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Ron Jackson's Perspective
The Sunday Journal -
Think
Kankakee, Illinois
September 8, 2002
For some, there are
no answers |
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The answer is always the
same: More jobs, better communication with the police, and
stop the music industry from creating young lawless thugs.
What is the question? What will prevent senseless
killings like the ones that took place in the Oakland neighborhood
of Chicago?
In response to the killings, a panel that included a
Chicago alderman, a representative of the Chicago police force, and
a host of clergy offered the aforementioned solutions at a town hall
meeting that was held at the Northeastern Illinois University Center
for Inner City Studies and was broadcast by a local AM radio
station.
Solution No. 1: More jobs stops violence.
If that is true, any day now, we should expect all the
thousands of employees who lost their jobs due to the economic
downturn or corporate scandals to unleash upon our society rampant
violence never seen before. Former employees of Enron, Arthur
Andersen, and WorldCom are probably establishing vigilante gangs
now. If they did, it would seem almost justifiable. At
least their reasons for mob law executed against their fraudulent
management would be somewhat understandable.
What of the poor laid-off steel workers? After 30
plus years working in the same industry only to be terminated for no
fault of your own is enough to make any level-headed person snap.
But we haven't heard of any such random acts of violence by former
steel workers. You can bet with confidence they were beating
the streets in search of jobs and were not beating the heads of
unarmed motorists.
You find what you seek. If thugs looked for job
opportunities as hard as they looked for a place to commit violence,
they would have the same result, they would find them. The
answer is not finding jobs for people who have no desire to work.
Solution No. 2: Better communication with the
police. Where have we heard that before?
What is the definition of "better" communication?
Weren't the police practically begging the Oakland residents who
watched the murders to talk to them? In this case, any
communication would have been better, or at least a little faster
communication of the facts witnessed by these residents.
The police representative at this event reiterated the
issue of "African-Americans being uncomfortable communicating with
police." What a cop-out. Life is full of discomforts.
Being naked and vulnerable while a doctor pokes and probes your body
is uncomfortable, but if you want to find out what is wrong and to
prevent it from happening again, you have to suffer a little
discomfort.
Solution No. 3: Control the music industry.
Parents in every generation have blamed the ills of
"youthdom" on the music industry. It seems only yesterday that
Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, and the whole rock-n-roll genre were to
blame for teen pregnancies.
Violent and sexually suggestive music of today's
generation is not the blame for the unruly behavior of our society,
especially our youth. We can't blame rap music for gang
violence any more than we can blame Sebastian Bach for the
white-collar crimes of corporate America.
RAP and MTV influence can't be faulted for the absence
of MOM and POP influence.
Once again, the best possible solution available to mob
violence is some sugarcoated, politically correct garbage that takes
the responsibility from the uncivilized and puts it on the shoulders
of the members of our society who abide by the law and live within
its boundaries and discomforts.
Prior to this factless-finding event, 70 plus ministers
convened at the scene of the crime and began praying. So did
groups of thugs, although they spelled it, P-R-E-Y-I-N-G. |
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