Quote:
Originally Posted by tarcone
But where is the discussion of how to stop a generations of young people dying by violence every year in our cities?
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If that's the conversation you want to have I'm right here, and I think that any number of us would love to have it.
Should we start with banks? Should we talk about aggressive police tactics that harass residents of specific races? Should we talk about judicial punishments being handed out differently? Mandatory sentencing? How white collar crime is punished with money and criminals get off with big fines?
Should we talk about the cost of inner city schools, and how money pours into new suburban, private magnet schools (and expanding public), but landlocked schools that depend on the local tax base are forever poor because of poor home values and low incomes? Should we talk about the over 30 years of stripping away of the social-security net that allowed families the chance to have food on the table? Lack of fair, low income housing?
The fabric of culture that allows racism to exist in a more palatable form so it's not noticed or dealt with? Turning a blind eye to obvious tactics meant to neutralize a group. Voter suppression, or gerrymandering come to mind.
Violence happens because of a conflict over resources. Resources can be everything from money, to power, to social influence and property. When there's a lack of lopsided allocation of any one of those things in a community there's going to be violence.
Looks at Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Start at the bottom, deal with that first. Not just throwing money at it and expecting success, but truly looking at what is failing and why, and addressing the root cause of it. Like gun violence it's not a short, simply solution. It's complex, multi-faceted, and demands more than just a cursory, nothing will make it perfect so let's ignore it, mentality.