Solutions for Detroit:

Here is how the toughest neighborhood (48205) in Detroit is rehabilitating itself, through a State, City, police, residents and faith group partnership. It is a local effort. The process is slow but it is a start.https://www.detroitnews.com/story/story-series/death-by-instagram/2018/04/27/detroit-gang-wars-residents-want-better-communitiy/556655002/?fbclid=IwAR0AT31SPnvGlLhBtURBUWgpZwflBP8qt_SCbyCuBcJNFRfYMtWeQV5-LnY

There are two generations of black children in Detroit who have missed a "normal" childhood, through no fault of theirs. To fix the "crime' issue in Detroit we have to take care of the children. We MUST start NOW with the children in Detroit. If we do start now we can hope to reduce crime in 10 to 15 years and would have started a cycle of a self-sustaining recovery. Black Children Matter.

Here are the stages of development that produce well-adjusted children. Two generations of black children have been deprived of "normal" growth and development.

I am concluding my series on Detroit (thankfully for many). I have the chutzpah (as some would say) to conclude that I have found the root cause of crime in Detroit and I have a proposal for a fix.

The root cause in my opinion is that we (yes all of us, society at large) have not cared about two (perhaps three) generations of black children in Detroit. Why is it our problem and not the parents' problem? Well, to begin with, we have deprived black children access to quality education. How so? When in the 1940s we instituted redlining we essentially refused to integrate our schools. Whites got better-funded schools and the blacks were relegated to poor less well-funded schools. This practice continues to this day. The second significant way in which we have deprived black children of "normal" childhood is that we tore up the only real community that they knew, this was the neighborhood of Black Bottom and Paradise Valley. In the name of urban renewal, Detroit paved over this neighborhood and destroyed this thriving black community. This happened because the whites running Detroit did not understand the importance of belongingness to blacks. Black Bottom and Paradise Valley were theirs, it is where they felt at home and felt they belonged. They could live with dignity in this community, elsewhere they were rejected and often treated as less than human. This takes a toll on a person. It is especially corrosive to a child's sense of well being.

A community is far more important and has always been to bringing up children in a black community. Female-headed households are more common among blacks since the very beginning (we have data going back to 1880)when they were slaves. This is something that the white culture does not fully understand and considers it as a breakdown in the family structure. Black children have been raised in extended family situations where even the neighbors are considered family. In Detroit, this community fabric only existed in Black Bottom and Paradise Valley. It was torn down and blacks were moved into projects. Projects became breeding ground for drugs and crime this was the environment in which children born since the 50s grew up in.

So, starting in the 50s we had black children growing up without access to good education and without the support of a nurturing community and in poverty. The societal cost of ignoring the plight of children is that we now have an epidemic of crime.

Unfortunately, we as a society are still not understanding that the problem of inner-city crime is a problem of not caring about black children. I did not understand it either. The problem is that we have ignored the plight of black children and we are still doing it. Black children have not mattered to us.

What then is the fix? I will start with a 50,000 feet view and then drill down to the zip code level.

The 50,000 feet solution is that we need a leader who understands the problem, we need a leader like JFK who inspired the youth to join the Peace Corp on a selfless mission to poor countries. We need a similar effort focused on our poor communities, we need a cadre of social workers who go out in the poor communities to work with families and children at risk. This seems too theoretical and abstract. I do not know what shape such a program would take but I do know that we can inspire the young to work to uplift communities to build a better America. We can think of programs like the GI Bill where the government pays off college tuition in return for service in impoverished communities. We can think of installing remote learning infrastructure in poor communities where good schools do not exist. Why cannot our leading universities like UofM be challenged to create novel approaches to education in inner cities? It does not have to be traditional education it could be teaching skills that are needed in the community. These are examples of the top of my head. But you get the idea.

Do you care about law and order? You should care about these children. We(yes, all of us) have neglected and not cared about two generations of inner city kids some of whom are criminals now. This generation of kids can grow up to be good citizens or criminals. They need us to care about who they become. There are many ways in which we can help. I will post links in the comment section on how we can help kids in Detroit.

Issue: Inner-city crime

Focus: Detroit

Investigate: Root cause

Finding: Neglect of two generations of black children many of whom are criminals now

Solution: Invest in this generation of black children in Detroit

Action: Started a monthly donation to https://www.lifebuildersdetroit.com/ a faith-based organization focused on building community in 48205 the most notorious zip code in Detroit.

You too can help!!!