Letter: Residents need lessons from Coatesville’s past

To The Editor:

Let’s take a journey back in time when Coatesville had a booming economy, a great place to work, and live, not the Black Sheep of Chester County as it is identified today. In the last month, we have lost five young men to death and when caught and prosecuted, five more will spend the rest of their lives in jail. What about the children they will leave behind? What we will have is another generation growing up without a complete family.

This must stop. As a young girl growing up in Coatesville, I was not confronted with the drug epidemic that our youth are plagued with today.  It was not until the Vietnam War that the floodgates of hell opened up with drugs directed to all the urban areas across this country, and now our children are the beneficiaries of our addictions.

I was too young and ignorant about life and drugs, like many of our youth who have fallen victims to its deadly grasp. I’ve heard all the excuses as to why Coatesville is like it is, and how drugs and crime have brought her to her knees. Don’t applaud yet, because Coatesville will rise again. Moreover, she will sprint into a brighter future for the next generation. The generation of the last real kids died when the job opportunities left the city for numerous reasons. All that was readily available was to hustle for many young adults, and that brought with it violence of all kinds and on all levels.

I remember when Blacks could not cross Lincoln Highway at night; and if you did, you were stopped by white police officers and told to go back where you belong. At least they did not beat us up or lock us up. All police officer are not bad and all are not good. Back in the day, from 1960 to the early 1970s, times were hard. However, it was peaceful, and there was an appreciation for life. Today, that has vanished, especially for our young black males. They will get locked up for driving while black, walking while black, and thinking while black, and this has to stop.

When I was growing up in Coatesville, there were three black police officers and their jobs were to patrol the predominately black areas of the city on foot.  They loved their job and the people they served­­ — Officer Haywood Jones, Officer Sweeney, and Officer Walker. These officers kept the peace and interacted with the children and their parents. Coatesville can hire a thousand police officers tomorrow; and if they refuse to connect with the youth of our city, nothing is going to change.

Their mindset has to change and the major actors must be removed from our streets. This includes the bad police officers who only have one thing in mind and that is to see how many Black youth they can lock up today.

However, that is only part of a larger problem. Metaphorically speaking, we as the Black community need to start cleaning our own houses. I realize that we Black women are tired because many of us have been cleaning someone else’s house most of our lives; and when we get home, we are too tired to clean our own. I’ve got news for us. We better find our second wind and get moving again. If we keep passing our responsibilities as parents to others, we will keep losing our children to death and the justice system.

Many of our children can’t even read or write their names. They find themselves sitting in kindergarten and first grade lost, ashamed, and bullied by their peers. That is only the beginning of their nightmare. We must teach our children to love to learn.

To the young parents who are struggling with addictions of self-worth, respect for themselves, and others, I say to you, the teenagers and young males who refuse to go to school and blaming everyone but yourselves for your situation. Stop fathering children by every young woman that you have sex with and using it as a rite to passage, while walking around the city streets with your pants hanging, showing sometimes more than your underwear. A gun in one pocket, drugs in the other, a blunt in your mouth, and a pit bull on a leash without a poop scoop. Since you’re so smart and no one can tell you anything.

I suggest that you exchange the lead in that gun you call your equalizer for the lead in a pencil, because knowledge is the route to freedom, not prison. I know, word on the street is that felons refer to prison as college. Stop fooling yourselves and the people you tell that garbage to. Prison is the closest anyone will get to hell and live to talk about it. Where are your children?  Don’t they have to eat?  Don’t they deserve a decent place to sleep? Instead, you leave that responsibility to the mother, and the mother leaves it to the grandmother.

I have said it before, stop chasing fake materialistic dreams in a desert of concrete and filth. Open your minds to the beautiful flowers and trees that are present throughout our city, and stop judging the whole city because of a few crime-infested blocks.

We can start by cleaning up in front of our own homes. Stop dropping trash everywhere, and teach your children how to clean up behind themselves. Some of you will drop your trash on the ground right next to a trash can. Until we start respecting ourselves and the property of others, things are not going to change.  Coatesville has a rich history, and is a beautiful place if you look for the beauty.

Yes, five murders took place in less than a month, and it looks bad from an outside point-of-view, but you have to live with these young people to understand why they do what they do. No, I do not have all the answers; but one thing I do have and that is, the will and the strength to try to change the lives of our citizens who have for one reason or another given up on life and let anger and violence dictate their actions. The good news is that more Black youth graduated from high school this year than those who entered prison or were murdered and are on their way to college, trade school, and jobs. Our Black churches are full of young parents and their children.

I invite the media to visit the Black churches on Sundays and tell the story of a people full of faith, hope, pride, and the love of God. Moreover, for the naysayers riding through Coatesville with your windows up and doors locked, discussing with friends how bad our city looks. I plead to you, to help us in the fight to save our city and most importantly our children.

Many of you own the homes that line Lincoln Highway and receive monthly rent. Yet you do no repairs on your property because you don’t live there. The problems our city faces are bigger than the killing fields of Vietnam, and the weapons of choice are neglect, guns, Percocet, Oxycodone, Xanax, heroin, low-quality cocaine (crack), and embalming fluid (WET), that is used with marijuana, and many users drink it. Thank God for the new Behavioral Health Center at the Brandywine Hospital, because these drugs are destroying the minds of our young people, middle-aged, some seniors, and it provokes violence with a vengeance.

Last but not least, let’s not forget the dirty old men whose main objective is to roam the streets of Coatesville to trap young girls and boys into their disgraceful web of lust and crime. President John F. Kennedy said it all, “A child miseducated is a child lost.”

Amanda Winkey

Freelance Journalist/Community Activist

Coatesville