Girl let me tell you….
When J Cole released his album I almost lost my mind. See, I am a J. Cole fan. He is by far my favorite rapper and I just can’t understand what people can see in other artists. The release of KOD was so timely and relevant that it sent chills through my body. Now, I know that it does not have the club bangers that people are looking for (because being in the club every weekend is clearly an accomplishment) however his intelligence and care for the overall movement of the culture is somewhat unmatched.
Now, let me have a little bit of a confession… I have never smoked weed. Never popped a pill… Never done a line.. I have literally never done any drugs in my entire life. I have been around people who were smoking weed and always played it off like I had to go to the bathroom or something or just flat out said hell no. I don’t like the smell of it & it makes your lips black and my lips are already low key black so I can’t take another hit.
I state my experience with drugs to create a platform for my opinion. Now, we all know that weed being illegal was just for the economy and to hurt minorities. Duh. We also know that the laws concerning crack versus cocaine were simply to incarcerate and dismantle the African-American community… DUH.. Should weed be legal? It sure isn’t hurting anyone and I know. Other things are legal that sure are killing us.. *cough cough* assault riffles, but I digress….
NO matter the history, origins, or laws drugs are hurting our community. Here are some cold hard facts:
1.) Drug overdoses in the year 2016 killed more Americans than the entire Vietnam War did
2.) Opiods now kill more people than Breast Cancer
3.) In the year 2016 roughly 64,000 people died from drug overdoses.
4.) In the year 2018 they are expecting a 19% increase from previous years…..
I don’t know if you understand the severity or not, but drugs are killing us. They are literally stripping us of our existence.
Then this intelligent artists decides to address our issues and places them in plain view. How do we cope with our stress? How do we cope with our pain? In what ways is our society teaching us to deal with our issues? See, we can’t say that we want for our communities to grow and we don’t address things like this. You are gosh darn right KOD is a masterpiece, because even if it stops one person from overdosing or starting down a path of lean, meth, heroin, or any other drug it was successful. It is all fun and games until you lose someone you love to something that could have been avoided…
When you see someone in pain, how do you handle it? How do you extend compassion and your resources to others? (time being a very valuable resource in this case). You see, there are a million and one things that are inflicted upon us, even drugs to an extent, but we have to be very intentional in the ways that we cope with our stress.
If you see your friend starting to go out more, starting to try a little of this and that.... Be sure to be a voice of reason. Now, I am not trying to tell anyone not to have a good time. I am however concerned that our community is already plagued with a million other things trying to break us... I don't want yet another thing having its hands on us. We have to be okay with having tough conversations with the one's we love. We have to intervene. Don't let your desire for temporary peace stop you from saving someone's future. Think. Long. Term.
"I made a G today, yeah but you made it in a sleezy way. Selling crack to the kids...."