Violence nothing new in Detroit - opinion of Laura Berman

"One way to combat crime might be to stop mythologizing it by harkening back to a golden age of social harmony none of us can remember.

We can focus instead on what really frightens us. Carl Taylor, the Michigan State University professor and expert on gang violence, describes a growing underclass, devoid of hope for education or employment.

Hopelessness is real and it's scary. The hopeless have nothing to lose. Your life means even less to them than their own.

That's the person who will kill a baby with only a flicker of remorse, or attack a minister at a gas station, or pull a young girl off the street.
I am glad to hear that the police are teaming up with clergy on community "Night Walks," because any action is better than more hand-wringing and long-practiced incredulity."

From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2...#ixzz1vbAZJ8fF

I am so sick and tired of hearing from institutional educator leftest apologists making excuses for why people choose a life of crime in Detroit and else where over being a normal productive member of society. Did they show up at Kindergarten at age 5 and read a sign saying "all members of the social underclass, who feel devoid of hope for education or employment... please return to your homes to begin your life as a criminal" NO they didn't ready any such sign, they had every opportunity at that given moment in time as everyone else...yes even Buffy and Brad out in Whitey-ville, they were equal at that moment in time. I understand that the environment that Buffy and Brad grew up in was one of privilege and pretty benign compared to that young man from the hood on his first day of school. But at the end of the day we are all personally responsible for the choices WE make in life and the more we try to make excuses for personal accountability based on a preceived lack of opportunity the more me encourage the cycle of violence. T