by Jose Melendez
Cleveland, Oh – Remember how when we were kids, we used to run in the neighborhoods, playing with the other kids “Hide & Go Seek”, Tag football, Baseball, even basketball in the community park. Every single person in your street knew your name and as soon as the sun went down, we knew we had to be home to wash off, do homework, eat something and go to bed. If you disrespected your parents, teachers or your elders, you knew you were in serious trouble. As the years passed and we became professional young adults, independent and parents, life has struck us with a slap of reality that many of us have a hard time swallowing. Our Children safety is jeopardized by violence, bullying, hate crimes, racism and many other crimes in which we become speechless as we hear about them on a daily basis. Kids killing each other, massacres in elementary schools, Colleges even movie theaters. Serial Murders, Kidnappings, hundreds of missing children in Cleveland alone and no one doing anything about it.
It is a fact that crime has always been present in many inner city neighborhoods. It is a fact that the inner city of Cleveland has a high population of Latinos and African American citizens. Fact # 3, the poverty level in these areas are a lot higher than suburbs like Parma, Strongville, Westlake and Rocky River to mention a few. Many say that we are only hearing more about these crimes due to Social Networks and Over exposure of the media. That could be some of it however based on recent police reports Cleveland’s Crime rate has literally doubled and soon to triple from previous years in 2014 alone…. That is an ALARMING rate! But, who do we blame? And what can we do?
Unfortunately at this rate there is very little we can do to stop it, we can only try to find the source, educate those that influence our youth hoping that the Next Generation will keep fighting for peace in our community and schools. As parents we need to recognize that our Generation is killing each other little by little, that many parents don’t focus on their children education and even advise them to stay in blue collar jobs or even worst, fake an illness to collect government assistance instead of motivating education and a pursue of a career. It is time to make the changes necessary so Cleveland can rise to its full potential and be the home of many young professionals, entrepreneurs and creative minds that will put our city in the map. Cleveland is still a very young city, the land of opportunity to many that have a vision and are hungry for success. Unfortunately, it seems like a Death Virus is spreading fast from the inner city throughout suburbs transforming our home into a Valley of Death day in, day out raising the question in many families of, “Should we stay in or start looking at Cities with a lower Crime rate or better and safer environment for our kids?” Then there is the other question in which we lack of many answers, What is our Mayor, Councilman, Police Commander, OUR GOVERNMENT Doing about it? Well my friends, when you find out please let me know, until then, I have two daughters to educate so they can offer their children the same childhood I had and that they may never will.
Change start with us…
Comments
Powered by Facebook Comments
