Thanks Jim.
I've been up late the past two weeks ever since that "kid" that got carjacked.
I usually "stop in" to say hi to my kids when they are working. But the real
reason is - I go down to check out what's happening in the immediate area.
They work late. Then my daughter goes out in AP. They forget their surroundings.
So needless to say the other night when she told me of her "encounter", I was
pissed.
As I said, your well educated, ALWAYS responded to a comment - or "pissing
match" - and you were visible in AP - even if you weren't welcome. Give you
credit there.
Thanks again.
dd
--- In AsburyPark@yahoogroups.com, Educating for Justice <jim@...> wrote:
>
> Dave (Oak),
>
> First let me say that I always have enjoyed the posts you have put on here
> as well as the off-list conversations we have had. Second, I clearly struck
> a nerve with you with my last post and I am ok with that. You ask if I
> write for self-promotion, to cause one to reflect, etc. I write to provoke
> thought, discussion and action. I write, discuss, teach, and act on things
> that make people uncomfortable - that¹s my life, it is who I am.
>
> I didn¹t want to get into a pissing match with you on here, but you keep
> pushing, so, here are a few comments, these are in no particular order, just
> off the top of my head.
>
> 1. You said that I was against surveillance cameras being deployed in AP.
> That is 100% false. In exercising due diligence on an important issue
> (which I always did during my service on City Council) I raised the question
> of the potential violation of civil liberties with regard to cameras. I did
> not object outright. Once my concerns were allayed by the experts who
> presented to us, I wholeheartedly supported and pushed for their deployment
> and I lobbied Sean Kean hard for state dollars to make it happen.
>
> 2. With regard to the cameras, you asked, ³where did the money go?² I asked
> this question many times in a much more general sense with our $36 million
> dollar budget. This is why I pushed for budget hearings. When we had them,
> I was the only council person there for the full 8 hours - Loffredo came for
> 45 minutes. I also went down the Department of Community Affairs in Trenton
> and begged them to stop giving us money until we had real fiscal
> accountability. I also pushed for a citizen¹s budget committee. It
> eventually was formed (I was excluded) and became a bureaucratic shell game
> with Terry Reidy stalling both the committee members and the City Council.
> Ask Rita Morano how it went.
>
> 3. Coming back to the issue of what to do about the violence, which is in
> part what started this exchange, here is an example of what could be done.
> When Tylik Pugh was murdered outside the middle school, I pushed to get
> $250k of the community development fund (money from Asbury Partners) set
> aside so that community groups, centers, churches, etc. could come to the
> Council with programs to help stem the violence. All I wanted was an
> earmark and a commitment to hear out people who were on the frontlines and
> then potentially fund what they would present to us. The result? I could
> not even get a second on my motion to put it up for discussion.
>
> 4. I really don¹t think that people have a clue about what is brewing among
> the poor and disenfranchised in AP. Let me give you a few anecdotal stories
> from my time on Council:
>
> * I attended the wake of a young man that was gunned down in our streets.
> After the wake, I drove four of the young man¹s friends home. I knew two of
> them from coaching rec basketball, so they felt somewhat comfortable
> speaking with me. I asked them what they thought about AP and the direction
> it was going. One of them said to me, ³You don¹t think we know what¹s going
> on here? All these new people moving in just want all the poor black people
> out of here. Redevelopment? Not for us. But I can tell you this. If they
> don¹t make us a part of it, it may get to a point where we¹ll burn the whole
> fucking thing down. Maybe if we march down
> > Cookman and break some windows and scare some of these white people, then
> > they
> > will listen to us.² I shared this story with my colleagues and said that we
> > should have community development, crime prevention, etc. on our Council
> > agendas EVERY MEETING. I said that the City staff should be working on this
> > stuff around the clock. The result? Nothing.
> >
> > When the young man was chased down the street and shot in the gutter outside
> > the Westside Community Center, Susan Maynard came to the next City Council
> > meeting and said, ³This is just the beginning. I am seeing Red (read: the
> > Bloods) like I have never seen before. You better get a handle on this or
> > it¹s going to come back to you.² She was dismissed as an alarmist.
>
> * I always laugh when people both in AP and outside AP say, ³It has to start
> with the families.² They are clueless. They simply have no idea of the
> harsh reality that exists. After the rash of shootings a few years back, I
> was invited by a teacher to visit AP High School to listen to the kids and
> hear what they had to say. (Remember, this was the time when the school
> board president told me to stay out of the schools.) I went to one class
> and met three really troubled young men. One had a father in jail, he had
> another 10 years on his sentence for stabbing a guy in the neck. His mother
> was an addict. She was now shacked up with the 26-year-old brother of his
> classmate and they all lived together. This is a bit extreme, but it is not
> completely off the charts. Do you realize how many kids are without two
> parents? Do you realize how many kids who do have a parent at home rarely
> see that parent if they are trying to work the 2-3 jobs it takes to make
> ends meet? You also have to take into account that for decades, women were
> the ones that held the black community together. When the crack and heroin
> waves hit in the 80s, this shred that community fabric to bits. We are now
> two generations out with that crack and heroin mess as the foundation (I say
> two generations, because you have kids having kids and it cuts the
> generational time in half). ³Start with the familes...² Wake up. To solve
> this and turn the tide, you would need an army of hundreds of social workers
> with expense budgets who would basically fill the role of parents for many
> of these kids and/or support single parents as they reintegrated into the
> mainstream. It would cost millions and take at LEAST five to seven years of
> work. In the long run, it would be cheaper to do this than to incarcerate
> all these kids down the line, but do we really care about that? Prisons and
> all the ancillary businesses that flow from them make money for people who
> contribute to political campaigns.
>
> * I was taking one of my weekly walks through the Westside and ran into some
> kids I knew just behind the Westside Community Center. There was an older
> guy there who was a bit drunk. As we talked, discussing the challenges
> people were facing in the neighborhood, the guy who was drunk got visibly
> enraged. He burst into tears, screaming, ³JIM! I¹m 26 years old and I
> can¹t fucking read! I can¹t read! How can I get a job? I can¹t fucking
> read!² That is not his fault. He was failed by both his family (if one
> existed) and by the school system. In that moment, he felt safe to share
> that rage with me and it was controlled. In another situation, it might not
> be.
>
> * I was on the basketball courts behind the Middle School one day. I spent
> a lot of time there during my years in AP. I was talking to a group of kids
> and I asked them why they were joining the gangs. There was one kid in
> particular that I was trying to stop from getting involved I lost that
> fight. Here is what they told me. They said they joined the gang for three
> reasons: it made them feel like they belonged to something (family); it put
> money in their pocket; it got them laid. When I reflected on this
> conversation I realized that those were things that I wanted as a teenager
> too. I simply got them from much different means. But if this is what kids
> want, why not help them get it? Make them feel like they belong to
> something make a MASSIVE investment in recreation, school sports, dance
> programs, Westside Community Center, Boys and Girls Club, etc. I mean a
> MASSIVE commitment millions, with dozens and dozens of sports coaches,
> life coaches, etc. Help them put money in their pockets jobs, jobs, jobs.
> This is why I pushed to get $250K allotted to Asbury Works. Then I got
> marginalized by Tamara Richardson, the director, for reasons I still cannot
> explain. But this money is not nearly enough. Many of these kids are
> unemployable in the mainstream at the moment. But if you don¹t pay them for
> doing something, anything, they will hustle on the streets. As for getting
> laid, if kids have high self-esteem through being part of something big and
> have some money in their pockets, that will take care of itself. Having
> said this, we also need to do MAJOR education on birth-control and family
> planning.
>
> I could go on with a lot more examples, but I think you get it. I had/have
> a range of other ideas to try and intervene at the source of the violence,
> but what needs to be done is not popular and will not get you votes. In the
> short term will cost serious money, but in the long term will save millions
> in tax dollars. BUT... Who wants to listen and more importantly, who wants
> to implement? If our society REALLY cared about solving these issues, we
> would. We can put a man on the moon, we can do a billion things with our
> cell phones and computers that were unthinkable just 10 years ago, we can
> create weapons that can destroy the entire planet 30 times over... But we
> cannot solve the social injustices of poverty, hunger, joblessness, poor
> schools, etc? Bullshit. It is about political and social will. The fact
> is that racism and classism are sewn into the very fabric of our nation and
> until we get very honest with ourselves about this, we will continue to
> nibble around the edges and the cycle of violence will continue. If we
> don¹t come to know, understand and deal with the realities present in the
> community, there is the potential that it is going to explode and it is
> going to be nasty. If you doubt me, watch the footage from London last
> week. People may choose to say I am being alarmist, but I would rather err
> on the side of caution with this stuff.
>
> 5. I am flattered that you went mining for some of my other writing on the
> internet. I am proud of the work I have done. I stand by what I wrote
> about Martin Luther King and how white people would have hated him today the
> same way that white people hated him when he walked the earth. Our American
> society has both personal and institutional racism sewn into it. Just
> because a black man became President doesn¹t mean that all that stuff goes
> away. Our nation has never truly dealt with our horrific past. If you¹re
> interested, get the documentary Citizen King (I can loan it to you if you¹d
> like). Watch it. Those white guys throwing bricks and M80s at King and his
> followers, the one¹s talking about what needs to be done with ³the niggers,²
> they are still alive. I go out enough to bars and parties and hear the
> racists jokes thrown about. We cannot pretend that this stuff doesn¹t
> exist. It does. Let¹s get real and deal with it.
>
> 6. You and Dan have taken your ad hominem swipes about me living in Spring
> Lake. Regardless of whether I live in Spring Lake, Asbury Park, or on the
> moon, it has no bearing on the truths I am sharing. The fact that each of
> you raises this shows me that you¹d rather attack the messenger than deal
> with the message I shared. Those who know me well, know that it pained me
> to leave my position on City Council and to move from Asbury Park. When I
> did move, first to Point Pleasant, I did it so I could try to make a family
> work for my daughter. When things did not work out between her mom and I, I
> moved to Spring Lake because it was half the distance between my daughter¹s
> school and her mom¹s house. Those that know me, know I wish I was still
> living in AP and was still politically involved. I sacrificed my political
> career to be the best dad for my daughter and I would do that again. If I
> could roll back time, I¹d try to figure out a way to make it all work, but
> that wasn¹t the way things went. Now that I have finally started to settle
> into a groove here, I have been brainstorming on the best way for me to
> re-engage with AP and serve the people I initially moved there to serve
> the poor and disenfranchised.
>
> I hope this clears the air a bit.
>
> Peace, JWK
>
> --
> Jim Keady, Director
> Educating for Justice, Inc.
> jim@...
> 732.988.7322
> www.educatingforjustice.org
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
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