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Chess and Uppity White Folks
I really like what Alyssa has to say. And I like the way she says it.
Finally someone besides me holds the MHNA's feet to the fire: in her post A Different Recipe for Change Alyssa says,
Perhaps the person who runs the Mt Hope Community center could be held more responsible for conducting activities that the kids actually would be interested in.
Alyssa goes on to comment about the type of youth chosen for social programs:
The last time I heard him speak of his plans for youth programs, I heard chess get mentioned. I'm sure that's just what these kids need ...yea maybe 8 in the whole community. The rest of these kids face REALITY on a daily basis, to which chess and uppity white folks do not apply.
Alyssa further strengthens her critique when she argues:
". . . we need to meet the youth in the middle somewhere, and provide for them activities that don't involve hand selecting teens, only to select ones that were going to be successful anyway, to glorify their own stance, to satisfy their own ego
I like that: "activities that don't involve hand selecting teens, only to select ones that were going to be successful anyway."
Well said, I say.
I guess Alyssa and I agree that people (especially politicians, Cops, and wannabe whatevers) like to pump up their stats to gratify their egos and make themselves look good.
Where Alyssa and I diverge in our viewpoints is on Kevin Jackson. I see Jackson as the ultimate enabler. In my opinion Jackson holds the African Community in Mt. Hope back by enabling the lowest of the African American underclass, the drug dealers and the petty criminals the drug trade engenders.
I believe that there are several kingpin drug dealers in Mt. Hope who run the drug trade and who prey on the African American Community even as they are among them in a cloak of respectability.
I believe that the politicians who enable this behavior in exchange for votes know these individuals, know who they are, and turn a blind eye on their criminality and community destroying behavior.
Where Alyssa and I do agree is that something needs to be done to get these Mt. Hope kids away from drugs and to get the adults who enable them behind bars.
What we debate is who controls the drug trade in Mt. Hope. Who enables the drug trade in Mt. Hope. And how can it be stopped when it is enabled by politicians and seemingly ignored by the MHNA, the voice of the African American Community in Mt. Hope.
John Twomey
Posted at September 12, 2007 11:54 PM