Tom Hayden) The myth of the super-predator (how to end gang problem)

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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-hayden14dec14,0,7481480.story?track=tottext

The myth of the super-predator (A William Bennett coined term for Tookie wannabes)
By Tom Hayden

December 14, 2005

THE EXECUTION of Stanley Tookie Williams cannot be allowed to drown out his message: We need to find alternatives to the "embedded sense of self-hate" that propels so many inner-city youth to lash out in killing sprees. <snip>

How is the city of L.A. addressing the gang problem? The city budget reveals that the priority is to suppress and incarcerate, not to turn troubled lives around. Fifty-five million dollars go to LAPD gang suppression efforts, a token $12 million to prevention programs for little kids, and a bare $2 million for intervention programs meant to channel teenagers away from violent paths.

To turn from the treadmill of violence to the path of peace, we must:

• Understand that gang members are traumatized veterans of street wars, not Satan's agents or incorrigible psychopaths. There must be a massive expansion of rehabilitation and empowerment programs along the lines of Alcoholics Anonymous, with participation by ex-gang members who command respect. Those who insist on waiting for a sanitized messenger will wait in vain.

• Reform of punitive police and prison policies that breed lawlessness on the street. Inner-city youth feel that they are targeted, that humiliation is intended against them and that the criminal justice system is based on a double standard. This week, it was reported that the L.A. district attorney who led the charge against Williams has not brought a single criminal charge in 442 cases of police shootings since 2001. This — along with the use of untrustworthy police informants such as those who helped convict Williams — can't help but make young people on the streets of South-Central L.A. cynical about criminal justice.

• Recognize that we have a crisis of exclusion and structural unemployment that renders countless young people hopeless, powerless, helpless, rootless and meaningless, in the analysis of former gang-member-turned-author Luis Rodriguez. Government always has a role to play when the market fails. California taxpayers already contribute $6 billion to the state's prison system — but virtually nothing to jobs in the inner city. <snip>

This was a good analysis. I think that another thing that fuels hopelesseness, self-hatred, and despair is watching TV. That's the main propaganda machine for materialism, giving the illusion that having STUFF is going to make you happy. TV also tends to glorify violence and often perpetuates negative stereotypes. When I taught at a black school in urban Texas, I found that all the families had TV on 24-7. The familes as a whole had limited attention spans, and the kids who tried to do well in school were ridiculed as "acting white", and idea I feel they picked up from watching TV.

Machine..ABSOLUTELY. You are dead on. From the moment we are born this box pumps the message that happiness is to be found in consumerism. If you can't afford it, we'll give you credit cards. Life is all about shopping and your personal worth is a function of how much shit you can stuff in your box...etc.

My wife, who grew up in Soviet Russia, sees this very clearly , it's funny Americans can't tell when they're being and have been brainwashed.

As for negative stereotypes, I had a similar experience working with the teen SBD crowd in the Seattle area ten years ago, although I'm not sure I can blame the TV entirely on this one. Ironically, a lot of the time, the stereotypes they were emulating were absorbed from their choice of music. It's no different that the goth kids who tried to express their individualism by looking like every other goth kid. The thing is, these ideas are self-perpetuating and behave like a feedback loop.

"Mr. Hayden is absolutely CORRECT in his assessment of the situation."

Many times people would rather toss the word, "sociopath," or "psychopath," rather than deal with the pervasive poverty, violence and neglect these kids experience from birth.

In fact, the way I explain it to people is that a 'sociopath' is usually someone who has been HABITUATED to violence since birth, along with some other factors.

And MANY of the youths I dealt with who were so labeled really were just kids that would have given up the way of life, with intensive counseling, if provided with an alternative. Sometimes just getting them into a temporary foster home and counseling resulted in great improvement, without having to move them up to a higher level of care (if they bonded with the parents in the family).

Donnie Edwards of the San Diego Chargers grew up in the worst environment; I believe his mother had to make arrangements for him to live with another family just so that he could focus on football, rather than what was going on in the neighborhood.

Just try being a social worker that is trying to get a little extra money for clothes besides the pitiful clothing allowance given. Or try getting food for a family. Or trying helping them move somewhere else. Money that would go to that is going to the "war" in Iraq.

... as we've been led to believe. As you say, Maat, "sociopath" and "psychopath" get tossed around a lot, used in situations where it's often not appropriate. Some movies and TV shows imply that virtually everybody you meet while walking down a street in Harlem or Watts is a psychopath. The work of experts like Robert Hare suggests that it's barely 1% of the population -- and that one is as likely to encounter a psychopath in a corporate office as in a slum. And also, not all psychopaths are violent -- and not all people who are acting violent are psychopaths -- despite what we've been told. There is also a lot of evidence to suggest that some psychopaths can be treated, and are therefore not incorrigible.

http://www.hare.org/

Newt Gingrich saying that children of welfare mothers should be put in orphanages?

just as it did during the prohibition era.

and kids grew up never caring for a living being that loved them unconditionally.

The curriculum in the inner city should be designed specifically for the inner city. Clockers by Richard Price rather than Dickens should be the book every inner city child reads and discusses by the time they are 12. Clockers is the anti New Jack City

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060934980/qid=1134608744/sr=8-2/ref=pd_bbs_2/102-7549001-5520966?n=507846&s=books&v=glance