DESTINY"S CHILD: DESTINY UN-FULFILLED

Here's an article I wrote almost a year ago, the response to it blew my mind, I got all kinds of emails about it, however, there was one response I got from a sixth grader in the South Bronx whose teacher printed the article out and passed it out for his students to read, the students then had to write their thoughts about the article. One young lady emailed me and said: "I read your article about Destiny's Child and I think they can do whatever they want, cause their grown."

I told her she was right, but older ladies have the responsibilty to teach young girls better...


DESTINY’S CHILD: DESTINY UN-FULFILLED
By the All Mighty Mark Skillz


So after a long hiatus the chicks from Destiny’s Child have reunited and this time the album is entitled: “Destiny’s Fulfilled”. But I have to ask, “Are they still children or have they grown up to be women yet? Apparently they are women, but I have to wonder about the depth of their maturity.

On their latest song “Soldier” they talk about wanting a man who’s “status better be hood or I ain’t checking for him, Better be street if he looking at me, I need a soldier that ain’t scared to stand up for me, he gotta know how to get the dough and he better be street.”

Perhaps these sisters have never heard about what happens to chicks that get caught up with these types of characters. I don’t think they’ve heard of the sisters that have caught cases because they were unknowingly holding guns and or drugs for one of these street soldiers. Have they heard the stories of the girls who just wanted a man with money, and didn’t care how he got it? And how these same soldiers have enemies, real enemies, not some pretty boy actor with gold teeth and Roc a Wear gear, but real thugs, who shoot at cars and don’t care who’s driving it.

When I hear this song, it makes me stop and think about a girl I dated a long time back, her name was Sheila, God forgive me but I can’t remember her last name right now. Anyway, it was the 80’s, and crack was all over like garbage on the street. Everywhere you looked you saw: This one on crack, that one selling crack. It was crazy. Girls at that time were crazy about guys that got their money that way. It was hard on a brother if he wasn’t rolling like that back then.

Anyway, one day, this chick comes from out of nowhere, with this big smile on her face and gives me her number. I called her we chit-chatted a bit and then we went out. While I was talking to her I got to know her and the impression I got, was that she had dated a bunch of drug dealers and wanted a different kind of guy. I also found out she had gotten accustomed to that type of lifestyle: the cars, the money, the jewelry, and etc. etc.

I didn’t get down like that. I was raised to disdain drugs and to never corrupt our communities with that garbage. So, as cute as she was, we didn’t see each other anymore like that. It was one of the many times in my young life that I was really contemplating joining the dark side. I thought, hey I could have the money, the girls the whole nine. But God would not let me go down that dark path. It was rough. But I got through it.

My friends who somehow or another knew this girl warned me to leave her alone. I’ll never forget my man Chuck Money telling me, “Mark leave that girl alone. She’s no good.”


I bumped into Sheila one night at a roller skating rink with one of these characters, we spoke, we were friendly. I had seen her man before, I knew who he was. For some reason, all of these years later, the last image I have of her in mind still stands out like the shining glitter ball that shot lights all over the roller rink that night. Her smile, it was so big and innocent for a girl that had been exposed to what she had been doing.

Not too long afterwards while talking with my brother and his girlfriend at the time, I mentioned Sheila’s name to my brothers girl and she said, “Oh, she’s dead”. In shock I said, “No, can’t be her.” She ran down the description and I said “Yeah, that’s her.” To which my brother’s girl said, “Yeah, she got shot in the head while driving her boyfriends car. She got shot and ran off the freeway into a ditch.”

I was in a state of shock for weeks. In disbelief, one night I found her number and fought with myself as to whether I should call her house. I did. Her mother told me “She’s dead” and hung up the phone.

Later I found out it was a case of mistaken identity. Her boyfriends enemies thought he was in the car with her that night, it didn’t matter who was in the car, they knew that car and they had it in for him.

I ran into so many other girls just like Sheila over the years. Girls, who, for whatever reason were attracted to the gangster lifestyle, and in all honesty, were very naïve as to the consequences. The idea that they could do better was as foreign to them, as the Mandarin language. The connection between prisons, funeral homes, cemeteries and visits to Narcotics Anonymous never came together for them.

So, flash forward almost 20 years later, and here we have a platinum selling group of talented young sisters, and what are they feeding to young girls: Poison. Young girls need better guidance from grown women than that. A man, who, as Lil Wayne puts it, “Has a body marked up like a subway in Harlem” more likely than not, is not going to make a woman’s life any better.

There are almost as many veterans incarcerated in prisons around our country than there are soldiers on the streets. If Destiny’s Child has a destiny to be fulfilled, they are a long way off.



Markskillz@aol.com