‘You are special and you are loved’: A letter to kids from Saleem Ghubril of Pittsburgh Promise

Image by Sandy Gold

It was Friday evening, May 29th, the end of a rough week, but not yet the end of a challenging season that has caused all of us to be under lockdown. Mr. George Floyd was killed that week, another life taken while being Black and male in America.

I got home feeling ready for the weekend. I took a few minutes to unwind and sat on the front steps. My neighbor’s young son was playing outside with two of his friends. They were making lots of joyful noise that my soul needed to hear. Plus, they were “watering” our flowers with their squirt guns, two Black boys and one girl.

We live in a small rowhouse on the North Side of Pittsburgh. We raised two children here, both graduated from Perry High School. They are now grown and married. They have given us five amazing grandchildren under the age of four. They are all boys. Two of them are Black.

As soon as I sat on the steps, I received an email from my friend and member of my Board at The Pittsburgh Promise, Kiya Tomlin. She hinted that I should write something that might possibly be encouraging to Pittsburgh’s kids at a time like this. Thank you, Kiya.

This is now my third version. The first one sounded like I was writing for the editorial board at the newspaper. The second one sounded like a fundraising appeal – a hazard of my job.

Now, for my third try, I am writing as a grandfather. What do I want to say to my White, Black, and Arab grandchildren that I would say to all of Pittsburgh’s children, whether Black, Brown, Asian, Native, or White, English speakers and English learners, females, males, and transitioning, who live in big houses or little apartments in 90 city neighborhoods and 130 county municipalities?

I want you to know that you are special and you are loved. There is nothing you need to do to become special or to earn love. And there is nothing you can do to lose either. In you just being you, you are special and loved. You really are.

As dearly loved humans who are endowed by their Creator with rights, talents, and responsibilities, we the adults in this world owe you – all of you – some things:

• You should not be tolerated. You should instead be treated with the utmost of care.
• You should not be hurried. You should have the time needed to be a child and an adolescent before you have adult worries and responsibilities.
• You should not be afraid. You should be secure in the knowledge that you are physically and emotionally safe at home, at school, and in every neighborhood throughout the land.
• You should not be uncertain. You should be confident that your parents and relatives, your teachers and bus drivers, your police officers and mentors see you as precious humans, and look out for you as treasures to be guarded.
• You should not be taken for granted. You should be able to count on your school to inspire and equip you to flourish.
• You should not be passive. You should be engaged in service, helping to create and build a city that is good and just for all.

Thankfully, some of you have all these things. It breaks my heart that not all of you can say that. If we as a community have failed some of you, we have failed. I hold to the view that all kids are our kids.

I don’t know how many good years I have left, but I pledge to you that I will spend them using whatever influence I have to get the grownups in our city to do better until we do right by all of you.

For 35 years, I have been captivated by a vision for Pittsburgh as a good and just city. The vision for that city comes from the Bible. It is described as a place where old people sit on their front steps and watch over little boys and girls as they play safely in the streets. (Zechariah 8:4-5)

My friend Sandy Gold painted this banner for me to show what that vision might look like. I hope you see yourself in it.

Sincerely yours,

Jedu (Arabic word for grandpa) Saleem