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Our Youth Are Destroying Themselves

by Yolanda M. Johnson

It seems as if every time we turn around there is a new fad amongst our youth that is destroying our hope for the next generation. The new drug of choice is “cheese”. No it’s not the cheese that makes our macaroni and cheese to die for. “Cheese” is the mixture of heroin and Tylenol PM. The going price for “cheese” is $2 to $10 dollars.

Let’s talk about the new past time amongst American Youth. It’s called “Fight Clubs”. Now when some hear the words Fight Club they may think of an association to Martial Arts. This is not that club. This club has many cashing in on the video taping of actual fights and street brawls amongst our youth. A suspecting child or teen may walk up to an unsuspecting child or teen and “go for blow” as they are being taped and in turn the tapes/DVD’s are sold via the Internet. This tactic should not be foreign to you. It is especially not foreign if you reside in Northern Texas.

Currently a local radio station (K-104), which plays tops Hip Hop in the Dallas/Forth Worth area, is under fire for promoting such violence. Disc jockeys Skip Cheatham and Cat Daddy are seen in the videos talking to the camera. Skip Cheatham claims he was tricked into the video as he thought it was a rap battle DVD very similar to MTV’s Fight Club. Michael Jackson, age 18, one of four youth arrested on felony charges for the video says that neither DJ was present at any of the fights.

The well-prepared video comes complete with scenes of girls punching each other, a young boy who hits his head on the curb and is continuously beating and other violent scenes and a rap music soundtrack. More arrests have been made since other tapes and staged fights have surfaced.

On Mother’s Day, a Sunday where most churches, preach the praises of the wonderment of Mother’s, pastors spoke about the destruction of our youth instead. One pastor says he feels this outbreak is due to lack of respect for authority and should serve as a wake up call to our community. In all fairness, I have to wonder, what makes this wake up call any different than past wake up calls. Reading various blogs brought me to one that described these actions as a “cult”. Normally when I think of a cult, no offense to anyone, but I think of crazy white folk. I mean come on now, David Koresh and the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, the Heaven’s Gate outside San Diego, California. I associate the word “cult” with words like “devil”, “hell”, and “evil”. We’ll I’ll be the first to say that this “fight club” nonsense is similar to that of a cult. You can’t just read about the stories and gain that type of opinion. You have to actually watch the tapes or portion of it to really understand the seriousness of it. I sat with my mouth wide open as I watched a pregnant girl, who was an innocent bystander from my vocal point as a man twice her size, turned to her and hit her in the face with such force that it knocked her to the ground. I sat with horror as I watched a group of teenagers enjoying an outing at their friendly local McDonalds and a fight erupts; all the while being videotaped. Now I can respect that many don’t agree with my form of discipline. You see, I’m from the old school, you know, the “Mama said knock you out”, era. Some would argue that this is the kind of discipline is why children act the way they do today. I disagree. I feel that society interfering in the manner in which we discipline our kids is part of the problem. And I say part, because there is not any one solution to this problem. But back in the day, Mama and Daddy taught you right from wrong and instilled into you the necessary values and threw in some perks along the way. When you got out of line, which was rarely, because Mama and Daddy was on it, you got knocked out and that was the end of that. Then entered society, community leaders and the government who said that we could no longer raise our children the way we used to. Instead of beating their tails we now had to put them time out. Please join with me in a moment of silence while I take one minute to look dumfounded at this term “time-out”.

Time Out my foot folks! Who thought of this ridiculous notion? Someone who was sick of dealing with their child and sent them to their room and then later got this grand idea to market the term “time out” and make money off of it? Nowadays counselors and religious leaders as well as community leaders tell us we should sit down and talk to our teens, let them voice their opinions, be their friend, treat them like little adults. Umm excuse me. No. Now I’m all for talking to your child, but I’m not their friend. I’m their parent and they are not little adults, they are children. Adults pay their own bills and live in their own houses. I feel when you put a child on your level you’ve already lost the battle. They no longer feel they have to respect you, because hey, after all, you’re equals.

Parents give their children adequate amounts of privacy. One more moment folks. I have to check my mortgage documents. Hmmm. On these loan documents I only seem to see the name Yolanda M. Johnson. No other name do I see. So there is no privacy in my house. If your name is not on the mortgage, anything and everything is subject to search and seizure. This takes me back to the countless children who have carried out and tried to carry out school shootings. We all remember Columbine in Colorado, or Santana in California. In these cases, the children had arsenals in their bedrooms. In their bedroom folks. How in the world do you not know your child has an arsenal in his or her bedroom? I’ll tell you why, because you respect their privacy. And because you respect their privacy, you couldn’t see that little Johnny was one short of a box of Cocoa Puffs and the end result was death for many innocent people. Parents need to wake up. If you’re not going to disciple your children in your own home, no matter which technique you choose, they will definitely be disciplined on the streets and then you won’t have a choice.

So now six teenagers have been arrested in connection with these “fight club” videos. And no folks this is not a racial thing, because days after the Arlington, Texas incident aired, which consisted of mostly black children, another video surfaced of mostly white children. This is not about race anymore. This is about taking our children back. I spent thirty two hours in labor with my first child and ten hours, 11 pounds and a c-section later with my second child, and I’ll be darned if someone ELSE is going to tell me how to raise them. Now, realize this. Once you’ve instilled what needs to be instilled in your child, you let them go. It is then up to them to decide if they want to use it or lose it. I can bet you a higher percent use it than those who lose it.

I sit here and chuckle because I remember a few years ago my daughter who attended private school thought she would challenge me. She was on punishment, but being a single mom and going to school, in addition to working full time didn’t want her off to herself for too long. So I told her she could come into my bedroom with me while I did my homework and watch a little television. I told her to wash her uniform first. And out of nowhere I got the, “hmph”, “sssnt”, “unnn”. Yall know what I’m talking about. So I told her to come here. Now I stand five foot four inches and she stood at that time five foot five inches. I asked her to her face if she had a problem that I could resolve for her, she flared up her nose like her dad does when he’s angry and balled up her fist. Ummmhmm you all know what happened next. Right Hook Sally came out of nowhere and knocked her ego back down to size and her to the floor.

She had been taught in school that if your parent hits you to call the police. She called them. I was beating her when they got there and when they got there I told them to hold on. I brought a bag to the front room and told them, “these are her belongings, feel free to take her.” I told them what happened and they talked to her for a little while alone. Eventually the officer ended up telling her that she should be lucky that she had a parent that cared about her enough to teach her right from wrong and bust their butts to make sure she had the comforts of home. They told her she deserved that butt whippen and if she called 911 for something like this again, they were taking her to jail. My daughter sat there with her mouth wide open in shock. The police didn’t interfere because they knew with my daughter’s current attitude, she would be just another statistic, but I was going to do my best to make sure that she wasn’t.

I was recently doing some research on cults and found a booklet titled “How Cults Seduce and How Marketing Can Learn From Them”. And what I found interesting is that in the section labeled “selecting recruits” Some of the points they use are: Focusing on “who is ready” and not “who they can get” and people who are going though dramatic life changes such as new students, recent divorces and so on. They peg these as “excellent recruits”. It goes on to “Baiting the Hook”, “Love Bombing”, “Matriculation” and so on. If anyone is interested in seeing this, let me know and I’ll send it to you.

However, none of us should be at all surprised, those of us who are Christians and/or believers of the Bible know that these are indeed the end times.

How is everyone doing? Happy belated Mother's Day to all the mothers. This issue of AMAG Online! is a little late so I'll keep it short and sweet. We're talking about the new generation of Fight Clubs and taking a look at a couple of entertainment's new comers.

I'm busy at work on the next action packed issue. Look out for Ms. J's Sports Report. Ooh it's gettin' hot up in here as the NBA Playoffs get closer, who will be in the finals? You'll have to wait and see! I love this GAME!!!!

Until Next Time,

God Bless! ~~Yolanda