“It takes a village to raise a child”

– West African Proverb (not Hillary R. Clinton)

The Village Keepers

The vanguard of our community

Keepers of the faith

Keepers of houses

Houses built upon racist sands

Houses divided by untreated trauma

Trauma is a sickness that almost seems pathological

Trauma keeps poverty pimps and middle-class madams in business

Business as usual is to use the people

Business in our community is often illegal

Illegal business controls America according to KRS-1

Illegal activity is a ploy to fast-track criminalization

Criminalization all too often derails the matriculation of our youth

Criminalization justifies poor peoples’ victimization by law enforcement

Enforcement of laws to perpetuate the pre-civil rights movement status quo

Enforcement of laws should not dismiss common sense or morality

Morality guides the Village Keepers as they work to promote

Morality and civic responsibility in their community

Community violence is a public health crisis

Community building although necessary can be a long-drawn-out struggle

Struggle according to Fredrick Douglass is a prerequisite of progress

Struggle is the storm that comes before the quiet of peace

Peace is not simply the absence of war

Peace is people harmoniously living together

Together is a term not normally applied to our village

Together we can work to achieve remarkable things

Things material cannot heal things spiritual

Things or rather the lack of money to buy things is called poverty

Poverty is a social disease rarely talked about by politicians

Poverty is transmitted like smallpox in the blanket of de facto segregation

Segregation is so ingrained in American society that we often do it to ourselves

Segregation is not just about housing it’s also about infrastructure and resources

Resources available to the people who need them but are unaware that they exist

Resources are a connection the Village Keepers make for their neighbors

Neighbors need help navigating through their struggles

Neighbors are what make a neighborhood a village or not

Not articles of incorporation nor voting district maps and especially not real-estate firms

Not acting neighborly has become the unofficial code

Code that needs to be switched

Code that has syntax errors and needs a rewrite

Rewrite our community’s narrative

Rewrite laws that defy morality and natural law

Law is attractive to both the just and the unjust

Law and order is code for lock them up

Up in the faces of their neighbors’ good bad and ugly mugs

Up and down the blocks of their village

Village that they call home

Village that they dutifully protect

Protect

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