Looks like you were right Kevin!

by Thomas E. Mitchell, Jr.
To: Kevin J. Walker, freelance writer, former MCJ staffer

Re: The chickens coming home to roost

Dear Kevin,
Well, it looks like your predictions offered in the series you wrote for the "Community Journal" that ran in 2005 (and in a series on the "Culture of Poverty" you wrote for the "MCJ" in 1999) about the culture of death in Milwaukee have come to fruition.

I know you’re nodding your head in that (forgive me) smug way you have whenever you are proven right about an issue or trend.

I’m guessing you are smiling supremely, proclaiming to anyone--whether you know the person or not--that you predicted what would happen or that the individuals who committed the wave of recent crimes fit the pathology (standard physical description and mode of thinking and operation) of dangerous individuals you laid out during the series.

Yes, Kevin, it looks like the chickens have come home to roost as it relates to our plight and the violent acts that have taken place within the last three weeks and before:

o The burned body of a woman recently identified as Lusheena Watts, 23, being found in a garbage can on the city’s northwest side. Charges are pending for four individuals who were arrested last weekend in connection with the slaying.

o The robbery and fatal shooting of Brandon Sprewer at a bus stop on his way home from work. It was recently reported that the shooter in this assault was on probation for another attempted robbery in which he shot another person.

o The gang rape of an 11-year-old girl by as many as 20 young boys and men this past Labor Day. It’s been recently reported that some of the assailants in this case have had numerous run-ins with the juvenile justice system.

o Saturday, September 16 saw the 79th homicide for this year. That’s not bad when you consider the fact that at this time last year, the city was closing in on 100 homicides (which it reached in October of 2005).

During the series you also laid-out the negative behavior engaged in by SOME of our folks as it relates to the way SOME of us live, raise our children, relationships, high incarceration rate, high school dropouts, teen pregnancy, child physical and sexual abuse, rape, domestic violence, the negative influence of the media and popular culture (i.e. negative Hip-Hop), the absence of fathers in the home and in the lives of their children, single parent, female-headed households--and how these issues and conditions are negatively impacting on our community. There’s no doubt that if left unchecked, could lead to our extinction as a people.

Yeah Kevin, you told us so!

While some of us--myself included--took what you wrote to heart and have tried in our own small--or large way--to stem the tide so-to-speak, a few are not yet convinced.

Fortunately, Milwaukee Police Chief Nannette Hegerty has been convinced, calling the city’s situation a "societal crisis" unfolding in the city’s neighborhoods with unstable families, few jobs, drug use, teen pregnancy and a sense of anger and hopelessness being experienced by citizens--especially our youth.

As one psychologist reportedly noted, there has been a breakdown of moral barriers that has made it possible for a group of boys and a GROWN MAN to gang-rape a little girl, make a young man on probation for a robbery, try to rob and kill a young man, and allegedly make it easy for four men to murder a woman and burn her body in a garbage can.

The horrors this city and community have witnessed might be only the tip of this moral breakdown. Sadly, the WORSE may be just around the corner!

I hope not Kevin. I hope I’m wrong. But then, I hoped that you were wrong when I read your series, believing that some of us would come to our senses and not succumb to the theories you laid out.

So much for hope!

Fortunately, at the conclusion of your series Kevin, you listed a number of solutions that could be applied to save our community.

Your plan, which you called the "Walker Grid Plan," requires the selection of a four-block area, such as Metcalfe Park that would contain existing community groups with established block club networks, citizens with middle-class values or a high degree of homeownership and business development.

Once the four-block area has been selected, you suggested (some of) the following be done:

o Home rehabilitation specialists would "hyper insulate" rental units to help save money on fuel costs and wire the homes for Internet use so they can have access to information, news and educational support for schooling.

o Healthcare operatives providing screenings, consultation, nutrition and physical activity guides to promote preventive measures against diseases that disproportionately impact African Americans such as hypertension.

o Various local and federal law enforcement agencies excise the criminals from the target area so they can no longer terrorize its residents and business owners.

o AODA specialists to address drug dependencies of adults and expedite their enrollment in drug treatment programs.

o Psychological and mental health specialists to help area inhabitants manage their negative impulses by using anger management methods.

o Financial and banking personnel to teach financial literacy and how to budget money, deal with credit issues and help open banking, Roth, IRAs, home mortgage, college, mutual funds and other accounts so they won’t fall prey to predatory lenders and other schemes.

The financial specialists will also help residents of the target area start building personal credit and home equity, thus making their money work for them.

You also outlined other things that should be done, such as stop apologizing for negative and criminal behavior, discontinue reelecting ineffective politicians, ostracizing irresponsible men and women, holding up the traditional nuclear family model, push self-reliance and pursuing business formation instead of depending on so-called "nonprofit organizations" to support the community or solve its problems.

"Businesses can expand far beyond their original beginnings to employ dozens, even hundreds of residents," you said in your solution conclusion.

"Few nonprofits can, or are motivated to even solve their stated mission problems.

"We have regressed as a people all over the nation," you further wrote in your conclusion. "As we get more ‘wealth,’ as we add thousands of Black-elected officials, radio and television and cable stations, overall, somehow we are becoming poorer, and our neighborhoods less livable! Something clearly is wrong."

Yup Kevin, something is definitely wrong. You predicted it in 2005 and as far back as 1999 when you wrote the original series on the culture of poverty, which you said would lead to the "crisis" we face now.

Everybody from the mayor to the "missionaries" are scratching their heads wondering what to do to turn the tide of the tsunami that is quickly drowning our community in negative behavior and death. Maybe we should give your ideas a try Kevin. Everything else has failed. Let’s give it a whirl!

Sincerely,
A brotha who can only say, you were right!