It was a pretty average day for me. The sun was beating down on my back, and I was pedaling through side streets viciously. Just an 8-year-old kid heading to the bike shop, hoping to get some cool off-road tires I had ordered from Mr. Danny a couple of weeks before.

Zion Webb, co-newscast director and reporter for The Optimist.

My bike was more to me than just a frame and wheels. It was my freedom, my pride, and in many ways, a piece of me. I felt that my imagination, in a place that always seemed covered by a black cloud, could at any time be set free with my bike.

I pedaled hard, weaving in and out of traffic, broken glass bottles, and, of course, the occasional old dope bag. Rushing to get there first, before they opened, I was eager to get the tires. But instead of riding off with new tires, I walked away empty. 

I still remember the emptiness that I was left with.

At the stairs of the tire shop, two older high school kids stepped out. They were dark skinned, dressed with their pants sagging below their waistlines, hooded and masked as if it were 30 degrees outside, despite it being midsummer. Their eyes were, as I imagined the devil’s, bloodshot, deeply red and fiery.

They looked me in the face, demanded what I loved most, and I gave it to them, because my life meant more to me than my bike. Something no kid should ever have to decide.

“That’s a nice bike,” one whispered.

“Thanks, man. I appreciate it.”

“How ‘bout you let me take it for a spin?”

“You think I’m stupid?” I quickly said back.

“You give me the bike, or I’ll shoot you,” his wingman added, reaching into his waistband.

I was left questioning the world. And I walked away asking: Why do we do this to each other?

This was much more than a robbery. It was part of something deeper, something we, for some reason, tend to do to each other.

And I’m Black too, and I knew the struggle of my hood.

We’re already weighed down by poverty, injustice and generational hardships that follow us like ghosts. But the most painful wound doesn’t even come from without; it comes from within.

By the way, this is not even close to being about my color or where I grew up, but instead the condition of our nation and community as a whole.

George Floyd’s last breath was drawn under the pressure of a knee. Children’s laughter silenced in classrooms turned into graveyards. Headlines about mass shootings and political assassinations, such as that of Charlie Kirk, incited division instead of peace.

We live in a culture where bullets, blood and barbarity scream louder than brotherhood, and hate drowns out the love we should give each other.

But this I do know: God did not create us for division. He created us in his image, not to divide, but to unite and share his truth.

We’ve got to build up each other when the world tells us to be divided.

We’ve got to choose words over guns or fists, looking away from violence.

And we’ve got to have tough, respectful conversations with people that we wouldn’t normally collide with.

This is not my hood. This is ours. And when it’s ours, we should do our very best to protect it and those within it.