Posted on 12/30/2017 8:37:20 AM PST by Olog-hai
In an alley where a teenager became one of Baltimore’s latest bodies to fall, Erricka Bridgeford whispered prayers and directed smoke from burning sage in a gathering intended to transform spots where people are slain into a kind of sacred ground.
The spiritually minded activist began to cry, letting her tears fall on asphalt where the 17-year-old boy she didn’t know was fatally shot the night before. She called out “You matter! You matter!” in a raw voice that came from somewhere deep inside her 5-foot-2 (155-centimeter) frame.
Over the past year, the African-American woman from West Baltimore has become the city’s clearest voice calling for people to lay down their weapons. A professional conflict mediator, she’s the main organizer behind “Baltimore Ceasefire,” a citizen-led effort to reverse one of the worst homicide rates in the United States. […]
Baltimore has seen 343 homicides so far this year, only one less than 2015’s 344 killings. The number was 318 in 2016.
While deadly violence has plagued swaths of the mid-Atlantic city for decades, Baltimore has been in the throes of a crime surge since 2015, when the homicide rate spiked after the city’s worst rioting in decades and the arrest of officers involved in a police-custody death. The city also is hobbled by the opioid crisis, with 694 overdose deaths in 2016. …
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
I think that Baltimore needs new leadership. With adequate leadership, you wouldn’t have people trying to invoke ancient power and healing practices because of the ineptness of the people with official power. She’s just trying to work with the hand she was dealt, and is doing so with considerably more imagination than most.
You can add the WIC (Welfare Industrial Complex (Goldman Sach/JPM, etc.)) to the list.
Hah! Maybe we'll get lucky. Maybe C'thulhu will rise from the deep and eat Baltimore.
Hey, C’thulhu may be a monster of utmost depravity, but he’s not THAT stupid.
There's still time.
Maryland “Freak State” PING!
An ad came on the radio today.
A man was saying “I wear a tie and jacket because my father wore a tie and jacket. He taught me about manners and appearance. Today kids have only rappers, drug dealers and thugs in their homes.”
He wants to give kids someone else to look up to.
I thought “good luck with that” because black kids are being beaten up for studying hard because that is “acting white.”
Liberals should be burned at the stake for what they have done to society and black families in particular.
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