When you go to sleep, what do you think about?

When I go to sleep, I think about all the young men who are dying daily and the effect that these deaths have on their families. Every day, it seems, there is another young man getting killed in Oakland. As of Friday, May 12, Oakland's homicide rate stood at 50, compared with 27 at the same time last year. That's a statistic, but the real fact is that many of us know why the numbers are rising. What's killing our young men is anger.

In the last two years, I have known three different young African-American males, ages 16 to 18, who have been killed -- either in front of their homes, or right down the street from them. Often, it's for stupid things. A close friend of mine was shot to death by another man after a disagreement over who should get to use the remote control. Other men lose their lives over girls, drugs or gangs. Such killings happen because young men in Oakland don't know how to deal with their emotions. I believe that the best way to stop the increasing amount of deaths is to require young men to attend counseling, beginning in elementary school.

In my experience, young men don't know how to deal with anger -- for them, it's like a newborn baby crying for his mother. Their way of dealing with anger is by killing. When a young man gets upset, all he understands is revenge; he wants to cause someone the same pain and anger that he suffered. A young man can get upset over anything, anywhere; but in Oakland, when a young man -- especially a young man of color -- gets mad, he or someone else is going to end up hurt or even dead. Families are devastated. If this cycle continues, there will soon be a shortage of young black males in Oakland.

One way to prevent the homicide rate from rising is to make it more difficult for young men to get guns off the street. This would keep guns out of certain people's hands. This won't prevent all crime; from experience, I know that no matter how many times you take a gun away from a person, he can manage to get another. When a crackhead needs a fix, he will find it; when a young man wants a gun, he will get one. But tougher gun control is a start.

Putting more police on patrol at night could also help. When Oakland police tried this, a couple of years ago, it kept young men off the street. Having more police on patrol, watching over young men, would keep more of them alive.

But the best way to stop the killing, I believe, is to catch anger early. Counseling should start in kindergarten, especially if a child has family problems. Counselors could figure out what is bothering a child, or driving a young person to do what he is doing, before the problems get worse.

I know that this approach works. I have an 11-year-old cousin who suffered through his parents' divorce. He stopped listening to everyone and started 'acting a fool'. My auntie sent him to a psychologist, who found out what was bothering him. Now he's better; although he still has anger problems, he knows that there are better ways to deal with it than shouting and yelling. Counseling allows a child to get all of his negative feelings out early, instead of holding them in. It is a good way to decrease the growing number of young black men who are dying.

When I go to sleep at night, I think about the men I know who have lost their lives. Many solutions have been suggested, but more must be done. If you don't want your son, brother, cousin, uncle or nephew to be part of the cycle, do something now. Make sure the young man you know talks to you about the anger he feels inside -- before it breaks out and kills him.

--Erin Petty is African-American and is a sophomore at Oakland Technical High School