"My Brother's Keeper" and at-risk kids... thoughts?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree that nobody deserves to be hit but the suggestion that behavioral problems in young boys today are BECAUSE of racism or punishment is totally back-assward.

You want to know why there's a disproportionate number of young black boys being disciplined or ending up behind bars? You wonder why profiling happens? It's because a disproportionate amount of the problems in society are being caused by young black men. That's what the data shows.

So I would say that is prima facie EVIDENCE that there is institutional racism at play. If a group of kids of a particular race are for some reason more prone to problem behavior, I want to know what has happened in the lives of these kids that's caused that. Because if you DON'T believe that there are external factors and pressures that lead to this, the alternative is to believe that for some reason, African American boys and young men are predetermined to be violent. If it is not the institutionalized racist conditions of our society which cause this, then basically you have to believe that black boys are just bad.

You only want to point to a culture of "institutionalized racism" and paint that as the blame, as though somehow rich white folks are secretly going around putting guns to young black men's heads and forcing them to drop out of school, forcing them to go out and rob, forcing them to fight with each other, forcing them to get young girls pregnant and then abandon them, forcing them to do drugs, et cetera. That belief is downright bizarre. Prima Facie evidence? More like a conspiracy theory of the illuminati, bigfoot and UFOs.

Yet you don't want to believe that there exists ghetto culture which teaches young black men that this kind of behavior is what you do, and this lifestyle is normal. That belief is downright obtuse.

Those kids didn't ask to be born into this culture. What are you doing to do to help change it? Other than blame the kids. Which is what you're already doing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

My parents were dirt poor and I have what I have because I worked my ass off to get it. I often worked 3 and 4 jobs at a time. It took me 10 years to pay off my college bills. It is wrong to assume I'm looking down on anyone because you don't know what I went through and what sacrifices I made - and it's an insult to suggest that somehow I was entitled or privileged and that everything just fell into my lap. As for "told they are worthless" - who exactly is telling any youth in Anacostia that? If they are being told they are worthless, it's their own community doing that. I certainly am not going around telling them that - they are indeed worth every bit as much as I am - all they need are the skills, they need to stay in school, become literate, learn their math, learn to become reliable and productive and to value each other first. They need to put in the hard work and make the same sacrifices I did.

I had a stint teaching 3rd graders at a school in a housing project community. And the message that I saw passed on to the kids there wasn't that they were worthless, it was that they shouldn't set their expectations too high. More accurately, that they'd be hurting themselves if they set any expectations at all. The probabilities for girls pointed toward welfare, babies and a lot of time in family court; for boys it was death and incarceration. Circle time was very often filled with stories of gunfire outside bedroom windows, demonstrations of the way one should stand with their hands against the wall when the police raid a home at 3 am, and rumors about what would happen to the guys who killed so-and-so's big brother. The primary thing that everyone in that community had to deal with was fear. Fear of thugs and the police, fear of getting killed, fear of a loved one getting killed or jailed, and most important, fear of being seen as fearful. The fights and brutality happened because the weak got crushed. One girl, who lived with her mom and sister at a homeless shelter, developed an acerbic sense of humor to ward off the ruthless taunts and violence against her; she was very often followed after school and jumped by the other kids for having a smart mouth. These were 8-year-olds. Really angry, stressed out, scared-to-death kids. They're often hungry, too. Those free and reduced meals were practically inedible. Education and getting a paycheck some day? Last thing on their minds. When I asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, all but three said they wanted to be a police officer (girls, too) "because the police can do anything they want."

So maybe it's not about having something handed to you; I think the PP was off the mark about that. But if you worked your ass off to get where you are, you had to start with a belief that you could get there, and then get some knowledge of how. That's what's missing for a lot of these kids. There's not a lot of long-term thinking when you're just trying to survive today. The will to push past obstacles isn't in everyone (I know some lazy ass, criminally-oriented, unprincipled kids from six-figure families); but those who have it should at least get a shot. Communities and parents already hamstrung by those obstacles can't do it without the help of outside influence that can marshall the resources.

I have worked in a similar school and also at a school where 80% of students were immigrants from other countries (or their parents were immigrants)

It is amazing to see the difference in behavior between the two populations. Even though the poverty levels are similar on paper there is an enormous difference in student behavior. I chalk that up to having stable families and a belief that their families are working hard for a better future for their children.


We can talk a good game about blaming ghetto culture and poverty cultuer but what can we do to change that other than victim blaming? (posting on my phone so forgive me for errors)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anyone who doesn't think ghetto culture is patterned, modeled, taught and learned beginning at an early age is obtuse.
obtuse - annoyingly insensitive or slow to understand.
"he wondered if the doctor was being deliberately obtuse"

It's learning that has to be deprogrammed and replaced with something else. Otherwise it's self-defeating and self-limiting and will constantly undermine kids and if the cycle isn't broken, it will continue on for generation after generation. Kids make themselves their own worst enemies when they continue down a path of ghetto culture.

Do you think that about every black kid? Or just most of them?

Of course not. A majority of black kids in America are NOT at-risk kids in broken homes in the ghetto - and nobody here ever suggested they were. There are hundreds of thousands of middle and upper class black families all around DC and its burbs where this is not an issue. The issue isn't mere fact of race, it's directed at a specific set of behaviors and beliefs among some of the inner-city poor (and I'd argue that some of those problematic behaviors and beliefs are not just a "black" thing - poor whites and others also get caught up in it). Did you think the President had the culture and behavior of his own daughters Sasha and Malia and any of their black peers in mind with "Brother's Keeper"? I don't think he did. Did you think that asking that question was somehow going to change the underlying premise of self-defeating behavior among those kids who ARE living in that world? I don't think it does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

My parents were dirt poor and I have what I have because I worked my ass off to get it. I often worked 3 and 4 jobs at a time. It took me 10 years to pay off my college bills. It is wrong to assume I'm looking down on anyone because you don't know what I went through and what sacrifices I made - and it's an insult to suggest that somehow I was entitled or privileged and that everything just fell into my lap. As for "told they are worthless" - who exactly is telling any youth in Anacostia that? If they are being told they are worthless, it's their own community doing that. I certainly am not going around telling them that - they are indeed worth every bit as much as I am - all they need are the skills, they need to stay in school, become literate, learn their math, learn to become reliable and productive and to value each other first. They need to put in the hard work and make the same sacrifices I did.

I had a stint teaching 3rd graders at a school in a housing project community. And the message that I saw passed on to the kids there wasn't that they were worthless, it was that they shouldn't set their expectations too high. More accurately, that they'd be hurting themselves if they set any expectations at all. The probabilities for girls pointed toward welfare, babies and a lot of time in family court; for boys it was death and incarceration. Circle time was very often filled with stories of gunfire outside bedroom windows, demonstrations of the way one should stand with their hands against the wall when the police raid a home at 3 am, and rumors about what would happen to the guys who killed so-and-so's big brother. The primary thing that everyone in that community had to deal with was fear. Fear of thugs and the police, fear of getting killed, fear of a loved one getting killed or jailed, and most important, fear of being seen as fearful. The fights and brutality happened because the weak got crushed. One girl, who lived with her mom and sister at a homeless shelter, developed an acerbic sense of humor to ward off the ruthless taunts and violence against her; she was very often followed after school and jumped by the other kids for having a smart mouth. These were 8-year-olds. Really angry, stressed out, scared-to-death kids. They're often hungry, too. Those free and reduced meals were practically inedible. Education and getting a paycheck some day? Last thing on their minds. When I asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, all but three said they wanted to be a police officer (girls, too) "because the police can do anything they want."

So maybe it's not about having something handed to you; I think the PP was off the mark about that. But if you worked your ass off to get where you are, you had to start with a belief that you could get there, and then get some knowledge of how. That's what's missing for a lot of these kids. There's not a lot of long-term thinking when you're just trying to survive today. The will to push past obstacles isn't in everyone (I know some lazy ass, criminally-oriented, unprincipled kids from six-figure families); but those who have it should at least get a shot. Communities and parents already hamstrung by those obstacles can't do it without the help of outside influence that can marshall the resources.

I have worked in a similar school and also at a school where 80% of students were immigrants from other countries (or their parents were immigrants)

It is amazing to see the difference in behavior between the two populations. Even though the poverty levels are similar on paper there is an enormous difference in student behavior. I chalk that up to having stable families and a belief that their families are working hard for a better future for their children.


We can talk a good game about blaming ghetto culture and poverty cultuer but what can we do to change that other than victim blaming? (posting on my phone so forgive me for errors)

The "crush or be crushed" dynamic mentioned by a PP is what needs to be harnessed and changed. It needs to turn from frustration and aggression toward the school, toward the teachers, and other students into an understanding that survival and success in the bigger picture isn't just me versus you fighting day by day one on one in the schoolyard, the real fight is me versus my own future, and that the best weapon isn't a fist, the best weapon is knowledge. That takes serious intervention, mentoring and engagement from people who have been there and done that. Kids see the stark reality of a future where they end up a pregnant teen, or end up behind bars, or dead before their time and they have to know that that's the real fight of their lives - whether to just give in and accept that shitty future, or to know that there are options, and that they can fight it with the weapons that schools, libraries and others are trying to put out there for them.

[Anonymous]

I have worked in a similar school and also at a school where 80% of students were immigrants from other countries (or their parents were immigrants)

It is amazing to see the difference in behavior between the two populations. Even though the poverty levels are similar on paper there is an enormous difference in student behavior. I chalk that up to having stable families and a belief that their families are working hard for a better future for their children.


We can talk a good game about blaming ghetto culture and poverty cultuer but what can we do to change that other than victim blaming? (posting on my phone so forgive me for errors)

Assuming we're talking about poor immigrants, they've already gotten out of a bad situation, so they have a belief that one can change their situation and their status as immigrants proves it. They've also got a networking community that supports almost every basic need, as well as guidance on how to work the system. Then there's a fear of deportation if you catch the attention of any authority. It's very different.

[Anonymous]

The "crush or be crushed" dynamic mentioned by a PP is what needs to be harnessed and changed. It needs to turn from frustration and aggression toward the school, toward the teachers, and other students into an understanding that survival and success in the bigger picture isn't just me versus you fighting day by day one on one in the schoolyard, the real fight is me versus my own future, and that the best weapon isn't a fist, the best weapon is knowledge. That takes serious intervention, mentoring and engagement from people who have been there and done that. Kids see the stark reality of a future where they end up a pregnant teen, or end up behind bars, or dead before their time and they have to know that that's the real fight of their lives - whether to just give in and accept that shitty future, or to know that there are options, and that they can fight it with the weapons that schools, libraries and others are trying to put out there for them.

Yes! Exactly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I have worked in a similar school and also at a school where 80% of students were immigrants from other countries (or their parents were immigrants)

It is amazing to see the difference in behavior between the two populations. Even though the poverty levels are similar on paper there is an enormous difference in student behavior. I chalk that up to having stable families and a belief that their families are working hard for a better future for their children.


We can talk a good game about blaming ghetto culture and poverty cultuer but what can we do to change that other than victim blaming? (posting on my phone so forgive me for errors)

Assuming we're talking about poor immigrants, they've already gotten out of a bad situation, so they have a belief that one can change their situation and their status as immigrants proves it. They've also got a networking community that supports almost every basic need, as well as guidance on how to work the system. Then there's a fear of deportation if you catch the attention of any authority. It's very different.

They have that belief that they can change that situation and get out of it. Why can't our kids? They have the same opportunities as those immigrants do - in fact those born here have more and better opportunities than those immigrants do. Belief is what either empowers you or holds you back. If you believe you are a victim and that a big unseen foot holds you down, you will never try, and therefore will never go far. If on the other hand you believe the sky's the limit as these immigrants do, you will go far. Most of those institutionalized barriers are gone - in fact, if anyone has far more institutional barriers working against them, it's illegal immigrants - yet they are thriving. Life is what you make of it and people need to learn that fundamental lesson.

Networking community? Why can't our communities network? Latinos come here from places like Honduras and El Salvador, dirt poor, with nothing but the shirts on their backs, yet are able to reach out and help each other and form those networks. Why can't our own communities do that? I sometimes hear poor folks say they don't want to move away to a town with a lower cost of living and better potential for jobs because their family is here. What good is being with family when it's the dysfunctional family situation, to include a lack of support network, that's part of the problem? Support for basic needs and guidance on how to work the system? Illegal immigrants get even less of that support from the system than those who are citizens.

Fear of deportation if you catch the attention of authorities? How about fear of arrest and imprisonment if you catch the attention of authorities here? The best way most of us avoid attention and keeping out of trouble with the authorities is by keeping clean and sober, keeping our heads down and keeping busy. As gramma reminded us from Proverbs, "idle hands are the devil's workshop".

Yes, it's very different - but I don't think I am thinking along the same lines as you on how and why.