It's a Weekend...


Dig out your Dave Edmunds album, dust it off and fire up the track: Here Comes the Weekend!
We made it...don't ask me how.
Last Friday, I spoke on VICTIMOLOGY, and since only a handful of you faithful readers took the time to peruse my astute observations, I'd thought I'd swim against the current (again) today and follow up on the incidents that occured this week in Fort Wayne (that would be all those shootings).
So sit back, relax, and be prepared to learn as well as become enlightened.
The final count for this week's mayhem is TEN, as the coroner ruled that the unborn fetus of the woman shot uptown was also a homicide.
TEN homicides in LESS than 30 hours.
Take a moment to let that sink in.
Now while I might say that perhaps "some" of the people killed had it coming to them by making some bad choices when it came to lifestyles, not everyone involved was guilty. And the fallout from the community meeting the other night "might" produce something positive around here.
But the problem is not totally about gangs OR drugs.
It goes much deeper than that.
Gangs and drugs are but a result FROM the root of the problem. They are the means whose ends are fully justified (if you can call that justification). The problem stems primarily with the manner in which many of these young people are brought up, and this again goes back to the multi-generational situation I mentioned in previous posts. The sub-cultural deviations from the norm are at the heart of many of the community's concerns. I just wish more people would wake the hell up and realize this.
While many would state that drugs and gangs are BIG problems here, no one seems to mention ANY of the much smaller, basically insignificant problems permeating the black community (and seeping into other white as well as ethnic communities now). These miniscule issues that go unaddressed are the seeds from which a crop of crime will soon bloom. And Lord knows there's plenty of "fertilizer" to help that along.
Yet like any problem, it's always the small ones that grow, fester, and propagate into the larger ones, and NOT the other way around. The only time a large problem becomes a small problem is when people step up to eradicate that large problem.
--When you have children that behave badly, and nothing is done to correct them - THAT is a problem.
--When children are brought up to ignore or despise authority (outside of their home) - THAT is a problem.
--When children don't follow simple BASIC rules - THAT is a problem.
--When children have NO role models - THAT is a problem.
--When children show contempt and disrespect for other people and their properties - THAT is a problem.
--When children are not taught courtesies, ethics or integrity - THAT is a problem.
Now all this can be as simple as teaching a child not to litter, or play on their OWN property (and not in a busy street). It can be as simple as teaching them THREE LITTLE WORDS: PLEASE, and THANK YOU. It can be as easy as supervising your children when they;'re outside, or walking them to the store, instead of letting them go by themselves (especially with all the predatory pedohpiles around).
If NONE of this is ever taught or even explained to these kids, they've been given the tools to fail in life miserably, and at too young an age. It's little wonder than roughly 30% of every class in any school is destined to fail even before their feet pass through the doorway. And in inner urban areas, those numbers are even higher.
Sorry, but you CAN'T blame the schools for that. The school had little if anything to do with the way a child was brought up at home, and how they behave on the streets after school.
It IS all about what passes for a "family" these days.
It is about ALL these single moms and irresponsible males that can't see past their next 40oz or blunt, and their wonderfully dysfunctional relationships, however.
The "me" generation has succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They have managed to procreate a subsequent generation of people with no guidance, save for what they can find on the streets (usually in gangs), little caring, no sense of values and no real morality. We can add to that a blatant disrespect for anything save themselves and their immediate sphere of influence. We've got kids raising kids, a welfare system in shambles, dysfunctional people attempting to BS the rest of us into believeing that "they" are SO downtrodden and held back by everyone, yet every bit as worthy to live next to normal people, and everyone else seems to be OK with this.
Society winds up getting all the crime (and death) that comes along with this other baggage (and is a natural progression with issues such as this), THEN, and ONLY then do people cry out for a solution, when in fact they helped mentor the problem all along (by doing nothing).
Will gangs every go away?
Not totally.
There will always be some perverse "need" for some type of gang.
Will crime go away?
Never, especially not in this sense.
There will always be crime, for we will always be saddled with lawless people in some fahion.
But what CAN be done is to start some "zero-tolerance" policies when it comes to IRRESPONSINBILITY. If people who lack accountability are called on every single thing they do that's out of line, and we hold them to that, change will occur.
As a white man, it's not MY place to say what the black community NEEDS at this point (and they would NEVER listen to me anyway, no matter HOW right I was simply because OF my skin color), so that leaves it up to the black community ITSELF to take the reins and whoa up this runaway four-legged nightmare that is infesting their OWN neighborhoods (and mine) with what passes for families.
It's time to reintegrate people back INTO a familiy, and not continue this skewed reality of some loose tribal commune peer structure out for whatever good time comes down the street. With every choice in life comes some sort of responsibility.
--You are responsible for YOU, and that means all you do, say or think.
--You are responsible for the manner that you view and/or embrace your heritage, race, religion, and nationality.
--You are responsible for your actions as well as the consequences that come with those actions.
--You are responsible for providing a safe and healthy environment for any children you bear (that includes mental well-being and emotional stability).
--You are responbile for maintaining a household (that means accountability in paying bills, cleanliness, and safety).
And that's just for starters... But taking only those few items I mentioned and getting people to at least practice THEM would go a very long way to changing things around. People in MY neighborhood wouldn't even KNOW what responsibility meant, if it came up and bit them all in their asses, for if they DID, I'd have a helluva lot less to gripe about, and probably a lot more people I could come to know as a friend.
It's not about me though.
I'm not the irresponsible one tossing litter on evryone else's property, or sitting in front of a house booming music that can be heard 3 blocks away, or honking my carhorn to get someone to come the hell out. It's not about that...or me.
It's about THEM.
It is ALWAYS is about them.
After all, they are the ones killing off one another, not I. And they are the ones that move into an area and promptly trash it, not I. Can some sort of equilibrium ever be accomplished? Maybe in a generation or two....maybe.
Until then, all the rest of us poor, lonely RESPONSIBLE people who have the ability to hold OURSELVES accountable, can ever hope to do is continue to educate those less fortunate (around us) by our actions as well as our words. We will teach (and lead) by EXAMPLE.
Just don't piss us off in the process.
"Aye...There's the rub..."
Keep your head down..
And DO have a safe weekend.