Transcript from My 2 Minutes #Ourmarch #Marchon

A MESSAGE TO YOUNG BLACK MALES Almost everyday we hear of a young black male dying or going to prison. Too often after the young black male is captured the ending result is a sentence handed down so far in the future that we cant even imagine it coming. Too often when young black males go to home after school they are the ONLY man in the house! Too often after a divorce or parents split, because adults can't get along or one party wants to hurt the other the children fall by the wayside. Too often while being a boy, forced to be in the position of a man they're reminded that they're just like the father they don't know and they'll never anount to anything. Too often they come to school after a long night of getting their brothers and sisters ready for school, or perhaps they had a game over the weekend and nobody came or they slept on the couch or arent performing their best and before the end of day they have a referral and this is an undending cycle. Too often they walk down the street and are profiled and criminalized for their locks of hair, baggy clothes or even a hoody. Too often young black males are filled with hopes and dreams of running a ball rather than reading a book. Too often we turn on the tv and open magazines and they are portrayed as thugs or a threat to society. Too often they are pulled over and frisked for simply being black. OR shot and killed at a gas station because a white man thought his music was too loud. And with all of this 50 years after M.L.K. Had a dream, we turn on the news and see a young black male who was truly the victim be shot and killed and his killer go free but they don't quite understand because they're brother is serving life for the same thing. Too often we are firing teachers, closing schools and building prisons for those kids we determine will fill them based on their test scores. Too often clubs, parties, malls and football games are at capacity but noone is at the PTA meetings, or in line to vote at the polls. Too often we hear the statement "There are more black males in prison, than in college" Here in Florida there are over 100,000 people incarcerated, 93% of them are male. 48% of them, look like me. Where I'm from Jacksonville, Florida (Duval County) home of tough state attorney Angela Corey, we are the second county out of 67 for convictions. Too often when these young men are released they can't find a job and aren't given a second chance so they are forced to take chances to survive. And after serving 30-40 years for a crime they committed when they were 18, the parole board STILL won't give them a chance. Black men I believe in you and you are more than what you are portrayed to be. To every young boy or girl in a cell P.S. Never Give Up Hope.