“Why do we hate each other?”

I got to know Akia Lewis, a 10th grader at The Howard School in Chattanooga after her principal, Zac Brown told me, “She’s one of our shining lights.”  He was so right.

It turns out I had actually met her a few weeks before, when she was among fifty local students who was named a Carson Scholar, in honor of her academics and community work.  I emceed the program at UTC on Sunday April 12, and I chatted with her before she came on stage, to make sure I would say her name right (it’s pronounced uh-KEE-uh).

She’s also very involved in the new Student Government Association at Howard.  I learned very quickly that she is passionate about her school work.  “She’s going places,” teacher Terry Farriss told me.

School counselor Ismahen Kadrie asked Akia to read me the poem she had written.  Once again, it seems, we were linked to Sunday April 12, but I had no way of knowing that.

Akia told me, “When I woke up that morning, I said to myself, this is going to be a great day.  I felt good, I wanted to look good for this special day.”  The scholarship program, funded by Ben and Candy Carson, is quite prestigious.  The luncheon itself is attended by hundreds.  The winning students, their parents, teachers, and principals, treated to a grand meal and a salute to their achievements.  Each student gets their moment in the spotlight, greeted by loud cheers.  This was to be one of the best days of Akia’s 16-year-old life.

The program lasted for a couple of hours.  Akia enjoyed a delicious lunch, accepted her award, and posed for photos. She went home, and something terrible happened.  Around 5:00 that afternoon, one of her friends (“like my brother” she said) was shot to death in a drive-by shooting on North Germantown Road in Chattanooga.  Police say he was not the intended victim.

Kentrell Provens was a 16-year-old Brainerd High student.  He had been in some trouble, but nothing major.  His older brother was said to be a gang member, and to this day, police aren’t sure if Kentrell’s death was a random shooting, retribution, or a case of mistaken identity.  Like Akia, Kentrell was focusing on his school work, and had just made the Honor Roll at Brainerd.  Now, suddenly, just hours after mowing his mother’s lawn, he was dead.  Like so many other black youths in Chattanooga.  Day after day, year after year.

Akia had to do something to express her sadness, her frustration, her anger.  So she sat down and wrote this poem.  She shared it at school, and her teachers told her she should share it with others.  I’m thankful she shared it with me, and I’m proud to share it with you.

Here is the full text of Akia’s poem, “Why Do We Hate Each Other?”

Why do we hate each other?

Instead of building each other up,

We want to break each other.

Instead of giving them a hand,

We wanna take each other’s.

We tend to put each other down and then disgrace each other.

Why can’t we love each other?

It doesn’t have to be as much as you love your mother.

We’re all Gods children, so love your brother But no, you’d rather hate each other.

I can see you don’t care about the intelligence.

It’s pretty clear you want to hear the ignorance, But from listening to the ignorance, what do you get?

Tell me, exactly why do you benefit?

You shoot over a color,

You choose blue or even red

But why does it even matter, you can’t see anything when you’re dead.

You say if “homie” was starving you would give him your last bread, But let him say the wrong thing, that’s one shot to the head.

Our generation don’t square up anymore,

I guess we’re some shooters now.

That’s sad because a bullet doesn’t have a name and a child could get hit coming out the house.

And it’s like the lives that are lost don’t effect the ones doing the killing.

They only care about representing their sets and trying to make a living.

You swear you’re hard, tryin’ to tell a girl like me, I’m tripping,

But from my point of view, caring about another person enough to take his life is a bit feminine.

You would rather chill with your homies, then to get an education. A true man would look at you with disgust and let that be his motivation.

But I’m going to stop now,

For I know I’m wasting my breath.

For with ignorant people, it goes in the right, and out the left.