Blame and Punish Podcast
Episode: O-0016
Posting date: 04/20/21
[This written episode was used as a guideline to the spoken one. To hear the exact words, find it at https://www.blameandpunish.com/podcasts ... ry/latest/.]
[Approximation of the above episode. For exact words, listen to the audio file. Sometimes they are substantially different.]
You are gonna hate me for this one!
Okay, here we go. This is week number 16 of 1,560. What are we going to talk about this week? Well, I am certainly not going to disappoint those people who don't think very much of me. I am going to give them enough to hate me and bury me with.
I keep on getting asked why parents are responsible for children after the age of X. I keep getting a lot of flak about why children aren’t responsible for themselves after the age of X. I have never said that children are not responsible for themselves after the age of X but I have said that if parents brought children onto this earth then they have brought something onto this earth then it shouldn’t matter if it lived more than X years because they put it here AND IT’S STILL HERE!!!
Here's another way to look at it: there are so many children in this world who grow up to be outstanding adults. There are so many of those outstanding adults who grow up to invent things that make our lives better, create medicines that make our lives better, educate major parts of our society to make our lives better. Actually, I would say that most people – and I think you would agree with this – are good for the world, do great things for the world, do great things for themselves and their families, but no matter how we look at it are most certainly not a problem for this world. Who do we have that we can pat on the back for that? Can we pat the children themselves on the back – the ones who grew up to be amazing adults? Or do we pat the parents on the back? I would say, and you might agree, that we can pat both of them on the back. And it might not even work out like that. We might just pat the child on the back because the parents were terrible parents. Let's face it, there are some children who have grown up with everything given to them – all the presents they wanted, the education they were told they needed, and not one night cold without the right amount of blankets. And they have turned out great. But there have also been children who were brought up moving from house to house because their parents dumped them, or treated terribly by abusive parents, or brought up by just one parent because the other one left. And they have turned out amazingly great also. So, there is no way to say what makes a good or bad child.
Yes, I'm going to go on record and say that. I have no problem saying that or agreeing with whoever wants to say it. A child can come out good or bad regardless of how they are raised.
But, but, but – yes there are a lot of buts here – I want you to be honest and give me your thoughts on this example: Let's take 100 children. We know there are over 350,000 children born each day somewhere around the world. Okay, let's just take 100. Let's take the next 100. And now let's agree that we watch those 100 get raised for their first few years, then for six years, then their first 10 years, and up through their 15th year, and then at their 16th year birthday party we will see how they are doing. We, together and honestly, take a look at them and see how they turned out. We can see if they were really good or they turned out really bad. Come on, don't you agree that if they were raised in loving homes with good educations and given some of the better things, or opportunities, in life that they might have a better chance – a slightly better chance – of turning out to be better children than those who might have been abandoned, spit on, beat, treated poorly, given nothing, or abused? I admit that I cannot pick which ones turned out good or bad sitting here today and looking 16 years in advance but if we took the next 100 children and 50 of them were raised like crap and 50 were raised really cool, wouldn't you think – just think – that the ones who were raised cool might stand a chance of being good children? Or better children? Forget the word good, let's just say better. Or let’s just say, “Not bad.”
What does better mean? For our sake, at least for these first 16 weeks of podcasts and as the example in our book that is most important – we are saying “better” is a person who doesn't kill someone else. If we just agreed that would make a better world and starting tomorrow no one killed anyone else, wouldn't you settle for that being better?
If we both understand this (and of course I understand it because I'm the one who is saying it) then we want to say that raising children right makes good children – at least children who won't kill someone else. That being said, and agreed to, then what is wrong with holding parents accountable for raising their children right? Be honest, please be honest! Most parents raise their children terribly! You know and I know, let's be honest, that most parents do a crap job raising their children! I am not going to go into example after example now but I am going to get to someplace in this podcast where you are going to say, "I agree" or "I've had enough of your crap, I don't want to hear from you again!" And all I'm going to do is ask a question. That question will come at the end of this podcast.
I look at the news every day and I wonder if that child who just committed murder was raised in a loving home. I tend to think that they weren't. But slap me in the face or punch me in the stomach because you can say, "How does he know what the hell he's talking about?" I just admitted a few moments ago that I cannot tell how 50/100 children are going to turn out 16 years from now in the little game we played but I am hoping that you have been honest and admitted that a child that is brought up in a loving home may stand a better chance of being a good child.
If you look at what is necessary to give everything to a child that they need to stand a chance in life to be brought up right, to get ahead in this world on their own, to be happy when there are so many problems on the left side or the right side of their brain, as they have to start to make political choices, or just as they look up and down the street to cross it – it's a tough job being a child and raising a child. It's not a science. And every child is different so that makes it even harder. A child is a human and as a human we are crazy! Even you are going to admit, regardless of how sane you have made it appear that you are in this world: You have to admit you have done some pretty crazy things in your life and pressed boundaries once or twice when maybe you didn't have to. Yes, being a parent is very tough. So now we get back to the question of why are parents responsible for children forever?
The answer is very simple. We have said this before but today were concentrating on it and pointing it out so there is no mistake. This is just fact: The child wouldn't be here if two parents, a man and a woman, hadn't created it. Do you want me to repeat that? I don't think I have to – you know what I said. If two parents hadn't created the child the child wouldn't be here. If the child wasn't here then the child couldn't do anything wrong. I've said that over and over again. That is not why you're going to not like me. Let's give you some ammunition to really hate me.
I'll point to a couple of news stories from this past week: Let's take a look at this first story just because it has so many different angles. This Took place in Brooklyn – a 38-year-old woman name Latisha Bell ran up behind Nicole Thomas who is 52 and shot her in the back of the head right in the middle of the afternoon. They had previously been lovers but for some reason they had broken up and I guess Latisha was upset about that. I'm not making light of it but, if anything, without being against gay love – I am noticing that Thomas who is the mother of two, just got killed by her female lover. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that and I'm not pointing it out for any other reason than to ask why Thomas had two children if she didn't want a male to be her husband and her lover at all times? Why didn't she choose a man and be happy with a man forever? I realize that maybe she had children before she didn't realize that she wasn't a standard heterosexual type. But the point is that the next relationship that she had was with someone who she didn't really see eye to eye with because that girl just popped her in the head with a bullet and now she's dead. My point is definitely that she made a bad judgment. I don't necessarily know if she was raising her two children the best that they could have been raised but I'm thinking that being a little confused in her own life may have been a problem in giving everything she had to give to her two children. However, we are not going to get hung up on that because that is not the problem! Where I'm going with this is asking where Latisha Bell's parents are and how Latisha Bell was raised!
Nicole Thomas got killed by Latisha Bell. The murderer here is Latisha Bell. I am blaming the parents of Latisha Bell for not instilling in her the rights to want to not kill someone else when they raised her and if they didn't raise her correctly I am saying that they should be punished for murder with her. We will leave this news item and go on to the next. I'm just pointing out that someone killed someone and I wonder why and I wonder how they were raised. And I'm wondering how the children of Nicole Thomas, her husband, her family, her fellow workers, her friends are all going to feel because Nicole is dead. Maybe she's a really cool and nice person and she shouldn't have died and we all get to ask Latisha Bell's parents why they didn't raise Latisha Bell better or why they even put Latisha Bell on this earth because look what happened!
This next point today is completely different – a different news story, a whole different story: We have a woman name Danezja Kilpatrick who is 23 years old, also living in New York but not meaning that New York is the only place where people get killed. It just happens to be that I was reading that section of one of our country's newspapers when I started doing this week's podcast. Well Ms. Kilpatrick faces murder charges after stabbing her two six-week old children – a boy and a girl: Yes, six-weeks old. Why did she kill them? Because she said, “I don't want them."
Yep, if you don't want them I guess this girl thought it was okay to kill them. But if she did think it was okay to kill them, and she's only 23, I wonder where she got that idea. If she was raised through 17, 18, and 19 years by parents who taught her love and that life was important and parents who treated her kindly and she was well-adjusted – was the taking of life really the end result of if you don't want two children? Did her parents teach her how to stab one and pour scalding water on the other to keill them? Why don't the parents catch some of this blame?
Let's wrap this up. Let me tell you where I'm going with this. And, damn you, don't even think that I am against the BLM movement as I do! Don't even think that! “F” you! But this is major news and I get to ask a question. And it's not about a parent of someone who killed someone but I get to ask this question: Then you can decide if you're on board or if you hate me!
You know the story already so I'm not going to detail it here. This is a tragic story. It is a sad story. And it is a story that is said to be, by some, a part of the BLM movement story. Whether it is or isn't is not up for discussion here. I'm only going to ask the question in another minute or so and then we'll go from there in the future – either together or not!
There was a young 16-year-old girl name Ma'Khia Bryant who is seen on a police camera from the police officer that shot her to death as she was running to stab a girl with a knife that was clearly seen by the police officer. Like I said, and like you already know, the police officer killed her. The police officer is white – that's the description of the color of his skin. And poor dead Miss Bryant has skin the color of black, as described in our conversation daily about skin tones. I'm not going to throw too much personal talk in here but I'm thinking if I was the person who this girl was coming at with a knife open to stab me, and very possibly to kill me, I gotta be honest with you – I’d be pretty happy, thankful, and blessed that a police officer saved my life by shooting Ms. Bryant. But that isn't the story here. Here's the story
Ms. Bryant had been living in various foster homes – it was said she was living in the “foster system.” Her biological mother, it is reported, has said to have already visited an attorney – and this young girl was just killed a few days ago – and the mother is getting ready to sue various parties, or maybe just a single party – I don't know yet, because the word is that she is upset that the system failed her daughter and this police officer had to shoot her to save someone else's life.
Like I said, this is not a story about someone who killed someone and then we are going to blame the parents. But I am going to ask this question about Ms. Bryant's biological mother who created Ma'Khia Bryant and didn't keep raising her.
Why isn't it the biological mother's fault that Miss Bryant was in the system in the first place? Okay, the same question a different way: Why isn't it the biological mother's fault that Miss Bryant had to be shot to stop her from stabbing and possibly killing someone else? Wait, did I use up my one question already? Let me ask it this way: Why did Ms. Bryant biological mother create a child that she did not keep raising so that Miss Bryant had to be killed by a police officer’s bullet? Did I ask enough questions to pretend I only asked one? Oh my God, I certainly better not ask the question of why the biological mother even thinks she has any right whatsoever, one billion-trillionth of a right, to sue anybody because she didn't raise her daughter right. I certainly better not ask that question or I will absolutely be hated and hunted! I better stop while I'm ahead.
That's the end of this week. I just want to point out, though, that Blame and Punish is not about blaming and punishing – it is about raising children right! Maybe I will see you next week to talk at you or maybe I won't: But I hope I can change the world for the better if enough of us can understand that no one should be having children if they are not going to raise them right. Thank you for listening. Bye.
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