Next Steps In Addressing Violence In DC

Ok, so maybe I’m also becoming a bit obsessed but I think the discussion we’ve been having can yield some positive action. Christina wants to know:

“So how do we harness this energy? This is one of the most useful conversations (of many useful conversations!) I’ve seen on this board. It makes me feel like there’s something I can actually do, rather than just participate in yet another thread of with a lot of people bitching about blacks and gentrification and “why don’t you move back to the suburbs” and “I’m selling my house, these people are animals” or whatever. All that venting is fine, but action is necessary.

Do we need to try and enlist the other blog communities in this? Is a letter writing campaign the right form of action? A visit to a DC council meeting? I know (hope!) we have ANCs lurking here, as well as a lot of people who are more familiar with the workings of DC gov’t than I am.”

Incidentally Washington Post columnist Colbert King has some really interesting thoughts on the situation. I feel like he is the only member of the mainstream media who really understands how difficult the situation can be and he’s certainly the only one to consistently write about it. Of course his columns are on Saturday so I feel like they may get overlooked a bit. He had a very powerful column this Saturday titled – Watch Where You Walk, Mr. Obama. I definitely thought it was worth sharing. Following is how he ends the column:

“President-elect Obama should also make it a point to observe District leaders go through the motions of seeming to care about the turmoil in our city’s underbelly.

They don’t care, of course. Otherwise, how do you explain leadership that:

· Considers it taboo to hold parents accountable for their children’s misbehavior.

· Dreads the thought of asking hard questions about juvenile crime, dead youth offenders and the effectiveness of an $80 million Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services budget.

· Refuses to consider the possibility of links between fatherless poor families, undisciplined adolescents who stomp, steal and shoot, who kill and are killed, and touchy-feely youth rehabilitation “experts” whose lower lips quiver at the very idea of juvenile detention.

Well, this is the kind of place the next first family is coming to.

Maybe our next commander in chief should invite the 82nd Airborne Division to tag along.”