Youth gone crazy was the problem. Now what's the solution? HOLD SOMEBODY ACCOUNTABLE AND ENFORCE IT!
Bishop Speaks
Youth Gone Crazy …
Ooowee!
I just don't know, I just don't know.
Who is crazy? That's my question and I ask it again. “Who is crazy?”
Is it the many teenagers that have turned Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights upside down with their madness or is it the residents, business owners and law abiding people who want to sit down and address the madness in a meeting or Community Forum?
Why meet and talk about the problem when, their was no problem like the problem that jumped off at the fourth of July fire works in Shaker, and the street festival that took place at the Coventry Street Arts Fair?
What happened at both events?
Youth gone crazy was the problem. Now what's the solution? HOLD SOMEBODY ACCOUNTABLE AND ENFORCE IT!
The old saying I use often is, “If you don't know where you stand, you'll feel where you'll land.” The many teenagers that took to the streets in Cleveland and Shaker Heights have parents or a parent. When parents are held accountable and hit hard with fines or even jail time, it will be the responsibly of that parent to deal with their child. We have to stop trying to make sense out of nonsense. Why have a meeting or forum to sit and talk about the problem when there is a solution? What’s the solution? Hold people accountable!
Another saying I often use is, “We must rear our children, for the day will come when we must respond to what they have become.”
In my soon to be released Hip-Hop Gospel CD I say, “The ruin of a nation started in the home, use to be a curfew for the children now the parents gone.”
The first street festival which was on June 26, started off well, but near the end, some estimated that thousands of teenagers refused to leave when ordered and fights broke out. Sixteen people were arrested. How did the word get out for all these teenagers to come at the same time? TEX TING and they came with intentions of ACTING LIKE FOOLS. First know that most were young and Black, but it's not about color, it's about actions. The actions of these individuals had the color of BLACK and that's a fact. Back in the day the actions of young males were White, they were hippies and the reaction was the same. “NOT HERE IN CLEVELAND HEIGHTS.”
Ok, so some will say, "Well a meeting, a forum, bishop won't hurt."
Unless the parents of these confused meatheads show up, then the meeting is just a waste of time. One of the parents saw her nineteen year old son on the news when the madness went down in Cleveland Heights. She didn't wait for him to come home; she didn't call him on his cell phone or send someone after him. SHE WENT AND GOT HIM HERSELF!
I was told she beat him down as he got in the car. She beat him down all the way home and once he got inside the house he was put on punishment. The boy’s mother stated to her friend who shared it with me, "I don't know where I went wrong, but I made it right that day."
Until parents get involved in the lives of their children before the fact of their negative behavior, the court, the police and even the Community should step up with tough measures to handle the problem.
Talking days are over, it's time for ACTION. The best way to show love is TOUGH LOVE, which seems to be understood better by youth that have totally chosen to act like they don't have good sense.
I close by sharing a Scripture Text from the book of Proverbs the 23rd Chapter the 9th verse which reads, "Don't try and talk sense to a fool; he can't appreciate it."
For whatever reasons, the teenagers that came out to turn a wonderful event upside down are fools, and talking won't help, but pulling their parents/parent into court and jail, I'm sure, will help one appreciate freedom and not going deep into one's pocket to pay fines of court costs for starters. This is better than any meeting or any forum. Maybe I'm missing something! But I think I'm on point.
You can e-mail Bishop Moultry at bishopspeaks@aol.com. Write him at
