"The Broken Window Theory" Black Men Reclaim Your Communities.

There is an old african proverb that I'm sure all of my readers are familar with. Its goes, "It takes a village to raise a child". This quote has been used so many times & commercialized that the power behind it has almost diminished. The concept behind this proverb is to indicate that not only does mom & dad have a responsibility to raise their children, but the entire community is obligated to. Aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors, friends, everyone raises every child.  Out of the many traditions, beliefs & practices that our ancestors abandoned willingly or by force through slavery, I am glad that this is one of the ones that carried on.

However, even this concept & tradition has not been able to stand the test of time. We now live in the age of "Me". People are now only concerned with themselves, they only look out for their own interest, their own home, their own family & their own children. Even worse, is that home, family, & children are not even concerned for anymore, but we'll discuss that another time.

After my freshman year at Ferris State University, I came home to deliver a speech for a "Rites of Passage" ceremony. (Pause) I want to take this time out to briefly explain to my readers who may not know what exactly a "Rites of Passage" is.  A rite of passage is an african ritual that marks a person's progress from one status to another. This ritual can consist of many tests of endurance, knowledge, agility etc. After the person(s) complete these particular tasks they must go in front of the community elders & ask for permission to become an adult. If the community elders feels they haven't complied or have been less than satisfactory they can be denied permission into adulthood. Now that is key because they may by all means in age be considered an adult in our society today, but to that community they are still considered children.

Now during my rite of passage our tasks included community service, book reports from required readings, learning a new language which at that time was Swahili (I now speak french as a second language), skills in public speaking, completing school homework & maintaining good grades. Yeah, it seemed like alot, and yes it was alot, but it built character & most importantly we stayed so busy we didn't have time to get in trouble.

So here I am delivering this speech in 1997 as a "Man" (so said my elders). Now in this speech I entitled it "The Village Garden," and in a nut shell what I said was that even today the village is continuing to raise the child, but the problem was that the wrong people were tending the village. What I cleverly did was compare our communities to "Gardens". I personified a garden to show the comparisons to our village. I said that the children were the seeds, and that the gardeners were the elders or the proper ones to help these seeds eventually blossom & grow. However, if you do not tend to the garden as you should, weeds will begin to infiltrate the garden & kill the flowers. The weeds being drug dealers, drug users, prostitutes, thugs etc.

This brings me to the concept of the "Broken Window Theory" The broken window theory is a theory that uses cause & effects to prove that disorder and vandalism & other crimes can be spread like a disease and contribute to the decline of a neighborhood, and that with community effort of monitoring and maintaining your neighborhood in a well-ordered condition it could possible to prevent further vandalism as well as an escalation into more serious crimes. This theory was first introduced in a 1982 article by social scientists James Q. Wilson and George L Kelling. Since then it has been subject to great debate both within the social science and in the public debate.

Now let me quickly explain why I believe this to be true. I grew up in the projects of Pontiac Michigan, affectiontley known as the  P.J.P or the Project Posse. Lakeside Homes was the proper name. And at that time this community was considered to be the most dangerous in the city. It has now been torned down due to gentrification. If you enterd this place, especially after dark, you better be quick to either tell the gang memebers there who you were, who you were with, who your related to and your buisness there. If not, you could end up leaving in the back of an ambulance or in a coroner van. True story, just asked my sisters boyfriend at the time. He & his friend left in an ambulance.

Do you see how the gang took control over the community? Do you see how they have the power to control & dictate who enters & who can't? Why can't this be done in the reverse? Or even for that matter go back to when the positive black men in the community would lead the community to were their  women & children felt safe. This means patrol our communities, if there is a vacant home who's grass needs to be cut, cut it, so that it looks livable or occupied, if the vacant home has a  broken window, fix the window. If you don't, it's likely kids or gangs will break the rest of the windows because it shows knowone cares about this home. Eventually all the windows will be broken, then they will break into the vacant home, use it as a drug spot, a place for prostitution drug use, or the homless will move in, they will begin loitering and eventually it will spread across the street until someone breaks into your home, the whole neighborhood is now overun & it now takes police 5 hrs to come on an emergency call.

Form neighborhood watches. Neighborhood watches is not a snitch group. Snitching is when 2 or more people are engaged in illegal activities. 1 of the 2 is caught by the authorities and decide or is forced to give up the other in exchange for a lesser penalty. But if an innocent person witnessess a crime that can or has brought harm to them or others and tells the authorities, I'm sorry but thats not snitching & if you think I am a snitch after reading this then okay I'll be that. I'd rather turn in someone for killing a 5 yr old who was a victim of a stray bullet than know who did it and not say anything. I have a conscience.

So as I sit here sipping my green tea giving you my 2 cents on life, community, obligation & duty. I cannot help but hear the kids unsupervised outside instigating a fight. In the spirit of reclaimimg my community I'm headed outside to break it up...Peace.