Tyrone Love; What Ending Will We Write?

Funeral Service for Tyrone Love will be held on:

WENDESDAY, FEBRUARY 25TH, 2009

MADRONA PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

832 32ND AVE, SEATTLE, WA 98122

10:00 AM

Donations for the Funeral Expense and Family can be made at any Washington Branch of:

BANK OF AMERICA

under the name:

BENEVOLENT ACCOUNT FOR TYRONE LOVE

by Sable Verity

Most of us, if not all of us know what it is like to lose someone that we love, and then carry them with us, even feel their spirit from time to time.  A part of us knows that the connection is never broken.

But we don’t want memories.  We want our loved ones; touch, smile, personality…we want that.  When it is gone, nothing can fill the void, except pain, prayer and dispair…anger, resentment, confusion…emptiness.

So Tyrone is not here with us, with the smile we would give anything to see now, what comes next?  Is his story over?  Is it closed, bound and ready to collect dust on a shelf somewhere?

Surely not.  Love was and is an inspiration.  So many people liked him, loved him, respected him for who he was and what he did, because he did it for his community just as much as he did it for his own personal joy or gain.  Talk about living your best life.

“There are just some people that you know intuitively are filled with love, authenticity and genuineness. Tyrone was one of those people. I am so sad for his loss and that the world will not know how amazing this young man was. While my conversations with Tyrone Love were usually brief, he was always filled with light and love. Every time I saw him I would think about how his last name fit him so well, he really emitted love to all he came in contact with.”

“Tyrone….so humble, positive, and joyful.”

“As a mother, I saw Tyrone do wonders with the kids. My daughter would go to the Y, not to work out, but to see Tyrone. He gave her the best advice on boys, freindships, studying,staying in school, respecting herself as a lady,and specifically STAYING AWAY FROM GANGS!”

“I will never get over Tyrone’s death. My heart aches.”

None of us ever really knows the full magnitude that another person has on their lives, so it is hard to project just what the impact of Love’s life will be on all of us, but even writing this now, in the middle of the night, his energy is palpable- as is the grief of everyone else left to live and struggle with what has happened.  We should all be inspired by Tyrone.  And more than getting a warm and fuzzy feeling, we should take that inspiration and give to our community, just as he did.

A broader brushstroke colors this entire picture, and draws the past, present and future together, all in the name of Tyrone.

We have suffered some senseless, senseless death in Seattle (and all across the country) over the past oh so many years.  Death after death.  All young Black men.  We hardly ever see justice, because there is hardly ever an arrest.  Instead of justice, we see retaliation; the loss of even more life…thus we struggle in this vicious cycle, losing young man after young man after young man, with nothing to show for it.  It is a massive problem that can’t be easily fixed because so many components make it what it is.

We’ve been getting some terse emails from people upset that we aren’t calling the Black community to the carpet for their part.  We do that on the SV on the regular, and we’ve been preparing the words for this most recent situation as well.  The gist of the emails have been that there are people who are keeping quiet about MANY of the murders, bound to some stupid ass code of silence where snitching is simply unacceptable.  Absurd.

We’ve been told that if we want to consider ourselves “responsible” bloggers, then we’ll turn our focus on the Black community and put all our energy there.  If we want to be “responsible” we’ll take on the people who are doing this, or those who shelter them.  If we want to be “responsible”…

Look, we know there are severe problems.  We’ve written about them before.  In fact we write about them all them time.

We can say it- some mofo’s out there just make us plain SICK.  Pull up your pants.  Please.  Take your ass back to school or get your GED.  Stop talking like proper English or curse word free language is a sin.  Stop disrespecting each other.  Get a real fucking job.  Take care of your kids.  Be involved.  Raise the bar of expectation.  There.  We said it.  We feel so…responsible.

As for dealing with those who may know something but are keeping mum…look…such a thing might insight us to kick somebody’s ass all the way to the police station- if we knew who the hell that somebody was, but we don’t.  We doubt very much that they’re reading the blog.  Just a hunch.

This code of silence bullshit, is just that, it’s bullshit.  It’s infuriating, it’s insulting to the lives lost, the memories and loved ones left to cope.  It emboldens other stupid ass little wanna be thugs who start to believe they’ll get away with it- after all, everybody else does.

The Tyrone Love Story can go one of 2 ways.

1.  He can be just another dead, young Black man in a long line of dead, young Black men.

2. He can be the person that motivated everyone else to break the wall of silence and bring justice in this case, and probably many others, since, as someone at the police department explained it to me yesterday “they are all connected”.

What ending will we write?

Funeral Service for Tyrone Love will be held on:

WENDESDAY, FEBRUARY 25TH, 2009

MADRONA PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

832 32ND AVE, SEATTLE, WA 98122

10:00 AM

Donations for the Funeral Expense and Family can be made at any Washington Branch of:

BANK OF AMERICA

under the name:

BENEVOLENT ACCOUNT FOR TYRONE LOVE

Take Action, Demand Change; The Silent War

Media Advisory
The Silent War Campaign to address community violence at Press Conference and Community Rally.

The Silent War Campaign is developing an organized response to not only the recent murders but to so many deaths that have occurred as a result of African Americans killing each other.

Seattle, WA, February 19, 2009: The Silent War Campaign will launch its latest effort “THOU SHALT NOT KILL” at a press conference at Garfield Community Center this Friday.

The organization will outline a response to recent violence and specifically the MURDER of Tyrone Love who was killed earlier this week.

WHEN: Friday, February 20, 2009
WHERE: Garfield Community Center
TIME: 1 PM

There will also be a community rally on Saturday, February 21st, 2009 in the same location and time to distribute flyers, posters and hear concerns regarding the rise in violence