dope girls.
in streetwise terms, the word dope only means one thing: the illegal, illicit shit. usually coke or heroin. it's the norm to be a dope girl nowadays. you have a kid or two. job corps really didn't do for you what you thought it would. that welfare-to-work medical assistant training is fine but the pay caps out at $32K per year depending on where you live -- and if you've done welfare-to-work, you probably have babies to feed. so what's a girl to do?
you start pushing weight, or boosting & selling the hot shit on the street. or, you get two jobs -- maybe three -- so you can handle your business.
i'm not saying that this is what happened to gina hunt & andrea yarrell & their children, but damn if it doesn't seem that way. i'm not okay w/ this shit. it bothers me to no end that they were targeted for robbery and killed over some weed & money. i'm fucked up about the comments ppl have made as to the whys of these murders. i'm not okay with pointing my finger at any woman who seems to have chosen to push weight (or strip or prostitute or do any of those "bad" things) so she can maintain a fucking roof over her fucking head. i'm not gonna knock anybody because i know for a fact that in the past 2 years i've been so desperately broke that i wondered if selling weed was a better idea than dayjobbing it. no lie. & heaven only knows if i'll find myself there again. who knows if any of us will be in that position? over and over again, ppl are saying it's all about what the mothers did before that point. my god, is it really like that? you mean to tell me that before the killer shot that he couldn't have decided to do something else? he couldn't just walk out? what the fuck? but i guess if their house had been mistaken for a different house, it'd be okay. these girls weren't euologized as ph.ds or neurosurgeons -- cuz rich motherfuckers get into drug shit too -- so i'm under the impression that just maybe it wasn't about the fun or glamor of selling dope. i'm pretty sure that these women knew that it's not cute out here -- it weapons were found in the home, they probably knew what the norm is. there's no honor among thieves, obviously. shooting babies? for what?
my heart's broken by shit like this. i understand that murder is par for the course, and i know that folks are transitioning at what seems like an alarming rate. but the way this shit went down really breaks my heart. sometimes i understand why so many folks say "some days it doesn't pay to wake up black." apparently, it doesn't pay to wake up female, mothering, black in this country.
fuck. what is wrong with people? these cowards won't even admit to who shot whom. pointing fingers and laying blame at others' feet, like that shit's gonna help shit. so damaged. so damning.
may these lives be lost not in vain, but to teach valuable lessons to those who hear of the events. may there be rightful, righteous justice visited upon the heads of the killers. may the families of the lost/ loved ones be comforted & edified by the outpouring of sincere support from wherever it comes. it's not often that a mother or father has to bury a child or even a grandchild -- but i pray that those left behind are able to heal.
i don't even know what else to say. peace to the mothers & children.
4 comments:
You're right this is awful. And because they are understood as "less than" as "bad" girls, many will not mourn their loss. But what is that saying? Something like: We are only as good as how we treat those understood as the least valuable among us? Something like that, I think. Who decides whether their lives were more or less worthy? Or the lives of their children?
shit.
first off, i think that mofos who wanna make blanketed comments about "choices" either (a) know they have something or someone to fall back on if their shit falls apart and/or (b) ain't got babies to feed. end of story.
that said, there was a time when you didn't mess with babies. just wasn't done. this shows that the rules have changed--and not for the better. to me, the only way you could look at a baby and shoot her is because no one ever loved you or valued your life. and that in and of itself is a tragedy.
today at work we got into a discussion of white guilt and black anger...and i was saying just as it's totally pointless for guilt-ridden whitefolks to walk around thinking blk ppl are wonderful and courageous just for taking in air, it's equally destructive for us to keep manifesting our our ancestral anger and pain in negative ways towards one another.
redirect that shit to those individuals and institutions that TRULY deserve it. we gain nothing by killing ourselves.
may they rest peacefully in the arms of the egungun. ase.
Arrived via Feministe.
This post was moving, and ever so true. I wish I could add something more significant or meaningful than that, but I'm only middling eloquent on my best days.
Instead of crapping all over these women what we should be doing is critiquing a system that makes women have to make these choices in the first place. I will say unequivocally there is nothing I would not do to feed my kids and keep a roof over their heads. If I had to sell my body or drugs so be it. But this is something no mother should have to resort to
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