Listening to Big Krit’s “Meditate,” I can’t help but be overwhelmed with thoughts about our education and juvenile justice system.

The past few weeks, I had the privilege to attend numerous events and engage in conversations about the past and future of our youth. While the true reality of those conversations are just now hitting me, it’s only right I share my own thoughts with the world.

One thing that we all recognize as true is that education is not equal. However, my purpose of writing that statement is not to go into a rant about the differences in how much Montgomery County schools spend on their students versus how much Baltimore City or even Prince Georges County spends. I want to bring attention to the contributing factors and effects of education inequality.

Going back to the experiences from this past week, in my PR Writing class our latest homework assignment was to write a speech on a topic of our choice. My speech was about the three biggest issues facing Baltimore City: crime, education and poverty. While those three issues may be up for debate to some Baltimoreans, the speech was based upon my opinions and of course supported by facts.

Just picture this, a neighborhood where 45.1 percent of families have an income below the poverty line. A neighborhood where the median income is $19,183. A neighborhood where 14.7 percent of residents 25 years and older have a bachelor’s degree or higher. A neighborhood where less than 50 percent of its eighth graders are reading at a proficient or advanced level.

Huey P. Newton once said, “Youths are passed through schools that don’t teach, then forced to search for jobs that don’t exist and finally left stranded in the street to stare at the glamorous lives advertised around them.”

I mean, come on now, let’s be real. How are our children supposed to succeed in environments that don’t even statistically represent society’s view of success? What kind of future is being laid out for them?

That’s what I mean by the contributing factors of education inequality. Because while ten year old Jerome is attending school every day, he’s coming home to a grandmother who works long nights and doesn’t have time to read with him and help him with his homework or provide a healthy dinner because the closest grocery store is more than five miles away and she doesn’t have a car. He’s coming home to a group of kids asking him to come play basketball on the same court his neighbor’s son was just gunned down on last week.

That system that we fought to create in order to provide a better future for our children is failing. And that system that I’m referring to is our communities.

I can’t even count on two hands the amount of times I rode the light rail in Baltimore and was disgusted by the amount of foul language used by our children and the scantily outfits worn by them as well and did and said NOTHING about it.

The truth and the reality is that we don’t even recognize ourselves as a collective community anymore. We turn our heads and as we walk into our houses and close the door behind us at night, we shut out what’s happening next door, down the street or even three blocks over.

We get mad at parents, police officers, teachers, social workers, you name it. But we never acknowledge our own faults. We say that’s somebody else’s problem.

We sit around, complain and continuously watch the negative and biased stories reported on the news. We go to sleep knowing “our” children are safe and drive past little Jerome’s walking home from school every day shaking our heads.

Our communities. Us. We. I. have failed.

My high school teacher Ms. Bryant used to tell me all it takes is One. Sometimes I think that one person is me……..