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Politics : FREE AMERICA -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JDN who wrote (8315)	6/18/2006 9:12:39 AM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 14758

Gangbangers: Cowards, not soldiers Toronto Sun ^ \| 2006-06-18 \| Lorrie Goldstein My wife, who knows BS when she hears it, picked up on it right away. So did the Star's Rosie DiManno. It was an absurdly romanticized description of the young black gang bangers who are in the habit of shooting each other when they aren't killing innocent bystanders, as "soldiers." It came from a young woman being interviewed on television last week about some of the men arrested as a result of the police investigation into the infamous Boxing Day shooting on Yonge St., along with other crimes. She said, admiringly, that the gang bangers were tough, real "soldiers." Terrific, eh? And it's not first time we've heard this rubbish, even from so-called "intellectuals'' who should know better. Gangbangers aren't "soldiers." They're cowards. It takes no courage to run in packs, to shoot someone from the window of a moving car, to deal drugs to children, to swarm a kid for his Nikes, to get three women pregnant at the same time, to fire into a crowd. Maybe we can save a handful of them. Maybe a handful will save themselves. But most of them are already lost. And there are so many others we can help. If we want to talk about the real "soldiers" who come from the same mean streets as the gangbangers do but make different choices every day, there are thousands of them. Go to almost any big event in the black community. Odds are there'll be a choir of young performers -- church choirs, school choirs, community choirs -- so good they will knock your socks off. So, instead of politicians and academics and we in the media always running to the gang bangers, and glorifying them, and asking what we can do to make them happy, why don't we start asking these other kids what we can do for them? Maybe there's some big singing competition they've always dreamed about going to, but can't afford. You want to spend public money or private donations helping black kids? Spend it on those kids, not on gang bangers. Spend it on these real "soldiers," these "ordinary," amazing kids, who sing in choirs and stay in school and hold down a part-time job and keep it all together. Sure, they'll need good jobs day some day (a whole other issue). But they also need our encouragement and a sense that the rest of us actually give a damn whether they end up in choirs or in gangs. They need to know we all value the often very brave choices they make every day to stay in school and out of gangs. You want to really help these kids? Talk to their pastors and their choir masters. They'll tell you how. You want soldiers? Every black mother in Jane-Finch who holds down two jobs while keeping her kids on the straight and narrow is a soldier. Why don't we ask her how we can help her instead of asking gang bangers how we can help them? Two nights Maybe she could use two nights off a month to spend an evening with friends. You want to spend public dollars or private donations to help the black community? Spend it on a good, reliable baby sitter for her so she can go out for two nights a month and relax and not have to worry about her kids at home. Every black father in Lawrence Heights who works hard at a menial job and comes home every night to his wife and kids is a soldier. Every black father who refuses to be intimidated by the gangs and guns and drugs and who teaches his kids right from wrong is a soldier. Why don't we ask him about how to fight the gangs, instead of asking the gangbangers? You want to spend public tax dollars or private charitable donations on something worthwhile? Send that father and his family to a nice summer camp for a week, where they can escape the heat, swim in a lake, have a barbecue in the evening, play some dominos before heading off for bed and wake up the next morning unafraid it will be to the sound of gunfire. You want to talk to the real soldiers in the black community? Talk to them. You want to help somebody? Help them. But spare us the nonsense that gang bangers are soldiers.