Modern day lynch mob Yesterday, I witnessed such an event that when I think about it now I don’t know what emotion reigns supreme. Utter sadness or extreme rage. Where I reside, there is a large amount of children that tend to gather around. While conversing with my neighbor at my dining room table (yes, that still happens in this day and age but that’s another topic for another day), we were silenced by the commotion that was taking place outside of my door. It sounded like a rush of buffalo going up the stairs. So of course, we knew at that point that whatever was going on wasn’t good. She and I proceed to open the door and the spectacle that was taking place before our eyes blew me away. A group of boys had chased another boy up the stairs of our building and as he knocked on various doors for assistance, they proceed to take shots at him. Luckily, the building I reside in consists of a generation of “old-school mamas” who don’t play that. I was saddened to see that in the midst of this mayhem, the boy that was being assaulted was the son of a former neighbor of ours. Now mind you, the doors to each building should lock but it so happened that our door was open. And it’s by the grace of God that on this particular day it was. He knew the adults in the building. He knew that if he could get to one of us he would be safe. We drew him in a protective circle and advised him to call his mother while we handle the on-lookers. While figuring out what had transpired, we couldn’t phantom why so many children could jump on another child, knowing he was defenseless against this modern day lynch mob. To make matters worse, this lynch mob had an audience cheering them on. This audience included grown men who instead of trying to stop the assault, they sat around and encouraged those that were rendering the assault, words of instruction on what to do. Is this what we have come to as a people? Cheering and encouraging while our kids are fighting one another as opposed to mediating and helping them resolve their differences in a peaceful manner. Have we evolved into the lynch mobs of old, when we were hunted down like animals by the cowards of the night, while hiding behind there masks, pulled our people from their beds, and hanged them for no reason at all, while a crowd stood around a cheered them on? I ask you, is this what has become of us? I pray that it hasn’t but this episode and many more like them, it makes me wonder.