EPISODE 40
"JUST
WORDS"

Welcome to JUST WORDS.  The stories of working people in our community.

I'm Marc Steiner

Last week we met Lorraine Mackey, who is the mother of Aaron Mackey, a young black man who was shot by his fellow gang members over a year ago at the age of 18.

Who is to blame? This is the question of a grieving mother.
Society has seemingly broken down…who is responsible?

She lays responsibility at the feet of the parents.

I drive through east Baltimore where we once lived, and I see little children as young as five and six walking around with bandanas. Where are the parents of these kids? It is senseless to see a five year old walking around with a bandana signigying they are part of a gang. Because a mother should know quite well-a 5 year old, walking around with a bandana? Aaron had grew up to be a big teenager before I lost complete control. But if I am a parent, and my five year old is walking through the door with a bandana, I am certainly going to raise up a level of authority to put this in check. Why is your child wearing gang colors? Why is your child walking around with bandanas? What are you even doing in your child’s life that your child is getting involved with these people?

She lays responsibility at the feet of the police department.

It seems like we don’t have real officers like we once had. You got police officers getting in trouble in their personal lives. You got police officers that take an oath who are not really walking up to that oath. There are people dying, children around here selling drugs, children around here using drugs. And there is no excuse why the people who have been set in position are not doing their jobs. One minute you want to pull me over because my taillight is busted but then when someone else is doing something wrong you do nothing about it. It’s a lot of reasons why the public has begun to lose respect for the police department.

She lays responsibility at the feet of the prison system.

The three people that was involved in my sons death were captured. I am grateful they are off the street…but this thing is so bad that these people are operating within the jail. They got gang sections set up in the jail. They got prisoners on the side that’s all the bloods, prisoners on this side that’s all the crips, and they got the gangs sectioned off in the jail. these people are running the gangs from within our jails and are still able to give orders to where they are sitting to do damage and hurt people on the outside.

Sometimes, she wonders if there was more she could have done.

That child watched me triumph over so much and I was hoping that he would adapt to my ways and say, Dag, if my mother dealt with that, I can deal with it. But I found out in years of experience that, I found out I couldn’t cause my son to have the same strength that I had. And sometimes I wonder, was there any unturned corner? I tried everything to rear both of my sons up but I wish it was something more I could have done to save his life. And my heart is so hurting for the children everywhere, and when you walk around the streets of Baltimore, all I see is hurting children, and I don’t have arms enough to embrace them all. And where’s the help? Or else we are going to be a city that is like a living Iraq.

Can things be repaired? Can they get better? Lorraine shares her ideas on how, next week.

Just words is a production of the Center for Emerging Media, produced by Jessica Phillips, through a grant from OSI-Baltimore: investing in solutions to Baltimore’s toughest problems, with audacious thinking for lasting change, on the web at OSI-Baltimore.org.
Visit JUST WORDS on the web at centerforemergingmedia.org, or
email us, at justwords@wypr.org

Music: Pinback, Loro