A hip hop artist who I listened to in my teenage years was tragically murdered in Los Angeles, California last week. Known to the world as PnB Rock, but to his family and friends as Rahkim Hasheem Allen, he was simply eating a meal when a man came in and shortly ended the life of the rapper. This, unfortunately, is not the first time that a hip-hop artist’s life was ended by gun violence on the west coast.

            New York Rapper, Pop Smok,e was shot and killed Feb. 19, 2020 during a home invasion. Both of these artist’s death came after their location was posted on social media. Nipsey Hussle was a role model for me as he rapped and talked about ways for the black community to obtain wealth and ownership in a world where these things aren’t meant for us. He was killed outside of his own clothing store in South L.A. in March of 2019. Tupac Shakur, in Las Vegas, and The Notorious B.I.G., Christopher Wallace, in L.A., were murdered in the late 90s, and their cases are still unsolved.

All these men were 30-years-old and younger. The average life expectancy in the United States is 77.3 years old.

These men had reached a point in their life where they were successful in the industry they worked hard to be in and didn’t even get to enjoy the fruits of their labor. Because of what? Negative emotions like jealousy, envy, and hatred. It breaks my heart to see my brothers and sisters die because of unnecessary violence.

Some may think that someone dies every day, and that might hold true. That doesn’t change how I feel about Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor, Emmett Till, Malcom X, Fred Hampton, and many others that had their physical forms taken away. All I can wonder is – when will this stop?

What will it take to save the lives of my people?  When will we stop having to worry about our loved ones leaving the house?

Just the other day, my mother called me and told me that there was a shootout in front of where she lives. I have two younger sisters and a younger brother. Right before it started to happen, my brother left to go to the store. I was not even there and that’s probably what make my heart sink into my stomach.

People shouldn’t have to lose their lives over materialistic objects like money or jewelry. Killing is meant for war. The battlefields are where tactics to end lives should be used, not in the streets where kids play. Not on the roads that families cross. Not in the homes that a mother, father, and child lay their heads.

This has been on my mind lately and I felt the need to get this off my chest. Death has been one issue that has scared me my entire life. As a kid, I used to have nightmares about someone trying to end my life. It seems that my nightmares are not confined to just my mind anymore. Day by day it becomes more of a reality that one has to face. Even though death is unavoidable, why should we face it so soon?

The day and age doesn’t seem to help. The society we live in makes this seem so regular that people have become desensitized to it. There are countless videos on the internet of men and women dying. You could watch the life leaves someone’s body. Does that seem normal to you? Does that seem ethical? As much as it was talked about, I couldn’t bare to watch George Floyd get killed by those police officers.

Sometimes I wonder why people are more prone to pull out a phone and watch rather than help a fellow human? We are too often we observing history than making history.