They were expendable...

[WCGreen]

Yesterday afternoon, as I was getting ready to attend my niece's graduation from Case Law School (we are so proud), I heard a pretty disturbing report on NPR...

It was about this feature that the LA Times puts on it's Blog called The Homicide Report...

The person who runs the show was talking about giving a face to the people who die at the hands of their fellow man...

There are so many murders in LA now that they really don't have the space to cover them all in the daily paper. They talked about the largest segment of the population at risk for murder. Turns out to be what you would expect; Black men in the age group from 25-45. This is the demographic where where most of the murders happen.

They talked about what could be done. I thought it was weird that they would try to go into the high risk neighborhoods and try to educate those at risk in the art of conflict mediation. This is the kind of response that evokes sniggering from the right. The hand wringing on the left is no better. The only difference is a little empathy.

The real problem is that for so many years wide swaths of the African American community has been shut off in the de facto guarded areas of the inner city. The folks in the burbs and the Urban Islands of wealth and prosperity are relatively safe from harm. The men in these "at risk" neighborhoods take their frustrations out on each other...

Conflict resolution is the least of their worries.

Perhaps if someone in a position of power actually cared to educate and then give a little glimmer of hope that the American Dream is something these isolated "at-risk" men had a shot at, some of the need for conflict resolution would evaporate.

I don't have any idea if this is the problem or if there is some kind of conspiracy or even if there is a cultural proclivity to violence. But I do know this; that even when I was in my darkest hours, when life was happening all around me while I sucked down enough liquor to drown a small city, I always knew in the back of my mind that I could change my life if I decided too. I had family and friends who would be there for me if I just swallowed my pride and asked for help.

AA was there, my family was there and I was able to salvage my life.

I can't even fathom what it would be like to have no hope at all, not even a glimmer. I wonder what would have happened if the testosterone that was surging my through my veins met a mind that was filled with nothing but cynical despair, with no hope at all for the life I saw everyday on TV, what would I have done? Would I have been able to save my life?

I don't think so. I'm not that strong. Hell most people aren't that strong. So why do so many people in this self-proclaimed "compassionate" country of ours expect people raised in such despair to pick themselves up by their bootstraps?

It sickens me that we are so cavalier about lives that most of us will never see.

I guess these men are expendable.

The trouble it they will be until someway somehow we can throw a life preserver of hope into those neighborhoods marked with red lines in the police precincts of not just LA but in every city of size in this country of ours.

In case you didn't catch my drift, I was really upset all through a night that I should have been been filled with happiness. I tried all night but that story kept coming back to haunt me. Welcome to the 21st century.

Take a peek for yourself...

http://projects.latimes.com/homicide-report/blog/page/1/

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Conflict resolution will not cut it.

These folks need so much more. They need education, money, JOBS. They need a way to get out of those neighborhoods, and for sure conflict resolution will not give them that.

I think (and I've seen) that people outside those neighborhoods will respond and help once they hear one or two stories, stories that are personal, that they can identify with.

But that's hard to do on a large scale.

I'm not sure just how to tackle a problem this large and intractable.

Who said "A mind is a terrible thing to waste"?

But that's operating here...


K&R

[CC]

2. When the message you get from everyone around you

and society as a whole is that you have no real value then how in the hell are you suppose to put any value on somebody else's life?

[Newest Reality]

3. I think that is when you are,

thankfully, left to your own conscience, being and devices.

That is a great and auspicious provocation where you find a finger that points back to who and what you actually are. What now, is your nature? Do you really need a leader or an authority figure, a doctrine or a dogma, an ethic or a consensus to know what is correct for you, or not?

We can, with some courage, effort and clarity, come to understand within our own, directly accessible and immediate selves, (as we understand the idea of self) clearly come to an understanding about life and our relationship to life when we deal with it directly and combine the visceral and cerebral in a way that encourages an effective and balanced dynamic.

Where do you find that taught, expounded upon, or encouraged these days outside of secular dogma and hard to encompass, philosophical exploration? It is simple and it is a garnering of trust in a compact with your own nature, first and foremost. How has that now become so very foreign that it needs to be reminded and even sought out?

Self-alienation is the ultimate form of culture-induced delusion. Can we act, (or refuse to act) as if we are the actions and what we act upon?

[Sherman A1]

4. Thanks for Posting

interesting piece.

[EFerrari]

5. It has been the "hand wringing left" in this country

that has been about social justice, safety nets and harm reduction. To pretend for a moment that the only difference between the two is a widdle feeling is to disrespect the hard work of people who spent their lives making the lives of others better and I'm sure you don't want to do that, speaking of lives you will never see.

[WCGreen]

7. Until there is structural change in our society then it really doesn't

matter...

I'm talking about political people. And I have seen the lives of these people. When I was the treasurer of the Democratic Party here in Cuyahoga County, I was the only suburbanite who would reach out to the ward clubs and political organizations in the inner city. No one else would.

I also saw a whole bunch of so-called left leaning people play lip service to the plight of those trapped in the inner city during the run up to elections and then never appear again until it was time for re-election. And we wonder why the turnout in the inner city is so low.

Look, I know there are a lot of good intentioned people out there working hard against incredible odds to try and make a difference. I've seen them. They are there. At least here in Cleveland, they are almost always ministers and priests and lay people connected with churches that provide what little social justice network exists in the these blighted areas.

As far as the political left, where have they really been?

In my life time the only true left leaning national figure who really gave a damn was Jimmy Carter. Sure there are other examples but that list is short by any stretch of measure.

[tblue]

6. It's just so wrong. Wouldn't you change that, if you could?

But I think it's kinda hard for Obama to address this the way he might want to. A lot of us wondered if the black community would really be better off with Obama as president. Certainly there is a great sense of pride and identification with him that has raised the aspirations of many, many young black people. I can't think of a better role model. But as for the idea that Obama would really reach in, roll up his sleeves, and make every effort to turn things around in the black community, he won't, not to the degree he really could.

I'm not saying this to criticize our POTUS. I know he's overburdened as it is. But in this political climate, he clearly doesn't want to take the heat for being a champion of black people. I wish he would, tho.

[WCGreen]

8. I really would love to see more people outside of the Inner Cities

give more than lip service to the problem.

[WCGreen]

9. morning kick

[aikoaiko]

10. Sadly, to some people, black on black homicide is the solution -- not the problem.

Sad.

Having said that I am under the impression that homicides are way down in LA (compared to the high rates of the early 1990s)

http://www.streetgangs.com/homicides/lachomichart.html