B Ra Carter, do you have a place where you are sharing what you have learned about systems in this country? If people can be "educated" on how things really work, then we will not be just taking shots in the dark to dismantle something that we truly don't understand.

William, the type of education that America is using on us and our youth is almost worthless and useless. Let me tell you why. I too went to an HBCU for college and to their Lab school for middle and high school so I truly applaud your efforts for giving back. This capitalist system we live in has the foundation of money. Check the educational background of the richest among us and you will see education did not get them there. Hard work, drive, a purpose and vision got them to the top. Don't believe me, check out Bill Gates and his peers, look at entertainers, too. Also look in our communities and see people that were not educated in this American educational system like Asians and Arabs and tell me who holds OUR purse strings while we get an education. I truly respect your opinion I just want to make all of us think out the box a little more. Technology is changing every month. Our children are keeping up with this technology and they are not learning it in schools because schools have not caught up. The greatest thing/image I have seen of late in my city and other cities, is to go to the public library and see little black boys on the computer drawing and creating things. We are no longer living in a world where you get an education and get a good job. We are living in a technological age where creativity is king! Foster an eenvironment where our kids can create from their God-given talent and see how things will change. Yes, my children go to school but I have to also teach entrepreneural skills, money management and foster their creativity. Side note: I know we have a little bickering here but please feel free to share diferrent opinions because there is more than one way to skin a cat and we don't have to skin it using the same method!

I think there is violence in the community because of lack of quality education, lack of compassion and love for ourselves and others, lack of a strong community business base and wrong teaching when it comes to God and Jesus Christ. It is not poverty, because we have always been poor in money but never poor in spirit as we are now. Lack of education: Did you know in these violent areas, if a child made straight A's all through high school, they may get into college but what they learned in high school is not enough to sustain them in college. Merely education is not the key. SOLUTION: We need to teach our own children. Jews, whites and even now Hispanics have their own schools. Education is too important to be left to a government system that hates us. Carter G Woodson said we are being mis-educated. So we need to educate our own. We may be too lazy to start and sustain our own schools. We cry for the government to get right and treat us right and you know that is not going to happen. I agree with Devita, our churches are not doing enough. There are Christian (white) schools, Jewish schools, Catholic schools, etc. We even send our kids to these other schools and damage our children because they do not see themselves in anything at these schools. We need to teach our own children. Only we can love them, understand them, thus educate them. Lack of compassion and love for ourselves and others: Deborrah said that religion is the culprit, but I say NO. For example, The Bible teaches us to love our neighbor as ourselves. We are not practicing what we claim to believe! And most youth don't attend church regularly like we used to do growing up. As believers in Jesus Christ, we must go back to the Book and be doers of God's word and not just hearers deceiving our own selves, (James 1:22). As Minister McNeil said, we are the people in Deuteronomy 28:15-68. We sing about being “blessed in the city” (Deut. 28:1-14) but when you read the curses, you will truly see what we are living. We as a people need to REPENT (turn from our wicked ways) and honestly SEEK God. Lack of a strong community business base: Business is the basis for the economic system for a community. Everyone else has this base but us. Hispanics, Asians, Arabs, etc. all have this economic base and most of them are siphoning our money to build and sustain their base. Strong businesses will give youth jobs, training and skills they need to excel. I know we don't expect these other groups to employ our kids, they have their own kids to employ. I am not including the majority here because as adults we already go to them to sustain us. We desperately need to have our own economic base for our youth to stop turning to violence. It is not the youth's fault that we have lost BILLIONS in the hair care industry to Asians. Those are BILLIONS that can be used to create jobs, schools, banks, etc. to build and sustain OUR economic base. Wrong teaching about God and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! (Visit my blog here on this topic because it is a whole topic unto itself and I want to stay) true to the question here! So teach our own children, love our neighbor as we love ourselves, and create an economic base and develop a personal relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (not just go to church) and the violence will end. We have never tried these methods all together at the same time. We used to teach our own children. Then we used to have an economic base until integration. We only have had “freedom” in this country since 1965 or so. Before that, we were not allowed to read which hindered us from knowing the TRUE word of God. We only went by what the Pastor heard. We won't know if this combination will work unless we TRY it and put it into practice. It will definitely get us further along than we already are.

The negative rap music is truly a THREAT to the Black Community! What is an affirmation? It is "the assertion that something exists or is true." It can be positive or negative. In the posritive, successful people use Affirmations to train their mind for success. So why can we not accept that negative affirmations work the same way. As people sing these lyrics, set to music (which makes them even more easy to remember), they are negatively affirming or teaching their mind. When they have to make a decision or a spur of the moment choice, all they have are the negative affirmations they have been meditating on. In Joshua 1:8, God commands Joshua to meditate on His word day and night for success. Our community is meditating on drugs, sex and violence day and night. We are witnessing the success of those negative words. I am not blaming the music as it is a THREAT, I am saying the community needs to meditate on more of the positive. We have the choice to listen to positive music or negative music. Then when there is an action to perform, the mind will produce a positive response! It's a mind thing!

Now you all have me thinking so now I have to add a few more. Of course the Bible which is 66 books unto itself. I should have remembered "Assata, The Autobiography of Assata Shakur" because I read that when I was pregnant with my third child, who is a GIRL! (having a girl and 3 boys is a long story for another time) I named my daughter Assata Mali! You have brought back some memories. As a fellow avid reader, it is HARD to narrow down a list of favorite life changing books! As an African American trying to find our way in this system, you have to read our history for our past, read to get through our present and read to prepare for our future...