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Sunday, Oct. 04, 2009

Response from a ‘Lost Boy’

News Flash: Houston, we’ve got a problem, and so does Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago — and Macon.

I’m sure you’ve seen the chilling video out of the Windy City showing four teens beating Derrion Albert, a 16-year-old honors student at Christian Fenger Academy High School, to death. The oldest of the teen killers is 19. The youngest, the same age as the victim.

It should be noted that Albert was an innocent bystander walking home from school when a melee broke out between students from different neighborhoods. They pummeled Albert with splintered railroad ties.

Students dying in Chicago is nothing new. Thirty-seven were killed last year, and with the school year just beginning, there are predictions this year could be more deadly.

We can turn a blind eye in Middle Georgia and say, “That’s just Chicago.” Yes it is, but this kind of open violence is being embedded in the DNA of young black males.

We’ve seen it up close and personal. Three black teens kill a clerk after he’s given them everything they wanted. In the same week, a 16-year-old, who was no stranger to trouble, approached a man at a store on Mercer University and kills him because he didn’t have any money in his wallet. Do you see the connections with the senseless beating death in Chicago? Key word is “senseless.”

President Obama is sending Attorney General Eric Holder and Education Secretary Arne Duncan to Chicago to meet with school officials, but more than talk is necessary. Drastic action and intervention should be the call to action — and not just in Chicago.

Here’s part of a response to my column, “Lost Boys of Bibb,” by a local high school student. “I think the Lost Boys of Bibb are doing what they need to do to survive. No, I’m not saying they should use violence to get what they want, but sometimes you have to.

“People tend to think that drug dealers, robbers, burglars, etc., are people who don’t care about another human being, but I ask you this, who do you care about most, yourself or a stranger? Ask yourself, if you were in their shoes, and had to watch your family struggle to survive and their wasn’t any food in your stomach. You’re going to do what you got to do. ...”

There’s more, but I’ll spare you. However, he ends on a chilling note. “As long as we are in this economic crisis called a recession, store clerks are always going to have to worry about getting robbed because they won’t give anyone a job.”

It’s heartbreaking to see young men who have lost hope and have decided to enter the dark world of crime. That path leads to one of two places — jail or the morgue, many times, both.

What can we do? Steve Perry, CNN education contributor and principal and founder of the Capital Prep Magnet School in Hartford, Conn., said something the other evening with Anderson Cooper that’s quite profound: “There is no such thing as a strong community with a weak school system or a weak community with a strong school system. ... When you have an area in which we have children failing as a standard, we can only expect that the grown people are not handling their business.”

Are we handling our business in Bibb County? Are we a weak or strong community? Examining our school system makes the answers too obvious.

We need to stop messing around with our schools and start taking the drastic steps necessary to fix them. We don’t have much time. More Lost Boys are being created every day.

Charles E. Richardson is the Telegraph’s editorial page editor. He can be reached at (478) 744-4342 or via e-mail at crichardson@macon.com.