Yeah I'm feeling this article. This guy who lives across the street from my grandmother always helps her, shovels the snow, cuts the grass, walks her to the store etc. So one day (we're around the same age) I'm over there and he asks me if I know anyone that's hiring.

Sidenote: Nana lives in the hood.

At the time I was working in a federal building, but I told him I was unsure of my job b/c they were talking about laying us off. So after I tell him this he says, "oh well I can get a job there b/c I don't have a record." I was like I guess b/c it's not the first thing I would have thought to say to someone...but anyways..I told him that I'd look for a job for him. I didn't really want to finish the conversation because I wasn't sure if he had finished high school, is doing the gang stuff, narcotic stuff, etc. I didn't want to go there.

On my way home I called Nana and told her to ask him to send me his resume so I could see what experience he had. She told me that he probably doesn't have one, and that he probably doesn't have a computer and that he probably hadn't finished school. Even though I knew it was coming I just had to ask

I saw him again yesterday and gave him the number to the temp service I'm going through, but afterwards I realized that they request ppl to send a RESUME so they can get an idea of the experience you have. I asked him if he ever goes out to look for jobs, he said "yeah around the block." Then I said well how often do you go downtown to look for jobs and he said "sometimes when I feel like catching the bus." SIGH....The sad thing is I really don't think he knows what he's missing out on b/c he never leaves the block. He doesn't know that he needs to learn to type, have a resume, actually get out there and be on the grind looking for a job, get some business type clothes, he just doesn't know. And if he keeps running with the people that I think he is he's never gonna learn, they have no ambitions but hanging on the corner everyday.

My thing is, I really want to help him but I need to first help myself. I honestly don't have the time to sit down with him, help him fix up a resume, teach him how to type...and it really makes me sad. I think a lot of us know that we need to get into the community and sit some of these hard-headed youths down and teach them what they need to know but just "don't have the time" or whatever the reason may be. But I DO know OTHER people are sitting them down and teaching them how to lie, cheat and steal which is why they are ending up the way they are.

I know in Chicago we just lost a couple more black youths to jail and the cemetery because, in two unrelated incidents, two young girls were shot with stray bullets by random drive by shootings. The first was b/c some guy had a problem with another guy and I think his ex-girlfriend. Whatever the case, the little girl went looking out the window to see what was going on and ended up getting shot while she was getting ready for school. The other girl was celebrating her birthday in her aunt's house when some guys came down the block shooting randomly. Both girls were in elementary school.

Sorry this post was so long but all of this is just crazy to me.