Dennis Plante wrote: > Discrimination exists in many forms, at ALL levels of our society. All that Tyrone Terril and CM Samuels are pointing-out is that there is a personal responsibility that ALL of us have in teaching our children what is acceptable and what is unacceotable behaviour. > My business partner is a political refugee from El Salvador. The country from which he came from and the conditions he lived under in that country would rival what ANY minority in our country has experienced in their history... Yet, he'd still be the first to "boot" a child of his out the door if they were involved in gang-related activity...It is not acceptable to say that because we have not achieved equality (in our society) that I will not teach my children the basic difference between right and wrong. > ...There are MANY rock-solid african american mothers AND fathers out there that need the same tools we give the white mothers and fathers in our society. DON'T take these tools away from them because we have not achieved racial equality in our society. As a community, send a message to the children. Let them know it is NOT okay to participate in gangs and gang-related activities. The legacy of any generation should be to leave the world (to their children) a better place than what they found-it."
Diane Wiley responds: Wow, I am overwhelmed by some of the assumptions here that Dennis is making. First, that the parents of gang kids didn't teach their kids values. Lots and lots of gang kids have parents who did try to teach their kids values and the parents are totally freaked out and without any help to deal with their kids. Let's say you have a young kid who is associated with a gang and selling pot to get money, which gets him deeper and deeper into the gang. What do you do? Say "honey, get an honest job to earn money"? And where does that job come from? RT just said on the radio that federal funds were cut for the jobs for gang kids program. They got 29 jobs last year and hope to get 80 this year for gang kids. That's a drop in the bucket. There's another city program for jobs for kids that also had cuts. They have enough money for 300 jobs, says RT and they need 3000. Wanna keep kids out of gangs? Job programs are probably the best way. If you want to help kids, lecturing them about values is great, but getting them a job is changing their behavior and actually DOING SOMETHING. A little statistic about jobs I read in the Nation -- there was a study where they had adult males, black and white, in Milwaukee go out to get jobs with similar resumes. The white males with HS diplomas and a criminal record got called back almost twice as much as the black males with HS diplomas and NO criminal record. Black teenagers can get jobs, but a lot of them are going to need help, and that also goes for Asian, Latino and White teenagers, gang members or not. Second, kicking your kid out. I got news for you. You can't do that legally. Not if they are under 16, and many of the "gang kids" are under 16. And what happens if they are 16 and you DO kick them out? How do they support themselves? More pot selling, stealing, gangbanging? That's real positive. You've lost any chance at helping them go straight and lead a decent life. It's a basic tenent of all kinds of therapies, cognitive, behavioral, whatever, that you have to replace the bad behavior with something else or you haven't got a chance at real change. This punitive stuff does not work at changing people. And finally, look at the impact on families where there are problem kids. These families are already stressed out. I know a woman who has 4 kids, has been on and off welfare and lives in section 8 housing. Her oldest son got busted for crack and she almost lost her house. What the heck good is that going to do? She's trying to work at her job and make it so she can stay off welfare, and they threatened to kick her out of her house. Hello? Her oldest didn't even live there, but he gave their address because where does he live anyway? But what if he did? Do you think she necessarily HAD to know that he was dealing? I don't think so. And if she did, what could she do about it except tell him not to? And what possible good would it do to destroy her and her other kids' lives? Diane Wiley >From Tangletown now because I had to leave Powderhorn for my teenagers' sake > > REMINDERS: > 1. Be civil! Please read the NEW RULES at http://www.e-democracy.org/rules. If you think a member is in violation, contact the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. > > 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. > > For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html > For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract > ________________________________ > > Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy > Post messages to: mailto:[email protected] > Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls REMINDERS: 1. Be civil! Please read the NEW RULES at http://www.e-democracy.org/rules. If you think a member is in violation, contact the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[email protected] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
