Brotherly Love Needs and Enema...
A woman is walking home from work, it is light out. She is a professional in the Fairmount area of Philadelphia, four blocks from where I live. She is married, walking with her laptop bag and pocketbook. Fairmount is a great area, young professional people who care about their neighborhood, their homes, their families.
She walks along the tree lined street lined with well kept row homes. I imagine she is humming, or perhaps enjoying the walk.
A car follows her slowly down the street. She notices and walks faster, the car keeps pace. It pulls ahead of where she is walking and a black man jumps out, hits her, grabs her bags. In the struggle she is caught up with her bags and he drags her to the car. She can't get loose.
She is screaming, a woman in the car is yelling "Shoot the bitch, shoot the bitch" he pulls out a revolver, puts it to her chest and pulls the trigger.
I imagine Aqila in place of that woman, walking in the well kept neighborhood of Fairmount, she walks along the tree lined street with well kept row homes. She is humming along with her iPod. I imagine her with her bags, I imagine a car pulling alongside her. I feel an intense anger growing in me, I feel my jaw tighten, my fist following suit. I feel an anger I haven't felt. My eyes well up, but not with tears of sadness, but tears of anger. I feel like my body is boiling over.
In the nieghborhood next to me a pregnant woman was shot six times while she was in a parking lot of a fast food restaurant, no one knows why.....no, someone knows.
Even living in a safe neighborhood does not guarantee safety. I don't understand it, I find myself looking at crime reports more and more, maps of where murders occur in the city. Perhaps it is because of recent movies, perhaps it is because I am thinking more and more about my future, perhaps it is because I am just getting fed up with the lack of respect for one another.
As I walk through the streets I wonder how many people I pass are murderers, I wonder how many people I bump into have a gun on them.
In 2007 Philadelphia had 392 reported homicides, in 2008 332 reported homicides, politicians shake hands and congratulate each other on the decrease, smiles, photo ops, pats on the back, return to safety of suburban home.
Woman shot in chest in broad daylight. Politicians are nowhere to be found. Photo op of crime, no one shakes hands, no safety in these homes. Husband of wife is not interested in the 10% drop in murder, he is interested in one murder.
I am beginning to grow angry at the crime in this city. No one seems to care, people just seem to accept it. I ask people who grew up here how they deal with it. They just shrug their shoulders as if it is just part of life.
The city needs to be pressure washed, the drug dealing, murdering scum need to be washed away, washed into the gutter where they belong.
This city needs a goddamned Shepherd.
She walks along the tree lined street lined with well kept row homes. I imagine she is humming, or perhaps enjoying the walk.
A car follows her slowly down the street. She notices and walks faster, the car keeps pace. It pulls ahead of where she is walking and a black man jumps out, hits her, grabs her bags. In the struggle she is caught up with her bags and he drags her to the car. She can't get loose.
She is screaming, a woman in the car is yelling "Shoot the bitch, shoot the bitch" he pulls out a revolver, puts it to her chest and pulls the trigger.
I imagine Aqila in place of that woman, walking in the well kept neighborhood of Fairmount, she walks along the tree lined street with well kept row homes. She is humming along with her iPod. I imagine her with her bags, I imagine a car pulling alongside her. I feel an intense anger growing in me, I feel my jaw tighten, my fist following suit. I feel an anger I haven't felt. My eyes well up, but not with tears of sadness, but tears of anger. I feel like my body is boiling over.
In the nieghborhood next to me a pregnant woman was shot six times while she was in a parking lot of a fast food restaurant, no one knows why.....no, someone knows.
Even living in a safe neighborhood does not guarantee safety. I don't understand it, I find myself looking at crime reports more and more, maps of where murders occur in the city. Perhaps it is because of recent movies, perhaps it is because I am thinking more and more about my future, perhaps it is because I am just getting fed up with the lack of respect for one another.
As I walk through the streets I wonder how many people I pass are murderers, I wonder how many people I bump into have a gun on them.
In 2007 Philadelphia had 392 reported homicides, in 2008 332 reported homicides, politicians shake hands and congratulate each other on the decrease, smiles, photo ops, pats on the back, return to safety of suburban home.
Woman shot in chest in broad daylight. Politicians are nowhere to be found. Photo op of crime, no one shakes hands, no safety in these homes. Husband of wife is not interested in the 10% drop in murder, he is interested in one murder.
I am beginning to grow angry at the crime in this city. No one seems to care, people just seem to accept it. I ask people who grew up here how they deal with it. They just shrug their shoulders as if it is just part of life.
The city needs to be pressure washed, the drug dealing, murdering scum need to be washed away, washed into the gutter where they belong.
This city needs a goddamned Shepherd.