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Date:         Tue, 12 Jan 1993 07:45:43 -0500
              <PSYCGRAD@UOTTAWA.BITNET>
From:         20SSMITH@GALLUA.BITNET
Subject:      Re: Request concerning counseling gang members

Hello Tor.  Glad to get a response from you and hook 'em horns.  I
am a graduate of UT Austin.  Undergraduate 1978 in Psychology and
M.A. in 1982 in Deaf Education.  I loved that place and have trying
oops...have been trying to move back to that area for quite some time
but keep finding myself in places far and away like DC which is where I
am now!  My brother graduated from there also in 1985 and feels the
same way and in fact after moving back to Houstong, which is where we are
from, he eventually made his way back to Austin (oh geez, what is it with
my typing this a.m. Houston-g?) and has been there since '87.  Neither
one of us is affiliated with the Texas' exes I'm ashamed to say, we really
should be, in fact there is a huge network of Black Texas exes that I'm
informally hooked up with and my brother as well.  By the way, would you
happen to know what the percentage of Black enrollement is these days?
When I was there it was some pitiful number like 1% I believe and hadn't
grown hardly any when my brother was there.  Just curious and thought I'd
ask.  Okay, enough as "keeper of the diversity flame", a self-appointed
title to fulfill my narcissistic strivings.  On to the good stuff.

Re: Freud, social-learning theory and gangs.  I agree with the social
learning aspect up to a point.  But how do you explain the woeful failures
of mentoring programs?  I don't have the numbers but because I am a part
of the Black community I feel I am privy to private concerns often
expressed by various African-American organizations about an inability to
"really reach" these young men.  There are any number of organizations
that are well run with dedicated, black men, professionals and skilled
laboreres who try to serve as role models to our African-American males
at-risk and unfortunately they ain't faring well.  Yes, there are many
successes but there are way too many failures for my comfort level.
An incident occurred here in DC which I clipped out of the paper and
saved for future reference to help me develop this "psychoanalytic
thang" a little more completely.  Trying to keep it short this is
the story.  Marion Barry's car was recently stolen while he was
taking oath as newly elected city councilmember. (Ha! How appropo to
this discusion, n'est pas?)  Anyway, it was (allegedly) stolen by a
Black kid, with an arrest record, drug pusher, user, bad actor, the
whole nine yards.  This kid back in 1985 ( think that's right) was
honored at the Kennedy Center by President Regan as an American Youth
Hero, or some such thing.  He had been in the city's mentoring program,
is bright, was considered a musical child prodigy, was taken under the
wing of a local well known Black male musician, etc., etc., etc.,
When the reporter contacted this kid and asked the hackneyed question
"what went wrong" with regards to all of the help and support and
role models available to him, the kid responded something to the
effect of "there's not a single Black man in this city that I want
to be anything like"...in my opinion, that hits the nail on the head...
"substitute" father figures do not bring the same level of psychic
energy to the dynamic underpinnings involved in resolving the Oedipal
situation...these kids desperately need their dads, no matter how
inadequate they may be, to work through this crap...Now I do think
that this can be sabbotaged by social learning theory if you have
a gang-bangin' dad in the crib...ya know...so as you said the two
work together in some fashion or another...kind of a recasting of
nature-nurture debate maybe?  Well, when I figure it out I'll write
a book about it. Ha!  For now, its back to the implications of
etiology of deafness on right-hemispheric functioning and soceioemotional
disturbance.  If I don't figure that out in the next 12 months I won't
be writing any kind of book any time soon.

Au revoir
Sybil
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