I was a child who came of age during the turbulent 1960s and ’70s. Television was relatively new, but it brought into our lives all that America is and could be. Then I went outside and saw my reality. Barren front yards in front of impoverished front doors of my neighbors in Cabrini Green.
My reality looked nothing like what they showed on television. I can recall, even as a child, knowing about the vastness of this country and yet wondering why couldn’t everybody have a cookie cutter nice house with a white picket fence? Why did some of us have to live where we barely were able to survive?
It is very easy for the descendants of an enslaved African to carry forth the ancestral pain. We knew the goodness of people, relatives, friends and neighbors, yet we did not understand why they suffered. Why couldn’t those folks attain good jobs or share in the opportunities of this country? Why was the educational experience limited for them and me? Why did all the opportunities that this land has not be available to me and others because of the melanin in our skin?
Those memories flooded back to me as I watched the news report about the current conflict in the Middle East. I cannot totally imagine the horrors those children and all children who are being bombarded day in and day out, are suffering from. At a very young age, they are losing out on any hopes and dreams. What I do know is that there are villains on both sides of the issue.
How do we tolerate the theft of a child’s future because of conflict and war? How many children are going to be scarred by this for the rest of their lives? Is there any hope for a peaceful resolution so neither child sees the flag of the other side and reacts with anger, fear and hatred?
The Bible has always predicted that the end of the world will start in the Middle East. I hope and pray that this situation is not leading to World War III, which would truly be the end of the world as we know it because of nuclear weapons.
