Our Children Deserve Safe Communities And Lifeguards At Swimming Pools
By Betty Jean Grant
Betty Jean Grant
This past Sunday, while this writer was online before getting ready to go and have fun at the final 2025 Pine Grill Reunion in MLK Park, I came across a FB post made by a mother who is missing her son so much. My sincere condolences to her and her family. The hashtag she used is #Forever 14. It really broke my heart when someone responded that “the killing must stop.” That was the moment when I found out that this young boy was a victim of the senseless violence that has been in our community for decades!
Community, there are many families suffering because of the cancer of senseless gun violence that has taken the lives and dreams of so many young black boys, who will either, never have children, or live to see them grow up. What is so valuable to those who are willing to forever destroy families, or risk going to prison for the rest of their lives? Surely, I hope it is not the money, a woman or a misguided sense of pride, envy, jealously or hate that makes no sense at all.
Are we African American mothers doomed to bury too many of our teen age boys while mothers in other races or ethnic groups, are attending their sons’ college graduations or wedding receptions? What will it take for our young men to put down the guns and multi-generational grudges and start to live in peace and harmony with all, including some of those who may have wronged us in the past?
We cannot heal until we let go of the unhealthy relationships and negative thoughts and behaviors that have tethered our community and our people to a disunited past. These anti-loving behaviors should be the focus of our community’s burials, not the sad remains of our precious, young boys and men.
Postscript:
Before I submitted this Op-Ed to our media outlet, I found out that Buffalo Mayor Chris Scanlon had ordered the Swimming pool at the JFK Community Center closed due to the lifeguards assigned there believ ing that their safety was compromised by all the street fights that were hap pening there. Wow, what a price the children and the Ellicott District have to pay on some of the hottest days around these parts. This is because a few uncaring and undisciplined youths decided to use the swimming pool area as some kind of impromptu fight arena.
Of all the places they could have pick to prove whatever it is they are trying to prove, they could have gone somewhere else—like maybe their own back or front yards—to conduct their business. We are having mul tiple days of weather in Buffalo hit ting the upper 80s or more. What we won’t have, unless the Ellicott District Councilmember and the commu nity’s leadership convince the mayor to reconsider his decision, is a nice place for those neighborhoods to cool off. Hopefully, we may see a group of trained and certified city employees who are lifeguards and who are not afraid to do their jobs, step up, so that our children, who are already denied much, will end their summer vacation on a positive note.