COMMENTARY: Random violence knows no color

c. 1998 Religion News Service (Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J.) UNDATED _ Go figure. I am a black, inner-city father. I send my kids to an exclusive school in a tony, […]

c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J.)

UNDATED _ Go figure. I am a black, inner-city father. I send my kids to an exclusive school in a tony, white suburb. And now I’m afraid one of their classmates one day might snap and shoot up the place. It’s not supposed to happen like this.


Increasingly, however, it does. And that brings home an important truth.

Anyone who has watched the recent violence inflicted in the schoolyards of Paducah, Ky.; Jonesboro, Ark.; and Springfield, Ore., for example, should come to but one conclusion: We’ve been sold a bill of goods by the”experts”who have been telling us such violence is the province of the inner city. It is, we’ve been assured, the natural outgrowth of the wayward lifestyles _ and sometimes the crushing circumstances _ of urban blacks and Hispanics.

Poverty, the lack of quality education, and joblessness have produced (tsk, tsk) a subculture in which violence is the dominant feature.

How, then, do we explain the gun play in the ‘burbs? If indigence is not a prominent characteristic of suburban life, why are white, middle-class children so angry?

A recent book,”The Content of America’s Character: Recovering Civic Virtue,”written by a variety of social commentators including author Don E. Eberly, theologian Michael Novak and UCLA professor James Q. Wilson, may provide some insight. The book is a collection of essays exploring the effects of such influences as family, religion, ethical relativism and education on the nation’s moral character.

In the first of these essays, Eberly, who also edited the volume, notes some disturbing trends among the nation’s youth. For example, he cites a 1993 survey of 7,000 students that showed”61 percent had cheated on an exam in the past year; 33 percent had stolen something from a store; and 33 percent said they would lie on a resume.” Noting the increasing levels of violence in the nation’s schools, he writes,”Ten percent of all teachers and 25 percent of all students had been the victim of an assault in their schools during the past year. Some type of weapon is regularly taken to school by 20 percent of all high school students.” For Eberly, the tendency toward dishonesty and cruelty among the young is reflective of a broader change in the nation’s values. This change, he and others believe, is linked to the demographic, economic and educational metamorphosis the country has undergone throughout this century.”The transitions from agriculture to industrialization to the information age each produced radical differences in social life and values,”he argues. Where traits such as thrift, industry and respect for one’s fellows were once linked to the well-being of the entire commonwealth, they have become increasingly archaic in the face of a managed economy, the social welfare system and the perception of a prosperous, secure future.

A concomitant concern focuses on”the loss of influence by those institutions in society which have traditionally been responsible for inculcating character _ parents, churches, and schools _ to other cultural influences, particularly the entertainment industry, whose purpose is more tied to commercial success than public purpose,”writes Eberly.

In sum, our cultural values _ the standards by which we measure our nation and its people _ are being determined largely by the bottom line. And its effects are devastating our children, both rich and poor, black and white.


Thus, for we adults, the issue is not to cast aspersions, but rather to make hard choices that will effect the values of our children _ and their parents.

DEA END ATCHISON

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