Where Do We Go From Here?

My inbox runneth over. For some reason, the message I was trying to convey was somehow lost in translation. My last blog post was almost ten days ago. I had planned on blogging about the city's plan to create a website and the low pay of city employees but, as you all know, other events transpired and I felt compelled t share my opinions on the matter. Now, I generally don't like blogging about events that involve people from my community. Based on past experiences, the posts are taken too literally and I have often times found that I had to seek legal actions because of other's inability to deal with certain things I post. Now don't get ne wrong, there's plenty of people within the white community that detest the things I say but they usually email their threats. Today I made a reference to one of the emails I received. I inserted the phrase because it has been used repeatedly in reference to my blog. Unbeknownst to me, one of my Facebook friends posted the same phrase the day before and thought I was throwing shade towards her family member and that was not the case. Because of the generality of the text, I get accused of speaking about individuals; even when it was not my intention. Lumberton is very small and it seems that everyone is related. It's a wonder than anyone is ever able to find a companion. I find there's a lot of uber sensitive people in Lumberton; especially in the Black community. One of the first things you learn when growing up black is to never talk about a person's mother, pastor or family; not necessarily in that order but you get the picture. Thankfully, the person responded and the matter was quashed. But there was a time when I would have taken the NeNe Leakes approach and be like "I said what I said" andwalked away. But I want to grow. I never know what a person is thinking and social media has the ability to make everyone think they're being read and that's not always the case. However, based on my inbox messages, there are others that are trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill. I have grown to the point that I will apologize when I'm wrong. I will, like I'm doing now, explain my views to offer clarity and in an effort to be fair, I will compromise when necessary. So for those of you emailing and inboxing me, I just want to let you know that it's all good on this end. Now to further explain the intent of my original post. Just a few months back, it was reported on WDAM that a relative was wanted for suspicion of drug sale. It made the news because he was a hometown athlete that everyone was cheering for and I sincerely think that most wanted him to do well. But when the allegations were played out on the news,the crowd that once cheered for him were now ready to witness his downfall. It's amazing the hurtful things people say when they think they have front row seats to witness your demise. I didn't get on social media trying to cut down those that shared their views. I would see the comments and just keep scrolling. And a lot of the same happened in this case and other cases. Seemingly, people love to see you when you're down. A lot was said but I think it's unreasonable to think people are going to be supportive in every situation. They talked when it was my family member and they're going to talk now that it's a member of your family;that's just a fact that we must deal with. Does it mean that we love our family member any less? No. Regardless of the outcome, the lives of four families have been changed forever and this process has only just begun. Truth be told, if our family member had been mmurdered, we would be angry and want justice. It's unreasonable to expect people to refrain from giving their opinion in a case of this nature. You didn't refrain from formulating your opinion when others were in the news so don't expect others to extend a courtesy you were not able to offer whenit was someone else's relative. According to WDAM, the bond for these young men has been setat $1.1 million dollars. Regardless of the opinions we have,they're someone's sons, fathers, brothers, husband and friend. And that was the message I was trying to convey. Overall, this is a tragic situation and we should pray for ALL the families affected by this senseless crime.