I want to begin this week’s column by thanking the readers and supporters of The Gantt Report. I truly appreciate your long time and dedicated readership.
Sadly, this may be the final time The Gantt Report will appear in newspapers and media outlets that do not value what is possibly the most widely read opinion column written by an independent Black journalist.
I also want to thank the media outlets for the time and space given to me to make Lucius Gantt a name that is known locally, statewide, nationally and internationally but times have changed.
Writers and media owners cannot continue to inform and educate its readers unless we work together to sustain each other.
TGR will still appear in selected Black media sources but not all. Several will receive legal notices in the near future to prohibit them from publishing copyrighted columns.
With that said, enjoy today’s column!
The Holy Bible says we will reap what we sow. If you plant an apple seed you can’t expect the tree that will result from the planting will be a banana tree!
I’m so sorry and offer my sincere condolences to all of the individuals and families that have been victims of violence in recent days but oftentimes violent actions are followed by violent responses.
In other words, life is like a double edged sword! When you do things or say things to hurt someone you just might hurt yourself!
When some Republican members of Congress were engaged in a peaceful practice for an upcoming annual softball game between Republicans and Democrats, a man opened fire on the group and seriously injured some Republican politicians and also some African American security officers that were with them to protect them.
After the despicable attack members of both major political parties joined in saying, “When one of us is attacked, it is an attack on all of us!”
Okay, but I say, an attack on anybody is an attack on everybody!
When unarmed Black motorists are shot and killed, the victims are demeaned and the perpetrators are honored and praised!
Everybody has sympathy for politicians that are shot but very few people have sympathy when children and teenagers of color are shot and African American senior citizens are shot, tased, beaten, kicked and thrown down on concrete sidewalks!
Yes, life is like a double edged sword.
When you go out of your way to oppose reforms in gun laws, when you take tax dollars to finance the militarization of local law enforcement, when you encourage closet klansmen, neo-nazis and skin heads to throw peaceful protestors out of public political events and when you contribute to and vote for politicians that body slam reporters for merely asking a question, that violent sword can cut you too.
Now, Black people, when police, deputies and other local lawmen get your tax dollars to buy more guns, more armored vehicles, more tasers, more tear gas, more shields and build and finance more private prisons to incarcerate people for non-violent offenses who do you think they use all of that stuff on?
They use those things on you!
If crime is most rampant in Black neighborhoods it is because that is where the disadvantaged, the jobless, the homeless, the drug addicted, the mentally impaired, the exploited and the oppressed people live.
Money should be put in Black communities to provide alternatives for people that have fewer alternatives.
A hungry man is an angry man!
Black people are hungry for food but also hungry for jobs, hungry for a good education, hungry for affordable health care, hungry for better opportunities, hungry for equal rights and hungry for justice.
When you plant ideas, thoughts, policies, legislation and attitudes about violence, violence can grow around you!
Life actions and behaviors are like double edged swords that cut, stab and slash in every direction! (Buy Gantt’s latest book, “Beast Too: Dead Man Writing” onAmazon.com and from bookstores everywhere. Contact Lucius at www.allworldconsultants.net. And, if you want to,“Like” The Gantt Report page on Facebook.)
Lucius is a contributing columnist to NNPA newspapers around the nation, and the author of “Beast Too: Dead Man Writing,” available on Amazon.com and from bookstores everywhere.