Toronto Star columnist gets mail ... Dear Ms DiManno

 Rosie DiManno's article   on the block party shooting in  Toronto got a reader furiously penning a long letter full of commonsense and home truths that the politically correct (suicidally wrong) are at pains to avoid.

Dear Ms DiManno

It is, indeed, insulting to link poverty to crime. If this theory were valid, our planet would be a mass crime scene every day.

Countering crime and idleness with more basketball courts is nothing but a new politically correct approach, identical to that which, two decades ago, made police insist “there were no gangs in Toronto, rejecting the very word as a media exaggeration to describe rag-tag collectives of preying youths in pockets around the city.”, as you wrote.

Today, thanks to this politically correct policy, there are over 60 active gangs in Toronto.
And some community workers want… more basketball courts and “recreational diversion”?

Let’s see, any gang member or prospective one interested in planting some flowers or play Ibsen or Ionesco at the community theatre?

What about a chamber orchestra? Or perhaps ballroom dance?
Would chess “keep them busy”? Flying kites? Painting (on canvas, not buildings), arts and crafts, scrapbooking or knitting? Volunteering perhaps?

If these “social crusaders” cared about finding a solution and not only worry about losing government funding, they would come up with something better than “sports and recreational activities” like GO TO SCHOOL and GET A JOB!

It is not poverty that pushed them towards gangsta lifestyle, but their insecurity, lack of education, self-esteem and moral values and a chronic lack of sense of social responsibility.

And this attitude, in many cases, is passed down from generation to generation. Teenage, uneducated girls get pregnant and those babies grow up in a fatherless (or, on the contrary, with too many males in their lives) environment, in subsidized housing, living on social welfare.

Subsidized housing for generations and generations cannot boost aspirations, self-esteem or social responsibility.

These people live with none.

These children grow up with their grandparents, half-siblings or relatives, with the image of their stoned mother smoking weed or doing other drugs, changing partners and coming home in the morning, with a few bucks in her supersized bag.

This environment is anything but stimulating. This environment keeps individuals, generation after generation, in the same sticky swamp. The “helping” hand comes from gangs, as they give these children the illusion of a family, authority and security.

Many of these youths join gangs as they substitute the image of their non-present father or decorative-father with that of the gang leader.

Youngsters need rules and hierarchy. And they find both in gangs.
They have access to education and nobody needs a university degree to work, to be an honest and decent human being.

Thus, what keeps these teens from studying, from becoming plumbers, farmers, construction workers, cashiers, chefs, firefighters or doormen?

Is it, perhaps, a lack of respect for education within their communities? Could it be that being knowledgeable would push them down their group’s social ladder? Is it that criminal life = high status in their communities?

Is it the philosophy that “smart” people do not work, but drive expensive cars, walk with a hive of women and have golden wires in their mouths while “stupid” people wake up every morning to go to work?

It is not racist to make differences between different cultural groups and their perception on education. For instance, Jews, Asians or Indians commend education and wish their children to acquire a high level of education.

In China, the teacher is kept in great esteem.

It is racist not to discuss this issue.

Racist is to claim that black teens need more sports and recreational activities in order to be kept off gangs, suggesting that they are some sort of zoo exhibits who keep their calm if given a puddle of mud, a circle or a rubber ball.

Why not discuss family background and environment? Why not discuss teen pregnancies, single-parenting, drug addicted “mothers”, insecurity and lack of self-esteem? Why not discuss the dramatic erosion of the notion of family in the black community and the escalation of teen pregnancies in specific areas in Toronto?.......

.......Asking questions in order to find solutions is not racist.

Racist is not asking them.

If we keep sweeping the dirt under the rug, it will not miraculously evaporate, but become thicker and harder to remove.....


via: CIReport