Houston - The city of Houston is going through a budget crisis. Mayor Parker is forced to cut 20-30% from city departments and 5% of the workforce in the police department. This means less parks and recreations, library hours and summer employment coupled with a thinned out police department. This is a recipe for disaster. The FBI interagency taskforce claims there are 10,000 identified gang members and 200 gangs in Houston. In 2010, the Houston Chronicle reported that during 2010, Blacks were stopped more than any other group in the city. Their stated reason was that low income communities have a higher crime rate (and coincidentally more Black folk).
There has to be a concerted effort by the Greater Houston Partnership to provide employment and support activities that will keep children occupied during the summer. The real responsiblity lies with Black leadership waking up, listening and talking with our youth. We also bear a greater responsiblity to produce jobs to employ our children like every other ethinic group does for their own children. We must now take r
esponsiblity for our own community and stop looking downtown for the utimate solution to our problems. Downtown and big business can help, but it is up to us to put together the plan and carry it out.Let's get moving now! In this way, we can avoid a long hot summer in Houston, Texas.
Sounds good. But, how do you purpose we take responsibility for our own community? Most of the folk (from our community) with the ability to create jobs for young folk no longer live in our community... and thus, our community is not priority to them anymore. Meanwhile, the grown-folks in the community are competing with the kids for the same job pool already out here. The solution to your stated problem-set is more complicated than your stated, my Brother.
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