Saturday
Aug292009
Stephens video: Living there was fine but Dunbar lost 'village mentality'
Saturday, August 29, 2009 at 8:22AM The Blogmother 
Karen Stephens with clients at her Karma Studio.C.B. Hanif for WAOD:
Karen Stephens is a University of Florida graduate, accomplished theater professional, childrens' advocate and popular beautician who owns her own business in West Palm Beach.
She also grew up in Dunbar Village, in a time of which she has fond memories.
She offers another slice of insight on that community — and the larger community — in which two African-American youths were convicted Friday of incomprehensible sexual attacks against a Haitian mother and son.
Stephens is a UF theatre graduate who has worked professionally as an actress for 27 years in the South Florida community.
She recently was honored by the Delta Sigma Theta sorority with their Women of Excellence Award, which biannually recognizes outstanding women in their fields ranging from humanitarian to social action — and in her case, 2009 honoree for the arts.
"I have been fortunate enough to work with at-risk youth, with performance and acting workshops," she said. "I've gone into the Florida Institute for girls, which is the girls prison, and also the Juvenile Detention Center.
"I've worked with the Kravis Center of the Performing Arts on a couple of projects where they commissioned a play to be written for their student programs, and I've directed a couple of those.
"And right now I'm directing a short skit from the play "Spunk!" by Zora Neale Hurston, for Delta Sigma Theta's Performance Showcase Youth in the Arts Salute to the Harlem Renaisssance."
Stephen has performed at every theater around — the Caldwell Theater, Actors Playhouse in Miami, what used to be Florida Repertory Theater and now is the Cuillo Theatre, the Royal Palm Dinner Theater, and through the years at Florida Stage when it was an educational theatre going into the schools before becoming a regional theater
Among her many memorable roles that still have locals buzzing was "House With No Walls." Based on real-life events, it dealt with the dynamics of activists in Philadelphia challenging corporate entities over the city building a museum on the site of George Washington's former slave quarters. The museum was built — with a square left open denoting where the actual slave quarters were.
"African-Americans didn't want that history buried, literally buried," she said.
Another was her one-woman show "The Life and Times of Zora Neale Hurston, Loquacious and Bodacious."
She also did "Out of the Box," an autobiographical piece about what it's like as a black woman growing up in America.
"I call it 'Out of the Box,' because, it seems like in America, once you check the box that's marked race, whatever you check you're thereby defined by that box, and you're limited, or not limited, as the case may be by what you check."
She describes her childhood in the box that now is Dunbar Village, in these first video installments of an August 22 interview she provided WAOD at her Karma Studio in West Palm Beach.
Growing up in Dunbar Village I
Growing up in Dunbar Village II
Next: What changed at Dunbar Village?
Karen Stephen's Karma Studio on Palm Beach Lakes Blvd. In West Palm Beach.
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Reader Comments (33)
I'm not really seeing the value of projects or these villages, either...now that I think about it. If these are places destined to bring people together who will become fish in a fishbowl for people like these rapists...Maybe we need to rethink this housing thing, too.
Yme,
Renee Glover, the CEO of Atlanta's Housing Authority thought the same thing when she took helm of the AHA. She has successfully torn down every housing project in the city and replaced them with mixed use/mixed income communities. The model has been successful so far.
Thank goodness!!!
I uploaded these to Youtube so peopel could just click play.
@YME no doubt that when Renee Glover attempted to initiate this plan there were HOWLS of protest.
Dismantling of housing projects or whatever that puts hundreds of poor families in one building or housing complex is being done all over the country. The bad thing is that some of these folk are being sent to suburban areas and taking the madness there. There are not taking the opportunity to make a new start. In 20 years the urban areas are probably going to be the nice sand the suburban areas will be the hood. Thats how it is in Europe and thats not a good thing either.
There were, but she never let that distract her. They are all gone!
@ Gina & BlkSeaGoat
http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid:69747
This is all very interesting. Here is an interview with her. I like what I hear.
Wait a minute. If it wasn't the projects, a lot of people wouldn't have anywhere to live. Let's be real, in this country, you can work 40 hours a week and still not be able to make rent. You are given the choice of commuting two to three hours or living within a city where you have access to public transportation or you are able to walk to work.
The problem arises when you have concentrations of people who don't want to work and don't give any thought to living off public assistance. Instead of serving as a temporary place for folks having a hard time or struggling until times get better, they become a breeding ground for pathology.
I can't believe there aren't good people in the projects, it's those people who don't want anything in life, those so mired in sickness, that make it bad for everyone else.
Why housing authorities refuse to kick out those who are not even looking for jobs is beyond me? Why they don't ban convicts is beyond me.
Actually Monica, HAs do ban convicts depending on the infraction and whether or not it was a felony. However, the many people who live in the projects harbor those who should be banned. Add to that the scores of community groups and lawyers advocating for those residents when HAs want to evict them for doing so and DV is the result.
There was a case in Oakland, CA where a grandmother was evicted from her housing project because her grandsons or sons were drug dealers. She sued the Oakland or Alameda County HA and lost. She continued appealing until her case made it to the Supreme Court. Eventually the SCOTUS upheld the HAs decision of holding the grandmother (the legal occupant) responsible for the actions of her children/grandchildren. Groups protested the decision and kept exploiting the image of this poor grandmother being evicted by this huge government entity.
Unfortunately housing projects are for individuals and families with extremely low incomes and are at imminent risk for being homeless because they have no resources.
While I don't believe that there aren't ANY good peeople in the projects, the bad ones outnumber the good families. Renee Glover's position was that those who chose to remain on the public's dime needed to be pushed off...literally. For that, I think she is to be commended.
@ Monica: "Let’s be real, in this country, you can work 40 hours a week and still not be able to make rent."
That still doesn't mean you need the projects. These housing units are a disaster waiting to happen. In the city I live in, you end up with a bunch of young women, with their children and "live-in" boyfriends. The "live-ins" don't work and generally gain access to the neighborhoods for nefarious purposes by housing provided through grandma, momma, and this week's girl friend.
What a recipe for disaster? A bunch of single mothers, latchkey children...and grown men without enough get up to find their own homes...but with plenty of spare time to kill on their hands.
Build a playground for the kids...then you have to keep your kids at home, because its overrun by grown a&* men playing ball...and young black men grabbing on their privates while they pull their pants further down so you can catch a better view of their underwear...and teenage girls hoping for some attention.
It's not the life of every project dweller...It would be a great plan...IF IT WORKED! Unfortunately, it doesn't because people abuse the system. I can't believe concentrated areas of poverty benefit anyone.
Some housing...some places may work better. But, here...in the great state of Mississippi, it sucks! I say...if we must subsidize...let the parent with small children, pick a house in a safe neighborhood...and the moment she moves in Ladamondarious, put her out and continue to do it until she realizes we're not subsidizing her bad habits. Put a time frame on it...and keep kicking...You can always find exceptions...but we've got to have real rules that work.
For me, fear of having to move back into my parents home is all it ever takes for me to get a grip.
I messed up some of the details... The grandsons weren't drug dealers... they were drug users. And this was a drug specific rule being argued.
http://articles.latimes.com/2002/mar/27/local/me-scotus27
I think, or I hope we all realize that situations like this, as sad as it is, is also a painful reminder that as much as we may love our people, do community work to demonstrate we love our people, some of our people just ain't with it. PERIOD. What I mean specifically, we must realize some of our people, whether family members or the CRIC types, we may just have to distance ourselves from so that we don't go down with them.
I have a brother I haven't seen in 24 years, because he was in and out of jail, drugs and other crime and I refuse to go down with him. This also means in our dating life, there may be some folks we don't go out with/have sex with because they got some trifling other folks in their family. I know some are saying such an attitude is "uppity", etc., but let's be real. If I date someone and they got a trifling in and out of jail sister, brother, momma, etc., no, they can't come to my house, at least not often and they certainly can't spend the night or weekend with me. What about the other "friends" or even enemies they may have and they come looking for them at my house? OH HELL NO!
I guess we must struggle for a balance; I do want ex offenders who get out of jail to have another chance, and the community must demand all the services they need to succeed, but AT THE SAME TIME, the person getting the second chance must be responsible and do all they are suppose to do to stay clean, sober and safe, up to and including distancing themselves from "old friends" and old haunts, habits, etc. Yeah, that means they may be lonely at times and/or have very few friends, but if they stay focused, develop new and different, better types of friends, social activities, hobbies, etc., they can do better and stay on the straight and narrow . . . as boring, dull and nerdish that may seem. :) :)
Housing projects weren't always crime ridden, unsafe places and in some cases they still aren't. My mother grew up in NYC in the late 40's early 50's and her family was displaced from their Manhattan apartment to a housing project in the Bronx as a result of urban renewal. Their building was literally torn down. However at that time, moving to the housing project was not considered a step down. Many poor working class families from the south (like my mother's family), who's father was in the military and who's mother did factory work, welcomed moving into affordable, clean, modern housing where there were playgrounds for the children and grass. Many immigrants at that time viewed it as a step up as well. Remember, much of the working poor in NY were living in overcrowded tenements at that time. Tenements that were so bad and unsafe, they helped spur some of the nations earliest housing laws.
Flash forward a few decades later and what were once peaceful safe places for poor working class people to live are now in many cases dangerous run down buildings. Just like DV "something happened". Something changed and it has to be much deeper than the fact that these people are poor, because poor doesn't = sadistic criminal. I think the effect of drugs on the black community is greatly downplayed these days. Just because the streets don't necessarily look like New Jack City anymore, it doesn't mean that our communities are still not being ravaged by addiction. I truly believe this is where much, but not all, of the break down occurred.
On the bright side however, there are examples of low-income communities and housing projects that work. Just as there are examples of schools in low-income neighborhoods that work. I've toured buildings built by neighborhood based non-profits that served some of the poorest of the poor and they were safe healthy places to live. It can be done and it is being done nationwide. However, building the political will to replicate these models and invest in solutions as supposed to maintaining the status quo requires some serious heavy lifting. I still would like to hear more from the housing director in West Palm Beach. If a crime like this doesn't change their policies and practices, what will?
“Flash forward a few decades later and what were once peaceful safe places for poor working class people to live are now in many cases dangerous run down buildings. Just like DV something happened.”
Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” programs are what happened. The so-called “war on poverty” has been an abysmal failure despite spending trillions upon trillions of dollars. There are just as many people living in poverty today as there were in the 1960’s.
You now have entire generations of individuals today who don’t know of a life without government handouts, food stamps, welfare, Section 8 housing, faking illness to receive SSI checks, etc. I was surrounded by this mentality growing up as a child. Unwed mothers are literally subsidized by the government to produce more babies. Each additional mouth is worth another check. There is no incentive to be responsible because the government has agreed to care for you from cradle to grave.
With that said, I’m not against public assistance for emergency situations. I’m against using public assistance as a lifestyle choice. Something has to change and the answer cannot be more government programs or throwing more money at the problem.
I wouldn’t consider myself a Marxist, but I’ll also agree there are forces at work in the corporate world that contribute to the growing economic disparities seen today in this country. The shrinking numbers of middle class people are what frightens me the most. The fact that wages have not increased at the same rate as inflation as another example.
"The shrinking numbers of middle class people are what frightens me the most. "
The shrinking Black middle class is a demographic disaster. HORRIFIC consequences. All these "villages" that are supposed to be raising all of these kids won't exist and a whole lot of y'all who think your "middle class-ness" is going to buffer you from the carnage are deluding yourselves. YOU MIGHT be okay, but your kids, not so much.
This housing crisis alone has wiped out at least 2 generations of wealth in millions of families. 401Ks emptied trying to pay a mortgage on a house with a sub prime loan. Schools in utter chaos and a culture that says "middle class-ness" is "wack" or lame or out of favor and there is more sizzle or pizzaz in adopting the value system of instant gratification, fast money, fast women, drug culture and violence. We're cannibalizing ourselves.
a whole lot of y’all who think your “middle class-ness” is going to buffer you from the carnage are deluding yourselves
Exactly, I heard that a lot of those displaced by gentrification in DC ended up right in the middle class haven Prince George's county. Tons of black folk fled urban areas to the suburbs to escape the tough urban centers of the of the last 30 years, only to have those urban centers gentrified and the people sent to their neighborhoods years later. If folks think oh I guess I will move back to the city, think again those homes are now pushing one million dollars now (at least in the Northeast). And I don't know how much y'all make, I know I can't afford a million dollar home. The term middle class doesn't even make sense to me. Most likely dependent on you labor for your paycheck, your home, car and various appliances have most folks in some kind of debt. So a lot of "middle class" and working class folks might find themselves living right next to hood folk if they aren't already.
There is an old philosophical argument that the middle class acts as sort of a “buffer” between the ruling elites and the poor. I think the whole concept of “middle class” arose from the Renaissance during the Middle Ages. The first middle class people were the merchants who knew a trade or specific skill. They were not the peasants who labored in the fields.
Today the middle class are the government workers, bureaucrats, police, social workers, teachers, etc. who perform their part to keep the poor and unskilled in check. We’re really not that much better off than the poor other than perhaps having more education and greater property ownership. Basically it is our job to deal with the poor so the very wealthy elites don’t have to interact with them or concern themselves with their welfare.
Some of have suggested there are those in power today who might prefer to go back to original model of a two-class society made up of the very wealthy and extremely poor. That is why I'm concerned about the shrinking numbers of middle class people.
As I said before, I’m certainly not a Marxist but corporate greed has done nothing but hurt the middle class in this country. With that said, I do not think more government-sponsored social programs are the answer. Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” programs have failed at reducing poverty and instead created a permanent, underclass in this country. I think the government should eliminated failed, social programs and refocus their efforts on establishing a healthy economy and reining in the corporations that care very little about the typical worker.
@ Duane, well I'm a died in the wool socialist, but that being said, that does not mean I don't believe in "personal responsibility." When the right wing use that term, they mean everyone EXCEPT them. :)
In strict class terms, the role of the middle class is to be a buffer and apologist for the capitalist elites. However, class is more than income, the type of job you have, level of education, etc. It also means your attitude and/or outlook on life. So while I'm a socialist, I believe a JUST SOCIETY should use all its financial, political and human resources to make sure every human being has a decent life, i.e., housing, education, job training, recreation, education, food, health care, etc. If a society does all it can to assure a quality life for its citizens and then in spite of all that, an individual acts like a terrorist criminal fool like the DV teen terrorists, in spite of the fact they were indeed betrayed by many adults and institutions, such savagery, there's nothing to do with them but put them in jail for the rest of their lives. PERIOD.
So to respond to Duane, a healthy economy is never possible under capitalism. But before you say it, that's not to say under socialism every thing is peachy ok; justice for all means a lot of heavy lifting on everyone's part. There is no one answer, the answer or solution is a varied combination of things, but yes, an individual has to be willing and able to do their part.
Lastly, someone mentioned Prince George County, Maryland. I live in Wash. DC and PG Co. is affectionately known as "ward nine" (our city has eight wards) and some former WDC residents live there for various reasons, i.e., high cost of housing, better schools, etc. But throughout our metro area, there's the good, the bad and the very ugly. So these socials ills are everywhere. We all have a lot of work to do -- NOW! :)
Duane,
While I respect your vast knowledge of the historical impact of President Johnson's social programs and your insight into class structure allow me to add this:
Uhhhhh......I hope we're not losing the connection that poverty does not =moral decay. We can tear down the projects but that doesn't stop the madness that is our world today!!!!
There has been crime since the beginning of time, but the frequency and the ferociousness that it is occurring presently is alarming. As this site has shown, the lack of respect, and in a lot of cases the pure hatred for black women and children is insane and needs to be called out. Let's not get pulled off track by discussions about political history and economics.
There are plenty of rich, upper and middle class people who see women and children as dispensable. Last time I checked it wasn't people in the projects deciding which degrading music videos get airtime on BET or leading the NAACP to host rallies honoring rapist and men who torture animals. Last time I checked the folks in the projects didn't decide which missing women and children were worthy of news coverage on CNN, MSNBC and Fox. By the way, I'm pretty sure that not all of those convicted felons behind bars came straight from "da hood".
People who are we kidding? WAKE UP! Right is right and wrong is wrong. Honoring yourself and respecting others, right. . . .brutal sodomy and rape wrong. Raising your children to value human life, right. . .making excuses for their reckless behavior, wrong. Protecting those who cannot defend themselves (infants, elderly, the sick) right. . . .supporting multimillion dollar athletes and entertainers who attack humans and animals, wrong.
It's not our socioeconomic or housing policies that need restructuring. It's our sense of right and wrong that needs to reworked. At the very least those who lack a moral compass need to be called out on their bs swiftly and with no mercy.
I think I probably brought up this change in housing. My concern was the fact projects, villages, etc. concentrated large numbers of poor people (single mothers, older adults, children) in a small area...making them easily accessible for predators.
tryin2understanurside is right, is in indeed our sense of right and wrong that needs to be reworked, but I'm just wondering if this mother and her son would have been safer if she had found a home somewhere safer (and I know crimes occur everywhere), and then simply had her rent subsidized.
I think in todays environment, these places become easy pickings for folks who truly can't move for many reasons. Older people are especially huge targets.
Clearly, music producers, rap artists, BET, the NAACP, etc. have been feasting at our expense for years. I'm just wondering belatedly unfortunately, for this woman and her son. Would their chances have been better, had they not been a neighborhood where apparently being raped in Dunbar Village is no big deal to the Ms. Lee's and Ms. Walkers of the world.
Our sense of right and wrong definitely needs to be reworked. But, I don't see that happening immediately. It was easy for this little crew to "hook up" with 9 like minded individuals. WTH???
Duane said: "I think the government should eliminated failed, social programs and refocus their efforts on establishing a healthy economy and reining in the corporations that care very little about the typical worker."
Sadly that would never be in this America. We're a plutocracy and the sooner we come to terms with that the better. One would have thought that people would be protesting for a single payer system or the very least a public option. What we have is a group of armed white working and some middle class protesting in the favor of rabid capitalists.
I know, right! Democrats have the White House, the Senate and the House...and are "fighting" for a public option. That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard in awhile. They just know that they can yank our chain and we'll blame whatever group they point to...like little sheep...while they hold all the chips. It's crazy! It's almost like hitting us in the head and then pointing to someone across the room...and then we run across the room to fight someone doing a lot of yelling.
@ gem@2001, THANKS FOR SAYING THAT! Whew! And the worse part is that Pres. Obama obviously doesn't want universal single payer health care either . . . Pres. Roosevelt did the Medicare thang and it was implemented within 11 to 12 months; for Pres. Obama's "reform", he saying 2013 . . . maybe . . . the bulk of his campaign contributions came from the big corporate health insurance industry types and big pharma, so WTH is really going on? :)
Here's an example of how two West Palm Beach housing projects - Southridge and Dunbar Village - can be so different, even though they were both built at the same time.
http://www.palmbeachbiketours.com/stimulus-project-fdr-style/
Was it Jim Crow and segregation that made the difference from the very start?
Whatever it was, Southridge always seemed to be a garden spot with grass and landscaping while DV looked like a stereotypical public housing project.
Okay my opinion on this stuff varies minute by minute, but this I know:
We are stuck because we believe that economics are the root of morality, when money is merely the vehicle to express the morality that you've already got.
Gang rapes happen by the children of wealthy class members ALSO (usually toward domestic workers, undocumented women, and prostitutes). Sometimes the victims are paid off to keep quiet. Sometimes the threat of INS is enough for her to keep her mouth shut.
Better housing won't do JACK when you've got the parenting skills of Attila the Hun. I think that some people are born sociopaths, but even more are MADE by selfish and predatory environments. (Although once you decide to become one, I don't care what made you, I want you GONE.)
I am proud to live in a country where we don't have people with swollen bellies from starvation, but at the same time, I recognize that our system is horribly broken. This is a morality problem and until we admit to ourselves that institutions that set social benchmarks of morality can not be sidelined without consequence, we'll still be condemned to producing a harvest of sociopaths.
It doesn't have to be church or God, but SOMETHING has to be believed in in order for people to calibrate their moral compass and develop a conscience.
The town in which I grew up used to be so-called middle class, but now has become a hell-hole (in certain areas) because of a public housing seeding project that brought people from the Camden projects (and a lot of resulting drugs, loitering, gang hijinks).
I'm all for creating safe, humane housing for grandma, the physically disabled, and poor but hardworking men and women. The problem is that some of these good folks bring their drug dealing, good for nuthin, sociopathic kids with them... to recreate the problem that the seeding project was designed to solve.
After all is said and done, I'm not sure about what I think about projects. I don't like them, but I also know it's not the building -- it's the infestation of degenerates in them that cause problems. Spreading them around is just a temporary solution, providing relief in the short term, until certain reprobates can reproduce after their own kind.
What a nice, intelligent, beautiful sistah.
SORRY FOLKS WHO COMMENTED ON HEALTHCARE IN THIS THREAD, I'm deleting all those comments and giving the topic its own thread. This makes sense to all of us know, but 3 years from now, someone reading the archives is going to wonder what the heck we were talking about. Its off topic.
No problem!!!
I think we must go beyond drugs and social welfare programs to identify the root of the problem behind the moral decay within the black community.
I grew up on long island in a predominately black suburb. Most of the residents were middle class homeowners who arrived during the great migration. When I was a child, every Saturday, one could count on hearing the sweeping of a broom, a lawnmower or a snow plow. You didn't need an alarm clock because the man next door, started his truck at 4:30 am, every day and arrived at the same time everyday.
The lazy ones were their children; war veterans returning from Vietnam, unmarried women who thought it beneath them to scrub a floor but would opt for welfare. People who sat around all day, smoking "herb" and talking about Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X and the black man in a white world. Pulling down pictures of Jesus and replacing them with velvet malcolm X and hand drawings of the Ayatollah from prison boyfriends.
Thus, we the children of those people listed above came up being taught that we own nothing and are guests in a white mans society. Teachers taught us that we weren't being educated and the school system was failing us; they would spend the whole time talking about this as opposed to teaching. We stopped going to church because it was the white man's way and embraced the teachings of Wallace Fard. We stopped playing instruments and started rapping. We started selling drugs and becoming addicted to the money and fancy cars that could be acquired quickly. We started embracing self-segregation and pissing on the graves of WEB Dubois and other pioneers who pushed against Jim Crow. The mysogyny of hiphop and sexism seeping in through islam, caused the men to lose respect for women.
So now what do we have? We have had our entire culture redefined into one big stereotype. We are falling behind other immigrant groups and killing off our own people. The 60-70's, black nationalism, Crack, and laziness is the root of moral decay.
Former public housing in New York has been turned into high end rentals at an average $2500 a month rent.
http://www.stuytown.com/
In past years Stuy town was known for trying to keep black residents out. It stayed solidly working class white...until being purchased in a block by a private insurnce firm years ago.
Stuy town was where WWII veterans returned to live after the war.
http://wikimapia.org/82338/Stuyvesant-Town
Since it was well located public housing...people were "fighting" to get in to Stuy Town for many years. Causing many New Yorkers to comment people were dying to get out of "black projects" but dying to get IN the white ones.
@tryin2understanurside
“Uhhhhh……I hope we’re not losing the connection that poverty does not =moral decay. We can tear down the projects but that doesn’t stop the madness that is our world today!!!!”
Quite true. I wouldn’t suggest that poverty by itself leads to moral decay. I grew up very poor myself, but I’ve never harmed anyone.
I believe the children who committed these horrific crimes lacked empathy and compassion for their fellow man. Is empathy and compassion something that is learned or genetic? I’m not sure about this one. On the one hand I’m sure there is some parental influence involved, but there is also research that says empathy is actually pre-programmed into our brains and that serial killers for example, lack certain functioning in their brain that prevents them from feeling empathy.
While I’m certainly not making excuses for their crimes, I would say that part of understanding what is “right and wrong” assumes the person has empathy for other people. But what if the person lacks empathy and does not feel the least bit bad hurting others? Such people do in fact exist. A serial killer is told by society that killing is wrong, and that he should feel bad for his crimes but doesn’t because he lacks empathy for the victims. Did these children show any empathy or compassion for the woman and her son while they were raping and beating the two of them? Zero. None.
Now if you take poverty and throw in a healthy dose of drugs, limited economic opportunities, and government handouts that don’t encourage resourcefulness or personal responsibility then you end up with a recipe for disaster. Add to the mix people who lack empathy and compassion for their fellow man and the result is the chaos and anarchy that was on display in the Dunbar Village housing project and also found in many low-income neighborhoods around the country.
The rampant abuse of social welfare programs do nothing but pacify the masses so they don’t take to the streets and riot. The abuse we know goes on is a waste of resources that rewards bad behavior, resulting in a permanent underclass where few are able to escape poverty. Thus the cycle repeats. More emphasis should be placed on maintaining and supporting a healthy economy that we can all take part in and eliminating failed social welfare programs that do not work at lifting people out of poverty.
@msday
“The 60-70’s, black nationalism, Crack, and laziness is the root of moral decay.”
I would also agree with those statements. There’s definitely not one single cause, but instead a myriad of reasons to explain the widespread moral decay that we see in society today. I'll admit that it’s everywhere and all around us. It’s just a bit more visible when it’s broadcast live on TV for all to see as in the case of Dunbar Village.
I still firmly believe much of this chaos started with various movements in the 60’s and 70’s as you suggested. I place quite a bit of blame on the government at that time for their role in the Vietnam War and the development of the Great Society programs.
As they say, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” We were told that we could eliminate poverty through spending trillions of dollars and that we could also stop the spread of Communism around the world. Both failed. Communism died on its own and there are just as many people living in poverty today as there were in 1960.
And in all of this we forget to mention as always, the state of our mental health. Emotionally healthy people do not commit egregious crimes; especially if they are young. Lets start addressing mental health issues in our communities.