My Take on Youth Violence, Part 2: Why are Kids So Angry?

We have an opportunity to connect the dots on this community’s youth violence and maybe start to do something meaningful about it. 

We know that Milwaukee’s gun violence situation is getting worse all the time.  Even though homicides are down, shootings have increased.  This is the first dot, our starting point. Hearing shots fired in many neighborhoods is so commonplace that no one bothers to call the police anymore.  Many Milwaukee kids could tell us more about where shots were fired and by whom than the beat cops probably could.  They hear it all the time.  This should make us wonder whether it is still scary for them.  Maybe, the terror has evaporated and gunshots have become a lot like a car alarm going off.  They hear it but it doesn’t have any impact.

The second dot is the level of violence in many Milwaukee schools.  It isn’t obvious every day but the potential for violence is always bubbling in our schools, particularly high schools.  The hallways can be rough and the security personnel know it.  That’s why they’re stationed with walkie-talkies in strategic places at the top of stairs and the bends in hallways.  Things can go south in a hurry in a public school.  A jostle, an insult is all it takes for physical violence to erupt.  A phone call to mom or siblings brings reinforcements that escalate the fight into a lot more serious business.

Predictably, public officials look at the growing violence and start talking about teaching kids conflict resolution skills.  They say we need to teach kids to handle their frustration and anger without shooting each other.  They have to settle their fights with their fists.  If only Father Flanagan would come back to life and show us the way.  To me, saying that kids need to handle their frustration and anger better begs a very large question and that is, why are kids so angry in the first place?

That’s the question we need to be asking.  It isn’t going to do any good to create one more conflict resolution program or paint any more peace symbols on the wall until we face the ugly truth about why so many of Milwaukee’s kids are so volatile, so hyper-vigilant, and so ready to fight and hurt other people.  My theory is that they’re hurt, badly hurt, and the hurt started when they were little kids and hasn’t let up for a single day.

And here is the third dot.   Why is it that African American students, particularly boys, are three times more likely than White kids to be suspended from school?  Why are African American boys so frequently placed in special education?  Beginning even in kindergarten, school can be an unwelcoming and even hostile place for an African American boy.  What does it mean to put a child out of the school building, not once or twice but dozens of times over the course of a single school year?  What does it say to the child?  Leave.  We don’t want you here.

Being put out of school is just one part of the anger-building process but it’s a fundamental one.  Add to the equation a young boy thinking his father doesn’t want him either.  Add to that the stress and strain of coping with poverty and wanting what other people have like a decent house, a car, and a job.  Anger and frustration takes years to build to the level where a young man can whip out a gun and shoot somebody.  How do we replace the early hurt suffered by so many young men in our city with attention and compassion?  How do we stop rejecting and start embracing?  Those are the questions to ask.

Mayfair Madness

A bunch of kids went nuts at Mayfair Mall on Sunday night.  Scared people.  Knocked things over.  Created a lot of hubbub – which is my favorite word for a really loud, messy, situation. So, ok, what’s next will be Mayfair deciding that no one under 25 can enter the mall without a double escort. Groups of more than three kids will be tossed out of the mall.  And there will be worried, worried eyes cast on any gathering – large or small – of African American teens.  Broad brush, this is going to be.

I’m telling you that the real Mayfair Madness isn’t what happened there on Sunday night – although the little rampage/wreckage/intimidation was totally out of line, disgusting, and unacceptable (why has that word become our favorite way of saying that something is BAD to do?).

The real Madness is yet to come.  This is when the Red Rover teams choose up sides.  On the one side will be the folks that shake their heads, tsking, “Those kids don’t know how to act.”  On the other side, the sad, understanding folks, “Oh, those poor kids don’t have anything to do in this town.”

Heaven forbid someone calls me to facilitate a planning session on how to deal with kids not having anything to do so they have to act like idiots at the mall.  Here’s the deal on this one:  Kids act like idiots a lot of the time.  When there are a lot of them together in a mood to act like idiots, a well-proven mechanism  called mob psychology takes over.  This is the same group-think that has resulted in all manner of mayhem and tragedy – people in a group will do things they would never do on their own. 

Pick apart the Mayfair One Hundred – or however many they end up being – and you’ll find a bunch of A students, a couple of athletes, a few kids who spent the afternoon in church, a couple of delinquents, and a whole bunch of kids who thought running through stores was more interesting than eating their 12th Cinn-A-Bon in the food court.

My view:  Relax, everybody.  Kids freaked out.  It’s not the end of the world.  It’s not enough the end of Mayfair.  Or shopping as we know it.   It’s just kids acting nuts.  Do we love it?  No.  But do we need to start planning on how to solve this terrible problem?  Do we need a day long retreat on recreational alternatives for youth? 

No.  We need to roll our eyes and get a grip.

Got a Problem? Get in Line.

There’s a big risk I will start sounding like Lewis Black in this post.  I have had it up to here with ho-hum service providers who haven’t felt a sense of urgency since the last time they stood in a slow fast food lane.

It’s one thing when the waiting customers are adults.  Another matter altogether when we’re talking about children.  Because children – you see – live in a different time dimension, sort of like dogs.  Every hour is a day, every day is a month – waiting ticks away on a bigger clock for kids.  At the same time kids’ brains are developing at warp speed and their emotions are careening around street lights and space shuttles, adults are yawning their way through the 3 hour process necessary to schedule the next meeting in six months.

And kids?  They don’t really complain about it.  They don’t know too much about consumer hotlines and ombudsman programs.  They show up where the adults take them.  And use the only tools they have to make themselves heard including silence, ‘acting out’, and taking off, if they’re older.  They don’t know what they need and they don’t get it about taking a number.  They are told to rely on adults to figure it out but the adults have a lot of other pressing matters like referral forms and reports and collaborative team meetings.

The cynical part of me thinks that this dull, uninspired, limp culture is part and parcel of the for-profit helping industry whose interests are better served by kids staying a mess rather than getting healthy.  Maybe I’m wrong — everyone’s really super committed but it’s just hard to move quickly and affirmatively.  Sure.

Maybe it’ll all work out.  I just have to be patient.