Newsgroups: bit.listserv.psycgrad
Date:         Tue, 12 Jan 1993 10:46:40 EST
              <PSYCGRAD@UOTTAWA.BITNET>
From:         jlbugg@UCCS.EDU
Subject:      Re: Request concerning counseling gang members

Sybil, as the single mother of a male child, I resent your implication that
my son is doomed to be a gang-banger.  Also, by the way, gang-related
behavior is not OWNED by the black community - it exists across every race.
Think back about the statistics of gang rape in fraternities.  These are
certainly gangs - highly organized gangs with strict rules for membership
that since time immorial have reflected intentional suffering of self and
others for membersship - which are associated with high levels of crime (one
in Boulder, CO was indicted for organized crime), and they are primarily
caucasion and primarily upper-middle class.

Gang-banging is not about social problems or racial tensions.  Gang-banging
is about impulsive, aggressive behavior in individuals who happen to find
each other.  The fact that in the latin-american and afro-american communities,
our society is (unfortunately) less care-taking than it is with its euro-
american decendants contributes to the physiological and environmental
stress which these citizens experience.  And, stress itself can cause many
physiological changes including depression, diminishing cognitive function,
and neurochemical changes (such as decreased serotonergic activity) which
have been correlated with impulsive-aggressive disorders, such as suicide,
rape, and battery.  So, the fact that gang-activity occurs in more stressed
communities more frequently speaks not to the innate qualities of race or
to the effects of social welfare - except to the degree that these factors
are *circumstantially* related to physiological stress responses.

Now, to get a little political, I am TIRED of blaming absent fathers for
the failures of some children.  My son does not have a father at home and
he is doing great - mentally, academically, socially, morally, and is a
happy child.  Granted, my son's dad is indeed financially responsible to
his son, but I am the one who parents my child.  I see to it that he is
well cared for and develops healthy moral reasoning.  I don't think that
irresponsible fathers can negate the acts of a responsible mother.  And,
blaming the absent fathers all the time is counter-sexist.  If mom happens
to be the flighty one, we don't go around dooming children whose only
caregiver happens to be a responsible father.  Have you ever heard anyone
say, "well, the problem with teenagers today is that there aren't good
women role models?"  No way.  As for the presidents hero, or whatever, ask
yourself this... would you accept that excuse for anti-social behavior
in your daughter if she said, "there are no women in this city I want to be
like."?  This "hero" is telling the media what it wants to hear - that
the entire world's problems can be solved if we just have more role-models.
He plays D.C. like a fiddle if you ask me.  Stealing cards, dealing drugs
blaming everyone else for his own failure and then getting intelligent
women psychologists to take his excuses seriously....

Jennifer in sunny Colorado - and if you come skiing, any of you psychgradders
out there, buzz me on E-mail and we'll do slope.
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