30 Mar Khalid’s Corner: I Speak for Them

Wisdom from Community Leader, Khalid Elahi

I am the voice for all the brothers that don’t have a voice. Maybe they are in the bowels of one of these prisons, confined to a cell for a long period of time or for the rest of their life. Or maybe they are underground in a hole with six feet of dirt on top of them.

I speak for them! I say what I know they would say if they were here.

They would tell you to live instead of die. They would tell you that all that the street mentality leads to is a dead end. They would tell you it’s not worth the inhumane treatment that you receive once your feet touch the ground of one of these prisons. The buck-naked strip search is so dehumanizing and mind blowing. You go from thinking you are a boss on the streets to being a first-class slave once you are in their grip.

The brothers in the grave will tell you that it cost about $10,000 to run around and play with guns in the streets, or to be in the way in the streets, because when you get killed, that’s how much it costs to have a funeral for you.

If you don’t have that type of money, why would you put your people through that stress to try and come up with that type of money, on top of the agonizing grief that they already have?

This is why I write from time to time because I am the voice for people that don’t have a voice.