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Date:         Tue, 12 Jan 1993 15:18:17 -0500
              <PSYCGRAD@UOTTAWA.BITNET>
From:         20SSMITH@GALLUA.BITNET
Subject:      Re: Request concerning counseling gang members

Jennifer:

Glad to make your acquaintance though I wish it could have been under
more pleasant circumstances.  While all of what you have stated may
be true it does not render my thoughts on the matter null and void
from a theoretical point of view within a psychoanalytic framework.  Again,
I've not had the time to sit down and pull it together in a tighter fashion
but I still maintain the threads are there.  Now, outside of a psychoanalytic
framework, well just about any explanation is plausible.  Our out-going
VP is the one down on single mothers, ne pas moi!  While your son may
be doomed to gang violence for some reason or another I would not say
it is because he is being raised by a single mother.  That is a leap in
which the logic does not hold up.  In my posting I was not addressing
the boys who grow up without fathers and pull it off without a hitch.
I think this is where an interactionistic theory such as that suggested
by Tor is useful.  For those that don't pull it off I think conceptualizing
PART of the problem from a psychoanalytic model could be useful.

With regards to "what is a gang", well here we go with the definition
thing, I was specifically referring to street gangs where children
are inducted as early as 8 and 9 years old and participate in every
unlawful activity on the books from petty theft, to murder, until the
day they die...I agree that the college fraternities, sports teams and
the like have what could be considered, gang traits (?) I guess...but
to my knowledge the age of induction into the "gang" is older and once
they guys leave college or the sport they slowly fade to the background...
not so with the street gangs...

Gang ownership...hmmm...well this is a good one...African-American males
do not own the market on gangs this is true and something the African-
American community has been trying to make clear for years...still,
since it is a form of self-genocide (if there is such a term) it happens to
be the group which I focus in on when discussing the topic because of
the implications for an entire segment to which I am ethnically bound.

So, in a nutshell, perhaps we can agree to disagree...something that
seems to be passe these days...I still maintain a need for the father's
presence in the home particularly among economically deprived, educationally
disadvantaged, and disenfranchised African-American males...Of course
that may be the ideal but I am hard pressed to rank the remaining viable
alternatives...A good solid strong single mother, yes that's one and
certainly seems to work when other factors come together such as
financial and economic security, strong support systems through family,
friends and the community etc...but again, the statistics indicate the
fastest growing group among those living in poverty are children headed
living in households headed by single women, more specifically MINORITY
children...again, since that is where my focus is that's a double whammy
right there...

Finally, if you ask Black women raising sons alone as I have done
among my friends who are single parents, what THEIR primary concern
is, I bet many of them would tell you it is their fear, their dread of
how to go about the business of teaching their sons what it means to
be a Black man in America.  Consistently, my friends across the country
will say (particularly, in light of the Rodney King incident bringing
all of these issues to the forefront) I can teach him how to be a good
person but he needs a man to show him how to be a man.

Out of time and have gone on too long now.

Respectfully yours

Sybil
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