Fear Is Not Respect, by Michael Rhem

As a black man, I understand how much we want people to respect us, but the question that came to me while I thinking about the subject of black men and our want of respect was, “do we live lives that would be categorized as respectful?” Does our lifestyle demand the worthiness of other ethnic groups respect? Then I spent some time reminiscing and reflecting my behavior. Has my behavior been worthy of respect? I question myself first before I criticize anything. After the examination of myself, I see that I’m guilty. We want respect but we don’t live respectably. If we as black people don’t know how to respect each other, then it is foolish to expect any race of people to respect us, after they see that WE don’t even respect US. This relates to how us black men treat each other, how we treat our women, and to how we raise or fail to raise our children. It’s shameful, and this is how we portray ourselves publicly. I’ve noticed that the young brother’s have the definition of respect confused with fear. How do I know? Because that’s how I use to think. Matter of fact, I use to think it was better to be feared, then the people have no choice but to respect me. It not til recently that I’ve realized that fear has nothing to do with respect, conduct does. So now I’m committed to living respectfully by learning how to love as God loves. 1 Corinthians chapter 13. 

Michael Rhem
DOC #723868