A few years ago, there was a well-meaning, naive white woman just like you,
Iris, that thought she was helping such "disadvantaged youth" by giving them
jobs helping to renovate abandoned houses in the inner city. They raped and
murdered her in one of the old houses, robbing her of her money, taking her
credit cards and stealing her car for a joyride. So much for trying to
rehabilitate the criminally insane and trying to "bridge the gap". Welcome
to the real world.


Iris Cohen wrote in message
...
that number of African-American males of that age have a criminal
record
involving violent crime and have made themselves unhirable for life
because
they mistakenly thought it would be cool to be "gangstas". Who's fault is
that?


Let's not play the blame game. There is enough fault in both the black
community and the country as a whole to go around. I was just pointing out
one
of the facts in the "us versus them" dilemma that the original writer was
describing. The community has a choice. You can continue to blame "them,"
drug
users, minorities, mentally ill, the homeless, etc., or you can choose to
do
some little thing to bridge the gap.
Iris,
Central NY, Zone 5a, Sunset Zone 40
"If we see light at the end of the tunnel, It's the light of the oncoming
train."
Robert Lowell (1917-1977)