HOW THE TRAGIC FORT HOOD ATTACK RELATES TO INNER CITY BLACK AMERICA.

[George Malik al-Mahdi]

Studies done by Psychologists and Psychiatrists have proven that the part of the brain that senses physical pain also senses emotional pain. Even before the aforementioned studies were done, the existence of "stress hormones" such as Cortisol was common knowledge. It's even been noted that "tears of joy" have slightly different chemical compositions than "tears of pain." Therefore, the effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) upon soldiers (and those who help them cope with PSTD) should be treated with the same urgency as a lost eye, arm, bowels, or genitalia. The tragic shootings of as many as 40 soldiers at Fort Hood Army Base, acquired from witnessing unthinkable tragedies experienced by war veterans, drive this point home.

Most of us remember the first time we burned our arm on a hot stove, or iron, or at least we roughly remember how old we were when this occurred. Few of us ever had to repeat this mistake. Pain is very useful, because it's the body's way of telling us to stray away from something that may sicken or destroy us.

Some of the most horrible stories of child abuse involve someone holding a hot iron to a child's limbs. The child is unable to jerk their arm or leg from the pain. Since the part of the brain that senses pain doesn't differentiate between physics and emotion, the burned arm or leg may heal, but the psychological wound is a fatal one, because it lasts a lifetime. Alcoholism, drug addiction, promiscuity, and eventual sicknesses, including A.I.D.S. and suicide, often eventually bring comfort to those who've been abused by shortening their lives.

Is it any wonder that children begin to feel pain when they learn that not all kids live in places where the alleys smell like piss? When they realize that some children live in a house where a man is present, and the man isn't like the one who's always on the corner drinking malt liquor? Look at the tragedy that emanates from inner city girls choosing teenage Motherhood over college, because the attention and affection they'll get when they are "Mama" to someone relieves the pain of growing up in the inner city? Perhaps worse of all, many young men join gangs, who offer them a family. When someone attacks their "family", it's an attack on people that have given them an escape from reality; they turn to the gun for strength and revenge, and they reap prison or the grave in return.

Today's attack at Fort Hood, TX isn't just a military tragedy. It's a tragedy lived out every day in our inner cities. Even though Black men didn't create the climate or physical rot in the inner city, statistics have proven that the horrors common to the inner city cannot be cleaned up without our active participation.

Thank you.