HOWELL: Another Promising Black Life Lost to Gun Violence in Philly
On Sunday, May 11, which was Mother’s Day, another tragic gun violence shooting happened in our city, Philadelphia. The victim, Philadelphia-known rapper Qidere Johnson, known as LGP Qua, was shot and killed in Northeast Philadelphia in the Juniata Park section.
Several local Philadelphia news outlets have reported that this was a robbery gone wrong.
I did not know Qidere, 30, but in an instance of six degrees of separation, through our Race for Peace Committee organization, my father knew a community leader named Anton Moore, who was close to him. Anton is from South Philadelphia and is the founder of his organization, Unity in the Community, and a 48th Ward leader in Philadelphia.
And though I didn’t know him, Qua’s death hit me hard.
Unfortunately, numerous shootings have happened throughout Philadelphia and Pennsylvania. But in some shooting incidents, the case just may be the death of a high-profile person that will captivate an entire community’s attention, like this sorrowful shooting of LGP Qua.
From seeing the news reports about Qua, he seemed to have a role-model attitude towards the youth and demonstrated those qualities through music and outside of music.
When watching clips of him being interviewed, for example with radio and television personality Mina “SayWhat” Llona, Qua said impactful words like, “You don’t have to be a thug, be the tough guy,” and “It’s not all about being a gangster. You can be a good dude and still win in life.”
This sad murder encounter with LGP Qua, from my perspective, seemed to be targeted. The three robbers who approached him that evening may have known that he was specifically in the neighborhood at the time and decided to attack him.
That issue has been a problem for years in our city and is spreading to our surrounding counties. Our own people of color are hurting, harming, and destroying one another, taking our lives away. It is extremely harsh to say, but at this point in time, it is most likely the truth.
One of Philadelphia’s most popular and influential rappers, Meek Mill, mentored LGP Qua. Meek Mill’s reaction to this heartbreaking shooting was meaningful. He said on Instagram that Qua was ambitious, adding that these guns need to be collected from the streets, defining all these gun violence scenes as saddening.
This type of message needs to be heard and voiced out more often, especially coming from someone like Meek Mill with a monumental platform.
On Mill’s Facebook page, the words “street therapy” resonate. Street therapy needs to happen now more than ever in this generation. With some people, emphasizing the Black culture community, we have a portion of madness and anger that we hold onto and need to release the anger fully in a manageable fashion.
Street therapy is referred to as mental health care, and mental health is what needs to be addressed more effectively in this world nowadays. Counseling, and more so, community members, family, friends, talking to one another and looking out for one another and having each other’s backs, to make sense and understanding for the normality of life.
