Violence nothing new in Detroit - opinion of Laura Berman

[EASTSIDE CAT 67-83]

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.

From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2...#ixzz1vbjsZNsr

[mwilbert]

It seems to me that there is a useful distinction between saying that an impoverished/disordered/unmentored/hopeless upbringing excuses bad behavior, and saying that it helps explain it. Bad behavior must be discouraged if society is to function. On the other hand, it might still be a good idea to look at some of the causes of bad behavior and see if they can be ameliorated.

[corktownyuppie]

It seems to me that there is a useful distinction between saying that an impoverished/disordered/unmentored/hopeless upbringing excuses bad behavior, and saying that it helps explain it. Bad behavior must be discouraged if society is to function. On the other hand, it might still be a good idea to look at some of the causes of bad behavior and see if they can be ameliorated.

There's a definite distinction between excusing and explaining bad behavior. The two are not the same at all. Unfortunately, that point gets lost in the vitriolic political fervor that is ideological purity.

When you're teaching a class of 20 students to read, and 18 of them are unable to read after 3 years of teaching, it's natural to want to blame someone. But in order to really solve the problem, one needs to ignore the temptation to debate blame and instead focus on how to create different outcomes.

That's the difference between excusing and explaining. One is focusing on blaming someone for a past behavior. Explaining focuses on accumulating the knowledge necessary to change the behavior in the future.

[internet_pseudopod]

...."Every singe person in this country has a chance and a choice in life"....

From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2...#ixzz1vbjsZNsr

The problem is that fewer and fewer places in Detroit resemble America.

[Parkguy]

"That same child who showed up from the Hood on that first day of school had the exact same opportunity that Buffy and Reginald had from Whitey-ville, its just that the separate roads they traveled to adulthood were filled with different obstacles."

I am a retired teacher who taught for 36 years in a suburban district that everyone on this board would recognize as one of the best. It has been recognized nationally and internationally for its quality. I'm here to tell you that my former students, many of whom are successful and well-known for their work, were NOT given the same opportunities that children in poorer communities were given. The opportunities my students had were measurably and clearly superior to the opportunities given to students from poor districts. Everyone does not start school with the same opportunities. It is easy to dismiss studies as the worthless and biased work of tenured researchers, but the numbers don't lie.

Here's what the numbers have shown over and over: the best predictor of how an individual student will perform in school is the educational level of the parents, particularly the mother. The best predictor of how a school or school district will perform overall academically is the tax base of the community. This doesn't have anything to do with school millage, but with the wealth of the community. Note that I said "best predictor," not "only predictor." This means that ON AVERAGE [[and you can always find an exception to the following statement, because statistics can't predict how an individual will perform, but can be spot-on for large-group percentages), a student from a high-achieving family will do better than his or her peers in a poor school. And on average, students from schools in wealthy communities will do better than those from poor communities. Family wealth is also a strong predictor, but wealth and educational level are very strongly connected in this country.

Public and private agencies recognize this; my former district was regularly recognized for excellence because they educated students to a level above what would have been expected based on economics in the community. In other words, they got awards for beating the statistics. [[They actually give awards for this.) The recognition came from firms that consult with placement agencies, foreign corporations, and real estate firms to steer relocating executives when they are looking for a place to live in a new city. These companies put their dollars behind these statistics, and they haven't gone broke by doing it.

Kids get it, too. Just listen to them chanting in the stands when one of the really elite private schools loses a game to a school with a lower income profile: "That's OK... we'll be your bosses."

[canuck]

The myth of equal opportunity is as strong as the myth of violence being a baby new phenomenon. There is an insidious violence in poverty that goes beyond punches and physical abuse. Ignorance and fear of society at large, posing as bullies to put up strong front are all a product of this poverty.

If that werent enough, the Hollywood myths of gang violence throughout its history, the sideshow appeal of Buffalo Bill and the James brothers before the advent of cinema, trickle down to today.

And in the afro-american community, the heroes of a lot of young folks are anti-heroes in the mold of gangster rappers. Not a recipe for elevation out of the hood. The models that european immigrant kids had in the ghettoes of lower eastside NewYork were not always proper, but there was a sense that one could eventually surface above the misery with the added advantage of skin color.

Your iconic rapstar will continue to be identified with the negative aspects of a small inbred circle of society no matter how prosperous he becomes. In fact, his survival as an icon is dependant on this. It is a strange kind of engineering that manages to further ghettoize black inner city kids reinforcing patterns of behavior that accomodate a small coterie of musicians and those who profit from crime.