I’m not going to act like I was the biggest fan of Nipsey Hussle before he died. Quite honestly, I never listened to any of his albums all the way through – if anything, I would hear his hit singles and that’s it. However, for some odd reason, when I heard that he’d been killed, it really hit me. It’s weird, to this day I can’t fully explain why, but it really hit me. I’d just started to hear more about his entrepreneurship ventures and how he had been reinvesting into his community. In the back of my head, I was just excited to see what he had planned next, and how far this guy could go.

I have a problem with all of this. Mostly, because this wasn’t a lynching or a government assassination. It was one nigga that killed Nip out of hate and jealousy. This assassination came from inside the Black community. We all wanted to point our fingers at the government, I mean, it wasn’t a bad idea. However, we have to digress back to reality – this was one of our own that killed this man. Like crabs in a barrel, it seems like in our community we see each others as the enemy. And truly, this isn’t just a Black community issue. This is a human issue.

One day Jesus walked into a synagogue (a Jewish church if you will) in his hometown, Nazareth. There, he told the audience that he was the prophesied Son of God that would fulfill the scriptures. He said what He said, announcing His identity and His intentions to save the world, however the response was the last thing anyone would expect (except Jesus). The audience replied, “Is this not the son of Joseph?” and later went on to try and throw Him off of a cliff. Jesus ended up “passing through” the crowd and getting away, and the statement He made was …

“…no prophet is accepted in his hometown.”

At this point I don’t want to just talk about Nipsey, but branch out to focus on the message at large. LA loved Nip – but apparently there were still those that had enough hate in their heart to kill Him. I ask the question, why must we refuse out peers access to greatness? Why do we feel like their success is something to envy or doubt?

I feel like we all have some type of disbelief in change. We don’t believe that the people we grow up around can change, grow, take up anointing – and if they do, it should be us instead. Think about how toxic that mindset is. We long for a “savior” or hero to come and save our people from cycles of poverty, lack of education and more. But when they end up being the people we grew up with, we think God got it wrong. We start to envy because we doubt that we will ever be great in our own regard. Or we envy the lifestyle the hero takes on of fame and “love”.

At the end of the day I believe the root of the hate, doubt and envy is our “perception prison”. I made this term up. It explains the box we put people’s identities into. The same thing happens when we think about the power of a first impression. It is how we form our primary perception of someone. The problem is, this is hard to change. A lot of us then go on to keep this perception of the person no matter what – trapping them in our perception prison. They aren’t allowed to change our mind by breaking out, or doing/being something or someone we didn’t expect. When they do break out, we are jealous, we doubt them. Ultimately we can look to end them.

One thing I think we should all learn from this is to do away with the perception prison we put people in. Stop keeping people in a box. When they break the ceiling, we root for them, not shoot them. We aren’t jealous, because not only did we believe in their capabilities, but we are also aware that God has a purpose for our lives too that will bring the ultimate sense of fulfillment.

And for those trapped in someone else’s perception prison. Don’t be scared or hesitant to break out. Your purpose is on the other side of those bars, and yes, it is worth dying for.