Police shook up the Jamestown Crew this morning (
CBC). Over 100 warrants were executed, and 78 arrests made by the Guns and Gangs Task Force. The aim was to limit the flow of illegal weapons from the US into Canada. That and the general make-the-neighbourhood-safer-more-drug-free-and-generally-better goal.
Generally better. What is that?
In part I think we mean - and should state - drug free, and crime free. But I wonder if we can say that without commenting on the other aspects of drugs and crime. If we can't comment on income. If we can't comment on education. If we can't comment on health. If we can't comment on family. If we can't comment on morality.
We can't comment on morality.
It's a problem. We can go so far in in our "war on crime and drugs" but then we must stop. For fear of offense. For fear we offend someone's morality, someone's values, someone's religion. And I get it. I get that it's not politically correct, or welcome. But I keep coming back to the facts.
What are the facts?
There's the teens who have promiscuous sex, who have babies out of marriage, who raise their children alone. There's mothers without education, who work the dead end jobs after school and on weekends just to pay the bills, nevermind activities and field trips.
And there's fathers who don't know they're fathers. And the fathers who pretend they're not fathers, or who escape fatherhood through drugs, or crime, or both.
And finally, there's the kids who cry and are hit, who play amongs needles and condoms. The kids who grow up as burdens, and grow into troublemakers. Denied access to schools, to activities, to resources. Denied access to love.
Communities denied access to love. Not even communities, perhaps. Spaces without either commnity or love. Without family.
I know where I come from. Upper. White. Middle class. Two-income home. Daycare. Education. Health. Love. Accountability. Community. Family. And maybe I can't comment because I don't know, haven't experienced. Not applicable.
Not applicable? I wonder if love, accountability, community and family have to be as dependent on the previous variables as we make them. I know there's brokenness in all communities. But I wonder if there's not some balance to be struck between poverty and support, between the projects and community, between food stamps and family. I wonder what use it is to provide income without accountability, to provoide housing without homes or community, and to provide food without the nourishment of love and family.
And I wonder how much longer we will insist on commenting on the facts of poverty without relaizing it is entwined within issues of family, of intimacy and of morality.
The crazy hot-humid weather has me remembering last summer, and all the fun/crazy things about Indiana. Here's a taste...