Done with Injuns for Now... Onto the "Darkies"

My Daddy, The Youth Center

Kathy Shaidle; [Ed.who has never actually been a mother] (*see footnote below)

When I worked for United Way, some group was always coming up with a new "solution" to the problem of Jamaican/Somali violence. Each brilliant new innovative program featured: a) basketball, b) rap music or c) basketball & rap music.

Yep, just what these kids need: more false hopes about making it big in ball, and more immersion in degraded black pop culture!

And this is a cultural problem. US blacks make up 8% of the population, but commit almost half the violent crime [We don't keep race based stats up here]. Black kids from upper class families score lower on standardized tests than white lower class kids. Being a "baby momma" is now a badge of honour, (and I still love Fantasia, ok?) not something to be ashamed of and discouraged.

Blaming this stuff on "slavery" is like a Canadian kid of Irish descent saying he dropped out of school because of the Orange Lodge and the Potato Famine.

Earlier this year, a 26-year-old black mother of four was shot at a club at 3 in the morning. What is a 26-year-old doing with four kids, and why is at a speakeasy when decent people are home in bed?

She quotes Kateland on the "elephants in the room";

Let me tell you a fact of life living in black community in the downtown east side of the inner city. There are a multitude of programs for youth to keep them off the streets. There are probably more community centers and not-for-profit programs run in this area than in any other part of the city. They are all easily accessible to all youths – even for those whose families are on welfare or have very limited financial means. Guess what? The children, on a whole, don’t show up. To participate and take advantage of any of these programs requires a certain amount of discipline to show up every Monday or Wednesday or Friday or Sunday and that is what these children lack because their families are so fractured and their parents have failed in their first duties to their children."

But be warned - whether discussing cultural and parental failure at the root of black gang warfare in Toronto or aboriginal gang violence in Western Canada, lancing the purulent pachyderm will rouse the wrath of the parasite class that fattens both ego and wallet in a victimization industry fueled by blaming everyone but. -- Kate McMillan, [Ed. who has never actually been a mother either]

TART CIDER's CHRIS SELLEY RESPONDED:

About the 26-year-old on whom Kathy so effortlessly passes judgement:

"Livvette Moore, whose husband died from cancer last year, had been struggling to raise her children and balance the demands of a new job. So friends encouraged the 26-year-old to join them at a birthday party Saturday night at Prestige Palace, a restaurant on Milvan Dr. in North York. ...

"Reid [Moore's father], 53, said Livvette didn't drink and had joined friends at the party to try to find some pleasure as she worked to get over her husband Sean's death."

Kathy Shaidle (who, as mentioned above, has never actually been a parent, herself) responds:

Aw that's so touching, Chris, but I still don't happen to think the now single mother of a bunch of kids should be out galavanting at all hours, at a place that obviously attracts a lower class of person. I don't care what colour she is. I found the habit dispicable among my white trash neighbours during my own childhood.

Once you have kids, your life changes. You do not go out til god knows when, ESPECIALLY if there is only one parent left. It doesn't matter if your husband died of cancer. Life is unfair. You do not risk your life and your children's future without thinking, Am I hanging around in an undesirable place? Is there somewhere more appropriate for me to be?

If that means you don't get to "have fun anymore", well maybe you should have thought of that earlier.

Every Torontonian knows that these "clubs" are hangouts for drug dealers and users and the site of all kinds of nefarious activity. She wasn't at a church social or an afternoon picnic in the park. Can they not celebrate a birthday party at some kind of legitimate venue??

The Toronto Star's version of things no doubt follows the old NYT "Neediest Cases" template. I would take that story with a grain of salt.

This woman is the unfortunate, needless victim of yet another aspect of Toronto culture: hanging out at half-legal places at all hours while your kids are at home (or wherever), spending money on bling instead of, oh I dunno, RSPs or something.

And then refusing to cooperate with the cops when the shit hits the fan. Way to go guys. Find the one who shot the 3 year old last week? Oh I forgot, it is all Mike Harris's fault or something.

If more people were as "judgemental" as I am, the whole notion of "social stigma" and "reputation" would come back, and we'd all be better off.

AND THEN SEAN (who is actually a parent) of POLSPY RESPONDS TO KATHY

"What is a 26-year-old doing with four kids..."

Perhaps she's a good Catholic? (Multiply and be fruitful, and all that.)

Okay, snide remarks aside, may I politely inquire WTF is wrong with a 26 year old woman having four kids? It's none of my business how many kids other parents choose to have, given that:

a) They didn't start making babies until they passed the age of majority

b) They are capable of raising them without having to stick me with the bill for it (people who have kids just to increase their welfare benefits SUCK)

c) That they raise the kids to be decent people, not little ill-behaved little fiends that are a drain on society

Jeez, Kathy. I could see you being upset over a 16 year old having 4 kids, but let's be reasonable here.

Posted by Sean at August 18, 2005 05:06 PM

And Chris Selley Whips it up at the end with:

"Aw that's so touching, Chris, but I still don't happen to think the now single mother of a bunch of kids should be out galavanting at all hours, at a place that obviously attracts a lower class of person."

Fair enough. The only reasons I brought it up were (a) that I thought you were unfairly blaming the victim, in rather spectacular fashion, and (b) because I can't for the life of me figure out what the hell Livvette Moore's poor decision — if that's what it was — has to do with solving gun violence, which was the subject of your post.

Oh, and about this "four kids at 26" thing — what Sean said.

Posted by Chris Selley at August 18, 2005 05:49 PM

Kate feebly remarks

I didn't read it so much as "blaming the victim" as it did in underlining the ugly truth that a great number of the parents of these kids are AWOL much of the time. That she happened to be killed in crossfire is unfortunate for her and a tragedy for her children, but as was pointed out, not entirely unpredictable.

I grew up in a family where there were 4 of us before our parents were 30. Birthdays were celebrated in family homes, not after hours bars with a history of gunplay.

(Gee Kate, did those Birthday Parties in your parent's Home involve the use of illicit drugs, which you admitted earlier on your blog? What were your parents doing when you were getting stoned out of your head, and driving your car, thereby recklessly endangering the lives of innocent people, you sub-human piece of trash.)

Update!
Wait folks! It's not over. The irrational frenzy of people who have never been parents, blaming a homebody single mother, whose husband *died* a year ago, and had the temerity to go out one evening, at the urging of her friends to take a break from the pressures of raising 4 children alone, and working full-time to support her family continues....

Kathy Shaidle (again.. somebody who has never actually *had* children, See Footnote below) writes:

Well, Chris, I guess I have the incredible ability to make more than one point in one post!! You have this bad habit of getting all worked up when I demonstrate this amazing talent of mine. Do expand your mind a tad.

And there is nothing wrong with blaming the victim when victims are to blame. Although in this case I wouldn't say blame so much as echo Kate's comments in a cruder way: Lie down with dogs.

Sean: Her first born is 10, so do the math. When you have a kid when you are 16, then another 3 years later and so forth, you don't exactly have time to get that PhD in astrophysics. You are probably a high school dropout, and part of a culture in which being a high school dropout is cool, and having a baby at 16 is cool squared. And guess who pays for all that? [Ed. The article did talk about the single mother working to support her own family, but Kathy seems to forget this]

Note too that the victim's father is only 53 or so. Again: I don't sense grad school, and the financial benefits that go with it, being in these folk's background.

My point, which I should have been clearer about, has much more to do with babies having babies (the reason I noted her age and number of kids in the same sentence). As both my sisters discovered, it is close to impossible to "bounce back" in life when you have a baby at 16. One did (it took her decades), the other didn't.

According to widely touted statistics, to avoid poverty one should a) not get married before aged 21, b) not have children out of wedlock and c) finish high school.

I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm guessing those three things are major priorities in this situation. One needed spend time poring over Clinton Admin stats to know this, one need only look around at one's friends to pick that up.

Posted by Kathy Shaidle at August 18, 2005 07:45 PM

To which Chris Selley Responds:

"Note too that the victim's father is only 53 or so. Again: I don't sense grad school, and the financial benefits that go with it, being in these folk's background."

So now it's dodgy to have a kid when you're 27? Amazing that we're relying on the Star for our background here, since you seem to know every single thing there is to know about this family.

Posted by Chris Selley at August 18, 2005 10:13 PM

Footnote 1: See a picture here of some earlier comments made by Kathy "Stop the Muslim Menace (tm) Shaidle" about the "gay" Peter McKay, and "The ugly french" in Quebec.