European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 5, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse Thursday May 5, 1994 a commentary the stabs and stripes Pago 17 even must Arm a Good kids have i happened upon this sobering subhead while thumbing my Way to another piece on inner City violence in the same Issue May of the Atlantic monthly. The quote from John Silva director of safety and Security for the Cambridge mass., Public schools is a Token of the degree to which violence has come to define life in big cities particularly among poor children and How Little we understand it a even when we try. In be tried. I read Nathan Mccall s gripping autobiography makes me Wanna holler William Raspberry that this once violent Young Man now a Washington Post colleague could help me understand what others involved in Street violence arc top inarticulate to explain. Mccall did manage to. Take me a Long Way inside his own head. He helped me to see the mean streets As he once saw them. He helped me to see race from the viewpoint he once had and to an important de Grce still does. But at the end he Hadnot told me enough to help me think my Way through the darkening Urban Nightmare. Think of Elijah Andersons essay the piece i was looking for when i found the Silva quote As a teachers guide for Mccall a Book. Where Mccall the journalist feels and remembers and reports Anderson the sociologist analyses. Where the erstwhile bad boy takes you on an emotional tour and leaves you spellbound the University of Pennsylvania scholar identifies and labels and helps you sort things out. Not that he makes you feel much better. Violent behaviour he concludes will finally make nonviolent behaviour or at any rate an unwillingness to engage in violence untenable Good kids As the second Atlantic piece puts it May have no Choice but to Arm themselves. A e Andersons analysis hangs on what he sees As the two main and competing orientations of inner City life the decent Folk and the Quot Street Folk. The former tend to embrace mainstream values attend Church work hard negotiate their Way out of conflict and sacrifice for their children whose lives they expect will be better than their own. The latter Are like lick to be ineffectual or inconsistent parents have severely restricted financial resources live lives characterized by disorganization and adhere to a code that explicitly accepts violence As a Way of earning and maintaining respect a an exaggerated sense of manhood. But what manhood it involves according to Anders amp a not just a refusal to Quot Punk out in the face of threatened violence but a willingness to a get in someone s face Quot take another a property throw the first punch or pull a trigger. It is unafraid of death because it sees Little Hope in life. The Here and now being All one can count on it would rather risk death than endure being its self image has Little to with intellectual accomplishment and everything to do with being someone not to mess with. I it gets More involved. A objects play an important and complicated role in establishing self image a says Anderson. Quot jackets sneakers Gold jewelry reflect not just a persons taste but also a willingness to possess things that May require defending a boy wearing a fashionable expensive jacket for example is vulnerable to attack by another who covets the jacket. However if the boy forgoes the desirable jacket and wears one that Isnit a hip a he runs the risk of Sci he teased and possibly even assaulted. The youth comes to covet such items a especially when he secs easy prey wearing \ and Here a the worst the values instilled by Quot Ducc Nfn families must eventually succumb to the Quot Street values unless some unspecified something happens to change things. Quot decent kids May begin by adopting the dress and. Swagger of the Street then affect its language and its ostensible willingness to. Fight. But hip clothes and bravado Aren t enough. Sooner or later comes the test and a a pinking out can be almost As risky As fighting. And fighting these Days does no to mean busted lips and bloody noses its More and More Likely to involve gunplay. As Anderson puts it Quot Many Young men will strive to appear to a go for bad a while hoping they will never be tested but when they Are tested the outcome of the situation May quickly be out of their hands As they become wrapped up in the circumstances of the a a says Silva a Good kids who want to go to school and do the right thing they re afraid of the gangs and the drug dealers they want to protect themselves and their and that he says is Why a Good kids have a a a c washington.f>os1 cd Day services t Quot and company it seems that their feelings Are Hurt. The americans the brits the French a All their friends a Are throwing a big party on june 6. But the germans Haven to been invited. A it will be the 50th anniversary of a Day. There will be Parachute drops and Aerial displays and veterans swarming Over the beaches named Utah and Omaha. President Clinton is coming. So is Queen Elizabeth so is Francois Mitterrand but Helmut Kohl wont be there to commemorate the allies assault on Normandy. And frankly he a feeling left out. So Are some of his countrymen. After All the germans were _ i there for the first a Day. With a out the germans there have been any a Day at All. If there is to be some historic re enactment perhaps some of the old veterans could come out with their hands up. Just for an authentic touch. But i am being sarcastic and the German government is being serious. Those who object to this closed party explain that they Are now a part of democratic Europe not a fascist enemy. They Are asking for some sense of closure on the nazi Era. Its 50 years after All they say. Two generations have been born since then. Ana besides one Man told a radio reporter germans too want to celebrate the Day that began a their liberation from Adolf Well i am not one of those children of world War ii veterans who refused to buy a Volkswagen or bridled at a German accent. I do not believe the sins of the grandparents should be visited on the grandchildren. But i am also queasy at the notion of transforming a historic commemoration of what Eisenhower called a the great crusade a a Day that Cost 6,603 american Ellen Goodman lives a into a government Celebration of letting bygones be bygones. At times it seems to me that the practical need to Burn the score cards the old enemies lists and Start fresh is essential. Otherwise we walk through life looking behind us As if we were being stalked through a dark Alley by old adversaries. But at other times there is a compelling need to remember to distinguish right from wrong victim from assailant. To maintain our sense of Justice and to Honor those who upheld it. On any Given Day these messages Are in the news. Stories about the Power of memory and stories about the Price of forgetting. We read of murderous feuds Between International hat Fields and Mccoy. In Bosnia people shoot each other in revenge for events that can be traced Back 800 years. In the Middle East israelis and palestinians kill each other now in the name of israelis and palestinians who killed each other then. At same time All through Europe there Are Young ignorant Neo nazis painting swastikas on Walls. In America a cult of a a revisionists denies that the holocaust Ever happened. In Japan Young students learn More about Hiroshima than Pearl Harbor. In Italy a a Post fascist Leader Calls Mussolini a the greatest statesman of the i remember nine years ago when president Reagan visited Pitburg where Side by Side with Kohl he Laid a Wreath in a cemetery where is soldiers were buried. That gesture did no to strike me As a moment of reconciliation but one of moral blindness. Now we Are getting ready for a Day. The veterans Landing at Normandy this june Are senior citizens the holocaust survivors Are mostly old people their collective memory soon assigned to museums. The Landing May indeed have begun the liberation of Germany from Hitler but few germans thought so in 1944. If i were planning this history party would i invite germans sure. Id invite the resisters the Schindler any survivors of the anti nazi underground. To put it simply the a Day commemoration Isnit about German bashing. It Isnit an insult. It Isnit a Lime Warp. It is a gathering for those who fought against tyranny. After 50 years that is Worth remembering. A. A Boston Gobo ,
