Equal Time Week
A letter to the LA Times
Oakland Must Look Inward to Break Its Cycle of Despair
July 20, 2003
It's really wearisome hearing excuses about why heavily populated minority communities, such as in Oakland, are unable to pull out of their crime and dysfunctional morass ("Listening to Oakland," by Scott Duke Harris, July 6). No one is forcing blacks to sell crack cocaine, no one is forcing black and Hispanic youths to adopt a gang culture, no one is forcing blacks to have an astronomical out-of-wedlock birth rate, no one is forcing black and Hispanic students to look at achievement as selling out or to look at dumbing it down as keeping it real.
NAACP Oakland branch president Shannon Reeves has it right: The problems are self-inflicted and will only be remedied by blacks and Hispanics themselves. For someone like Rose Braz, director of the prison reform group Critical Resistance, it's much simpler to point a finger than look inward.
Greg Belluomini
Views like these are problematic but must be dealt with because in many cases they are truly and honorably held. Dismissing them causes the same kind of difficulties that dismissing Black folks' truly and honorably held views on race and racism but on a larger scale.
Equal Time will be a theme running through P6 this week as Startin' Stuff was last week. I've already presented enough material in the Racism series to support the viewpoint…mine…that I'll be setting forth in a little more detail. Some time today I'll be posting a summary of the conclusions from that material as well as pointers to the original posts so all readers can start on the same page.
Reader participation would be appreciated. I'm hoping for a discussion as rational as we had in Startin' Stuff Week. I'm asking for honest concerns, though (believe it or not) racist rants are equally welcome. This time.
[Listening to: Song Of Immortal Love 4 (MysticRadio - A Cosmic Blend of New Age, Chill, Ragas and Rock) - Patrick Bernhardt ]
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/21/2003 09:20:50 AM |
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