Father is not available so try mentors!

Ralphy1

Ralphy1

Well-known Member
This approach to guiding black inner city youth is now in the forefront of the effort to keep them from becoming criminals. As responsible behavior on the part of parents can not be dictated, and all else seems to have failed, perhaps mentoring will work, perhaps...
 

The village is a poor second to parents, and it may work in some cases but I am not sure that it will work in enough...
 

But what if the parents are not there or are totally incompetent?
 
It is when the parents are not there or when one or both are incompetent that the "village", which can be the extended family or benevolent neighbours, becomes very important. If a mentor can emerge to support the child or the parents, then the child is much better off. Teachers can be mentors too but they are generally less effective. There are only so many children that a teacher can interact with on a personal level.
 
Education is generally a middle class value and the difficulties show up when the fun goes out and expectations, such as doing homework, comes in. As far as extended family members, mentors, etc., they may save some, but I doubt that they can save the majority of inner city teens.
 
Saving one is fine but what do you do about the mob that appears when the chance to loot and burn appears?
 
What process? Stopping the criminal behavior? The police did not move in with force due to the complaint that police moved in too hard in Ferguson. The police are in a tough position, damned if you do, damned if you don't...
 
Re education middle class value. Ralphy I have known many working class kids who worked their butts off to get an education, and many far more pampered kids who did not. Where are the jobs? Even if one is educated, the debt is crippling, and many are unable to afford the extensive education required to secure a career. The days of one degree being a sinecure are all but gone. The dream in both our countries is shrinking. Rioting is wrong, but these kids have every right to be p****d. Two parents or not, without hope for a better future, why should they give a damn? Want to effect change? Give them hope, not despair. Anything else is obfuscation. Rotten systems produce rotten results. It is not rocket science.
 
You are probably referring to the lower end of the middle class spectrum which we have seen over the generations of immigrants working for a better life for their kids. Not comparable, resources have been thrown at the inner city going back to The Great Society's War on Poverty to no avai, but the guilt over slavery in this country will probably never go away, so more and new resources will be used into the distant future without ever finding a solution to irresponsibl procreation...
 
Ralphy1 said:
What process? Stopping the criminal behavior? The police did not move in with force due to the complaint that police moved in too hard in Ferguson. The police are in a tough position, damned if you do, damned if you don't...
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The process of nurturing and encouraging the children to have hope. The process of making sure that they have good role models and opportunities.
I'm talking about raising children. What are you talking about?
 
DW, you are right. Children wither without hope. So easy to point fingers, so easy to point fingers at blacks, when more whites are on food stamps. Guilt over slavery is appropriate until racism is no longer an issue. In my country, indigenous people are not yet equal, and Canadians have our own guilt to contend with. Racism exists whether we want to concern our privileged little white selves with it or not.
 
When parents are not there or capable of providing the nurturing and the modeling the prospects are bleak for the majority, as we see over and over again, one generation to the next, ad infinitum...
 
Ralphy1 said:
You are probably referring to the lower end of the middle class spectrum which we have seen over the generations of immigrants working for a better life for their kids. Not comparable, resources have been thrown at the inner city going back to The Great Society's War on Poverty to no avai, but the guilt over slavery in this country will probably never go away, so more and new resources will be used into the distant future without ever finding a solution to irresponsibl procreation...
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Very true.. People tend to thumb their noses at the concept of "White Privilege".. always citing how they worked their way through school... didn't have anything "given to them"... and feeling quite superior about it. But White Privilege exists... it is very real, despite some not believing it. Being born White, no matter what the circumstances, is like being born on 1st base (to use a baseball analogy).... being born in the poverty of the Black inner city underclass, is comparable to the locker room.. and many don't even make it to the parking lot.

Then, you have the Wealthy, who are generally born of 3rd base... and think they hit a triple!
 
If that is so. Ralphy, all the more reason to work to find compassionate solutions that are effective. We cannot afford tothrow away our children. We, as adults, are responsible to some degree for all children.
 
But who's fault is it that they don't make it? Not ours! We have tried and tried but can't replace good parents, the key to families and to life outside of the home...
 
No, we are not all responsible. Years ago it was called vertical barbarism by one observer in reference to the culture of the inner city and I think that was apt then and is now...
 
Agreed but I don't think may people would have heard of Sr Mary MacKillop who began a school system with one classroom in a stable in a country town in South Australia. The children were very disadvantaged and many had no fathers because they were away to the goldfields hoping to strike it rich. Few ever did and many never returned. The kids were being raised by overworked single mothers.

Like Powell's enterprise, with the aid of helpers who flocked to the cause, many kids were given a leg up out of poverty and at the same time given a moral framework to guide them through life.

If people don't want gangs or ISIS scooping up the kids then someone needs to start doing something, even if the effort seems ridiculously small to begin with.
 
ISIS is another kettle of fish, and I doubt that inner city teens have even heard of it. Let the black entertainers, politicians, sports figures, et.al., flood the inner city and try to rescue the children.
 

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