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May 17, 2008 at 04:48 PM
Front Page arrow Opinions arrow Op-Ed arrow Dear ‘Mr. Liquor Store’
Dear ‘Mr. Liquor Store’
Written by MALIK SPELLMAN, Contributing Writer, on 05-01-2008 00:00
Favoured 8

As you may know, you are the first person we as humans turn to when we are feeling down. If our children are born we celebrate the birth of a child with you in mind. You seem to be in all of our thoughts these days.

You have the ability to take away my pain temporarily or you can create a spirit in me that will allow me to administer some pain if need be. And that is what I would like to talk to you about today. Once I was in a store that sold wine and spirits and I overheard a child say to another child that they can’t wait to grow up and be able to buy some Crystal and some weed.

I was shocked because the child just happens to be my 12-year old niece who is a gifted child and has never had any one of her parents partake of alcohol or drugs.

Then I thought to myself what would life be like if I was a child who’d seen a liquor store on every corner next to many great religious institutions. How would I separate my realities from that of grown folks? And I came to the conclusion that you can’t do it.

Then I figured out in an instant that stores in the hood now-a-days don’t have any advertisements in the window for eggs, milk or water. Everything reflects getting high off on something or trying to make a baby through some sort of male enhancement stimulate. Or a new brand of male contraceptives on the counter along with the full view of gloves, ski mask, and handcuffs to aid and abet you to a free ticket to Pelican Bay.

How do children intake this type of mess? They don’t is the answer, because as you well know children are easy to influence while they are under-exposed. There are no words to describe to you Mr. Liquor Store, the pain we feel as a community that you have sent our people off to prison because of the effects that over exposure to alcoholic beverages has on poor people. I had a friend from Orange County come over one day go to the liquor store to buy some Jack Daniels booze. He passed out cold after drinking it and when he woke up, he stated to me that the maker of the drink he has been consuming for years was ten times more powerful in the hood liquor store.

So many times before has this happened, in which a brother will knock down a few Old English 40 ounces and never see daylight again. So leave the drunk homie at home and teach your kids that most visits to the liquor store can often times turn into a tragedy. In any case, keep your children away from the local grown folks’ watering holes of sin and strange sprits. They are not of God or our true spirit as a people. “Free Kenny X” AkA “Kenneth White,” who has been in prison for over thirty years with no love from the courts or the free world.

Published in : Op-Ed, Op-Ed
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