What’s happening to our youth? In California, a 15 year old girl was gang raped for 2.5 hours. What’s worse is that other youth watched, participated and did nothing to help her. What’s happening to our society, where we don’t get involved to help someone else? At the very least, we should realize that there may come a time when we will be the victim and need someone to step in to help us.
Here’s the article from CNN.Com. And here’s a video from CNN.com:
What are your thoughts about what happened and what we can do to make a difference?
When I heard about the beating death of Derrion Albert - an honor roll student with his eyes on college, who stayed out of trouble - I was saddened that we as African Americans would do this to ourselves and have such blatant disregard for the life of others. Let me stop here and say, that after having traveled to Africa, China and Europe and having done some studying of various genocides around the globe, the underlying root issue of violence is not skin color - but the faulty condition of the human heart and mind which frames and contextualizes our daily circumstances to promote ourselves at the expense - and even detriment of another. I need to make this distinction, because there are those who believe that black people are simply savages. This couldn’t be further from the truth as the issue is that under certain conditions, people have a tendency to act savagely.
I usually try not to speak about political issues… quite honestly, because of the potential backlash. The country seems so polarized on things. But this I must mention, because it grieves me tremendously.
Three Questions…
I want to ask three questions. Has anyone stopped to think about the President’s daughters? Has anyone stopped to think about America’s youth? Has anyone stopped to think about what message is sent when adults can’t act civility towards the person who holds the highest public office in our country?
I recently met Dr. Sharnnia Artis , author of Moving From Ordinary to Extraordinary: The Teen’s Guide to High School Success. Dr. Artis holds a Ph.D in Industrial and Systems Engineering. She is a wonderfully gifted woman who is involved in her community on a local and national level. Since I work with youth, I’ve added her book to my reading list and look forward to digesting what she has to say.
If you work with youth or have children of your own who are getting ready for high school or are already in high school, then Dr. Artis’ book will definitely help them to rise up and reach their full potential - and help you with influencing them towards greatness.
