Where are the Good Men (Part 3)

The Daily Demise


Philadelphia holds the collective of sorrow and sensationalized promise; they are intertwined in conflict. The ideal is conflicting with the unfair. It’s a war my dad has fought my entire life. His anxiety has always been unmistakable, evident in his due diligence to overprotect. It was never uncommon to view his vehicle; windows up, seat cocked back, engine running. I would arrive from my underground commutes after a late work day. Sure enough, the 35-year policeman who has seen way too much would be waiting to drive me… three blocks to the house. Even then, I knew I was a blessed man. It was almost embarrassing.


When I finally relocated to Jersey, his eyes said everything; he was overjoyed, he fought the good fight. He would come over to my new crib, no furniture whatsoever. And he’d sit on a crate and sing tohimself. He even smiles. My dad is a good man.

I think his greatest fear was burying me. He recounted countless chronicles of dashed potential; young men who looked just like me, talent overflowing like your Thanksgiving dinner plate, vital and vivacious, ready and willing to conquer the earth. He always reminded me of the drive-bys, the stabbings, and robberies gone wrong; bullets shattering the brains of good young men in the wrong place at the wrong time. He went overboard in trying to prevent it. Lucky me, I’m still breathing.

But I hate how these young men get lost in the clouds of administrative selfishness and misplaced sociology. They were lost in juked homicide statistics, a forgotten paragraph in the daily news. They never even make the paper.

Where are the good men?


Some of them you can find within the countless stories of arguments gone bad, young guys wearing clothes that looked too nice, brothers finding interests in the wrong women, men who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.


Since 1990, Philly statistics say approximately 1,398 men of African descent have been murdered. And I’m only talking about reported homicides. That number is probably well over 2,000. My point is that everyday; a future husband and father is killed. On a daily basis, our future protectors and providers don’t make it. The fact that women outnumber men is not some cosmic coincidence. God provides enough men for women. Why they are dying so quickly and so young… that is another story I still don’t understand.


Stuff like this really bothers me.



Next – Where are the Good Men? (Part 4)