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Hello. Come on in. The daddy writes about current events, literature, music and, once in a while, drops something on you from back in the day to make you pause and ponder, stop and stare, and begin to wonder. Who knows? You may start to pace the floor, shake your head from side to side, then fall down on bended knees in a praying position and cry, "Lawd, have mercy! What is this world coming to?" Check yourself! But this blog is NOT about the daddy. It's about you: your boos, your fam, your hood, your country...our hopes and dreams of a better tomorrow. So let's make a pact: the daddy will put it on the track if you'll chase it down and hit him back. Together, we can definitely take it to another level. Shall we?"

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Jennifer Hudson, we hurt with you. We pray justice will be done.

Lynnette and John Louden said "lil Man," their big chiuaha, led them to the SUV parked in their Chicago nieghborhood, in the 1300 block of South Kolin. A child's body was found in the vehicle, the same vehicle the Chicago police had been looking for. Later, Jennifer Hudson identified the body as 7-year old Julan King, her missing nephew.


Jennifer: We hurt with you and your family. We pray that justice will be done.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

daddy, she's a strong sister. She will be alright.

Anonymous said...

Dear MacDaddy....My prayers and my heart go out to this grieving family....There are no words to touch the pain they must be feeling...We just need to trust that the Creator is holding them at this time.......Even though I am not a Mom. I taught kids for almost 30 years, and in a way parented many of them.....Whenever a child is violated, it goes right through me.....

LISA VAZQUEZ said...

Hello there Daddy,

My prayers are so full of sorrow...but also assurance...that God hears.

I pray that our black people learn from this tragedy and the tragedies that occur daily in this country...black families addressing murder...black families addressing fatal consequences because of mental illness in family members that was NOT addressed.

This is truly a horrific story...one that is told every single day in this country in one city or another...more often than not...the faces of those mourning are black.

Peace, blessings and DUNAMIS!
Lisa

LISA VAZQUEZ said...

@ Anonymous 9:58 AM

It is destructive to put that "strong black woman" label on any and every black woman...

Yes Jennifer has spoken openly about her faith in God but she is a 27 year old...

Black women are not made of steel...they are human beings...and MOST need to shed the "strong black woman" label because too many have bought into the lie and that lie keeps black women from being protected, comforted and nurtured by our black men and others....

Mac Daddy Tribute Blog said...

anon: I hear you about Hudson being a strong black woman. And something tells me that you're saying this, at least part, because you want her to be strong enough to deal with this tragedy, because you want her to be alright. Me too.

But people,female or male, sometimes need support. Because of their history of oppression and the resulting problems with white and black men, I think black women may need even more support. And what I'm hearing is that she is getting that support from family and friends. Thanks for coming.
Lisa: I hear you about the sorrow you're feeling about this horrific tragedy, and about the mourners oftentimes being black. But this makes me reflect on something you said to me before: the need for blacks to address mental illness. I've worked with numerous boys who didn't get this addressed in their homes and went to the streets to become straight-up, hardcore gangbangers and/or psychopaths. I was thought of as a good counselor and violence prevention specialist. But I couldn't help them. None of the other counselors or therapist I knew could. But I believe it started in the home with the failure of the parents to address the signs of mental illness.

I'm not blaming all the parents for this. With most of the families in which I dealt (black or white) there was only one parent. Most of the time, that parent worked two jobs or worked a lot of overtime to pay the bills. And I'm not making excuses for the kids, saying give them a break because they have mental issues. I'm saying our community doesn't talk about mental issues enough to know about it enough, for example, to know the signs of depression. And we don't vocalize or prioritize mental illness as something we should address in our community. Thanks for helping to clearly see this.

Anonymous said...

anon: Mr. MacDaddy, I like your blog, but a lot of it is so negative. Like your sidebar, it's about a lot or people dying. Like your posts about this Whitefield and the blues. Kind of like eulogies. Why don't you write something about the music scene today? More positive things?

Mac Daddy Tribute Blog said...

Lisa: I didn't mean to imply that all the boys I worked with, or all the gangbangers I worked with, were mentally ill. But there were a core group within the larger group who clearly had mental problems. Most of the kids I worked with were actually pretty good kids. They were just lost or confused. Others were looking for a safe place to go after school and the father or positive male role model that they didn't have at home. Some were told to come by their mothers, but most came on their own.

Mac Daddy Tribute Blog said...

anon: Thank you for writing and telling me that, although you generally like by blog, you generally find it to be negative. I found the phrase "kind of like eulogies" very interesting. It's true that I've written about several deaths. Here are a few things I want you to understand about my writing about them:
1.This is due to this being a special year, a year in which so many giants of African American music died: Isaac Hayes, Johnny Griffin, Norman Whitfield, Levi Stubbs, among others.
2.My "eulogies" are not about the sadness of these greats death so much as the positive contributions they made to American music, music that has been African America's gift to the world.
3. What I've tried to do in these writings is not only state their accomplishment but explain to my readers that these so-called "old school" musicians represent more than talent but the positive values instilled in them by their families and the respective black communities in which they came. For instance, in the article "Levi Has Left Us, But What He represents Remains," I wrote:

"And, despite the emotive utterances, teenage angst and phony hip hop that passes for talent on commercial radio these days, the true talent in R&B, hip hop, jazz, gospel and blues is still there in black communities; and it's still there, because black parents are still bearing and rearing Smokey Robinsons, Pervis Jacksons (leader of the group called The Spinners), Diana Ross's, Mary Wells, Marthas, Isa
Aac Hayes, James Browns, Otis Reddings and Levi Stubbs. More importantly, despite increasing violence and decreasing paychecks and dwindling home equity in some neighborhoods, those black parents are inculcating the same core values that their children will need to be successful: work hard, cooperate, believe in excellence and believe in yourself."

Take the blues, which a lot of people think are negative. I wrote two pieces about blues guitar master Albert King's contribution to contemporary music. In fact, I wrote about how he revived the blues and influenced so many young blues and rock musicians.

Now I have a question and a suggestion for you. Question: Do you find any of that negative?
Suggestion: Go to the sidebar of my blog, read any of the pieces that I wrote on the people who died in the music posts or the poetry or political section and see what you find that's negative. And let me know.

Meanwhile, I'll keep what you say in mind. I know that sometimes we have to write about negative things, such as the death of members of Jennifer Hudson's family members. However, overall, I hope that you and other readers will find my blog to be informative and meaningful. To do this, sometimes I have to go back into history; and, as you probably know, history is not always positive or kind, but one can glean truths from it. I hope you will not mind.

Know what? I hope we get to visit this topic again. Hopefully, you'll come back and even give me your name so I'll know who I'm talking to. Thanks again.

Christopher said...

Anyone who could shoot a 7 year old child in the head is either evil or criminally insane and has no business living amongst the rest of us.

The pictures of Jennifer's nephew show a regular, happy little boy with his eyes opened wide and his future before him. The goon who killed him robbed this child of his life and I hope he fries for what he's done.

My heart goes out to Miss Hudson.

Mac Daddy Tribute Blog said...

chris: Thanks, christopher.