re: #79 Dark_Falcon

No one will invest in large swaths of the inner cities unless it’s to boot the poor people out and gentrify the area, pricing the poor out of eyesight and earshot. And that’s just dealing with the actual physical space, there’s much more to deal with.

Gangs are substitute families, when you have strong family and community gangs stand little chance of gaining a strong foothold. Fixing this(and I am being simplistic I know this)is going to require massive investment of more than just money. It’s going to require honest leadership that understands what’s needed. It’s going to require a lot of investment in schools, law enforcement that is specifically trained and not allowed so much as an offhand racist remark, it’s going to require getting minority churches involved in community outreach and there are generations of mistrust and broken promises to heal. There’s GOT to be a valuation of human life, I’ve heard more than one white person say”those people just don’t value human lives”. Well who values theirs beyond lip service? You can’t continually treat people like subhuman crap and expect them to value themselves either. The whole failed drug war shit is a big ass part of this mess too, for profit prisons are one of the worst things that ever happened to any group of people in this country, but especially minorities. It’s going to take investing in good schools, it’s going to take patience and love in the face of anger and distrust, it’s a big fucking job and it has to start somewhere. Education and uniting broken families, treating drug addiction as an illness and not a crime, compassionate law enforcement(and that doesn’t mean weak, it means using good judgement and sound police practices- they do exist) would help a lot. You give people something to fight FOR and I’d bet you’d see a lot of people rise to the occasion and help clean up their own communities. But it’s a long haul and I don’t hold out hope of much getting accomplished since we’re so busy as a nation hating on each other.