I was just listening to the Anita Marks show and she read the following article by Jason Whitlock from foxsports.com. I personally found it to be a pretty powerful article written by a black man about black-on-black crime, hip-hop’s involvement in spurring black-on-black crime, and the black culture’s indifference to education. After reading that, I went looking for what people were saying in response to the article and it was pretty mixed (here).

Now, I’m not an expert on the matter, so that’s already a reason why I probably shouldn’t say anything at all, but that article and the comments that followed really do get me thinking. Add to that the fact that I’m a white guy who grew up in a working middle class, single parent home for the most part, and my credentials for discussion probably drop even further. Regardless, I am a witness to all of this, and ever since I moved to Pittsburgh and opted to live close to this crime, my concerns and thoughts on the matter have constantly been on my mind. I live in the North Side of Pittsburgh, an area as infamous for it’s high crime rate as it is for it’s plethora of beautifully restored late-19th century homes. I love the area. It has character, close proximity to just about everything, and a great view of downtown Pittsburgh. Sadly, though, there have been nights where I’m standing in my bedroom taking in the beauty of the city from my window while hearing the gunshots going off somewhere below. Every time I hear that, I begin wondering if the perpetrator hit his target. I then wonder why murder was the only solve to whatever dispute that occurred. That snowballs into trying to figure out why this stuff goes down at all.

For whatever reason, it seems like the crime in my neighborhood has shot up since the summer began. It’s now coming out that most of this homicide is happening because there’s a drug war going on in the Mexican War Streets between rival gangs. First, a young black teenager was gunned down outside of his home – a supposed innocent bystander (I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt). In an almost predictable turn of events, revenge murders occur. The cycle hasn’t seemed to stop with the bullets still flying on a regular basis. It’s definitely depressing. The other sad reality is that the victims are all young black men or children.

I’m going to respond on what Mr. Whitlock discussed in his article because his views are worth discussing. He discusses the lack of emphasis on education in the black community. I have no idea about this first-hand, but when you see numbers flying around, like a 34-35% drop out rate, with nearly half of all black male students failing to graduate (view article), you begin to worry about your city’s future. Granted, Pittsburgh is considered average in those numbers for a large urban area, but the numbers are still pretty sad. Pittsburgh isn’t a city that’s booming by any means. It’s a city that’s still trying to recover from the economic dent left by a faltering steel industry. Although there are many jobs, it seems like the majority of those jobs seem to be for well-educated workers and focused on new technologies. I think it’s safe to say that companies like Google – which opened offices in Pittsburgh in the last year or two – aren’t searching for blue collar workers. Unfortunately, there’s still not enough of those companies to take in the large amount of graduating college students from the area’s high number of colleges and universities. Those student either make a go at creating their own company, fight for that small number of present jobs, study to end up in the Pittsburgh’s impressive medical industry, or leave. With Pittsburgh’s decline in population over the last 7 years (60,000 and counting since 2000 (article)), you have to assume that those in flight are the well-educated, right? If that happens to be the case, the 35% of students who drop out and fail to get jobs, combined with the large number of well-educated people that leave, would seem to eventually create a weird scenario of haves and have-nots. Of course, those who drop out aren’t always black, but in my neighborhood, the majority of the teenagers that I see out and about during the week when school’s in session are mostly black. I hate saying that, but Mr. Whitlock may have a point.

He also points to the hip-hop movement as a catalyst for the ongoing struggles of the black youth. Is he right? I don’t know. I, personally, love a lot of hip-hop music. One of my favorite hip-hop albums ever was The Infamous by Mobb Deep. It was full of bad-assed, gun toting, revenge seeking, life threatening, and drug dealing “gangsta” lyrics. It was beautiful…and still is. Yet, here I sit, at a great job in a great company, making good money, and living a pretty good life. I listened to tons of hip-hop and still do. The beats are infectious, the rhythmic delivery of words are genious, and I’ve encountered many highly intelligent lyrics. Even the delivery of a death threat in Mobb Deep’s music has been known to move me. Why is it that I didn’t become a threat to society? What made me stay away from slinging crack on the corner of North Avenue and Federal? I’ll tell you why. I had great parents – especially my father.

When I was with Audra, we had so many wonderful conversations about how teachers are all too often made the scapegoats for a child’s struggles in school. She was only teaching 4th grade, but the blame game and larger picture were already becoming obvious to her, and she made me open my eyes to it as well. Poor students are the direct result of poor parenting. The same, in my opinion, can be said about crime. Crime is also the result of poor parenting. That’s where I think Jason Whitlock missed his message.

Yes, black-on-black crime is killing the majority of these young black males. Yes, mainstream hip-hop culture, if misinterpreted and not understood for what it is – image, not substance for the most part – may be a catalyst for the weak-minded, but those minds were weakened before any young black male nodded his head to a gangsta rap beat. I’m going to avoid stereotypes, but the simple fact is that these kids need to be raised to be intelligent and guarded individuals by their parents. If rap music influences your child to kill, you’re an awful parent. How hard is it to pay attention to your child and teach them about the difference between reality and perception? Rap music can be fun, beautiful, and inspiring just as much guns can help feed a hunter or be an innocently fun hobby. Both get a bad rap because of the irresponsible people that embrace them and/or manipulate their use. I’ve seen too many children out late at night to have confidence in the parents of a lot of these children. These kids are getting shot at midnight when they should be in the house sleeping, and resting their young minds for a new day of education. Where are the parents? I was never allowed out that late at night. My dad had a pretty firm grasp of me my whole life. He raised me to not make the mistakes that he made. He raised me to work hard, and to think intelligently about everything that I encountered. I’ve been around a lot of “bad seeds” in my life and I turned the corner and left them behind. I could’ve stayed, but I didn’t. Why? I had a wonderfully strong parent.

So while Mr. Whitlock makes some good observations, I think he needs to really focus on the one thing that is truly at the source of the problem: The parents and the lack of nurturing of their children within the black community. This is blame-game culture where no one likes to find fault in themselves. A child fails. Blame the school. A black child kills. Blame hip-hop. A white man’s job is gone. Blame the illegal immigrants. It’s over-the-top ridiculous. A parents’ only goal is raise a good kid. That’s it. It’s hard, but this blame game society almost makes not trying an easier out than doing the hard work. No one is accountable.

I’ve often thought about joining Big Brothers Big Sisters to help at least one kid, and my concern is growing to a point where I might just have to because I’m sickened by the future for these kids. I play soccer in the heart of the ghetto by myself a lot. I can’t count the amount of times a little black child will come up to me and ask to play. I always let him. These kids are so innocent and full of life. It’s really quite inspiring for that few minutes where they’re trying to kick a ball that’s practically up to their knee. They’re happy, optimistic, and seemingly unscathed by their surroundings. Willing to try anything. The parents have a chance to build a wall at that Y in the road and force these kids to choose their direction wisely, but with all the murders, it just doesn’t seem like those same parents are bringing the bricks required. Or maybe their not bringing the mortar. It’s all just sad. Really sad.