When I acted up in school, I got disciplined by EVERYBODY. My teacher, your teacher, teachers I didn’t even know, the principal, the custodian, the bus driver, the school secretary, all of these people either fussed or laid hands on me, and I ain’t talking about praying. No matter where a kid got out of line, there was an adult to get them back in line. It did not matter if we were at church, school, or playing outside. The adults in the community had a part in raising us.
Discipline wasn’t all about spankings or fussing. I remember being with my dad, Arthur Robertson, Sr., at Mr. McGuirt’s Tire & Service and seeing how to interact with people and how the machines worked. I remember Mr. Melvin Jones, Wade Bell, and other men teaching us how to play baseball, basketball, and football. I remember my cousins in White Oak giving me what I needed to get good at basketball. I remember all of the fish fries and church family days.
When I couldn’t find work as a teenager, Clarence Gilbert brought me along with him to learn his business. I remember another member from my church telling my cousin Lawrence and me about an opportunity to work at the White Oak Conference Center. I remember at Blythewood Recreation, the guy tracking my mom down so he could tell her about the chance at the gym for me to become a summer camp counselor.
We had communities. We had communities within communities. These communities, although they weren’t perfect, kept us safe.
America, we need to return to being a community. Our kids need us. They have so much promise, and as they are, so are we. It takes a village to raise our children, and we have to get back to being the village.
Kennedy Robertson
Ridgeway
