Shit you don't want to hear:
In the 1980s, as a young black male living in Los Angeles, I belonged to a gang, wore its colors, and protected its turf. So many of my friends were getting killed that I attended funerals weekly. It became devastating. Now, when I hear some people say that once a person joins a gang, they can't get out, I know it's not true - it can be done.
I have tried to give back to my community as a counselor of teens and young men in several U.S. cities. The dysfunctional social and cultural norms are the biggest problems to tackle. Machismo can be transformed into a positive sense of pride in one's body, reinforced through healthy nutrition and exercise. The sense of hopelessness, animated by attendance at funerals of one's relatives and friends, can be transmuted into a sense of anger and "enough is enough" sentiment to take responsibility for one's destiny.
Based upon my discussions with D.C. public school teachers and their peers in other cities, I am convinced that improper dress, particularly showing off one's underwear, is more than just a wrong aesthetic choice; it manifests a lack of self-respect. If we disrespect ourselves, we cannot gain the respect of others.
But none of this would work without a major effort by the black leadership to abandon the blame game and dedicate themselves to helping their communities. Having community leaders live in the inner cities, rather than the suburbs, would be a good start. Trust in police would be enhanced if they lived amongst the people they protect. Black pastors would be more effective if they lived among their parishioners and expanded their churches' outreach to young males on the streets.
http://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/406077-its-on-us-to-end-black-on-black-crime-hopelessness
It's pretty wry, Utley.
You hide your racism better than Kiid and Redd do, but certain topics bring it out almost as surely as a win by a Boston sports team brings out your anti-Boston rhetoric.
In this case, I posted an article about ripple effects from police shootings. You felt compelled to bring out an article about black-on-black violence. Has nothing to do with what I presented, but it let you drum your same old tune.
But you are just as clueless as Kiid is when it comes to your obsessions. This is one of those times.
VIolence in our cities is a major problem. Violence committed by blacks, violence done to blacks. Violence done by whites and to whites. And violence to every other racial group and by every other racial group.
What Greg Raleigh and you don't seem to understand is that it is not a problem that can be solved solely by the African-American community by itself because it is not a problem
caused solely by the African-America community. Would that it were that simple.
There are 3,810 neighborhood areas with recently recorded childhood lead poisoning rates at least double those found across Flint, Michigan, during the peak of that city’s water contamination crisis in 2014 and 2015. Some 1,300 of these hotspots had a rate of elevated blood tests at least four times higher than Flint’s.
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Lead poisoning is harmful to humans in bunches of ways. And, unsurprisingly in hindsight, the creation of leaded gas was followed, 16 years later, with a rise in violence. With the phasing out of leaded gas, a drop in violence. But phasing out of the gas doesn't mean lead is gone, merely that that source of it is gone. The
pipes still have lead in them in far too many places, mostly cities and mostly in the poorer neighborhoods.
Where do we see lead poisoning? Funny you should ask:
New York City.
Chicago, with more risk areas than NYC on a percentage basis.
LA is not as bad, about half the percentage of Chicago's risk areas. Neither is Miami, with a 10th of NYC's or a 6th of LA's.
Lead isn't the only factor. We know other pollutants have a reductive effect on cognitive capacity. We also know that the areas with greater pollutants in the air are racially imbalanced, sometimes by seeming happenstance, but other times blatantly intentionally, as with East St. Louis.
We are also learning about the epigenetics of poverty, seeing that poverty can increase the vulnerability to both some kinds of mental illness and to addiction.
Add in poorer educational opportunities, fewer job opportunities, population density, and systemic racism. None of those are within the control of the inner city residents. Unfulfilled promises*, short-sighted political programs*, drug policies*, and so much more can get added to the mix. Gangs come as a response to conditions*. They don't spring up so readily where the youth feel served and supported.
It's a massive problem without simple short term solutions. Leadership is needful, but part of what that leadership must do is be educated about the
full situation. Greg Raleigh has seen the surface of the problem. He needs to look deeper at it.
*From LBJ through Nixon to Bill Clinton, as well as before and after them, and from Model Cities to the War on Drugs, our presidents and our Congresses have failed the inner cities. Some of it was well-meaning, like Model Cities or even the mandatory sentencing. Some of it, like the War on Drugs, were mean-spirited at best and evil in all likelihood. But their impact has been to leave a dispirited kind of learned helplessness for some of the adults in these communities, which makes them even less capable of building the resilience these places need.
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