Surely the CPL comprises one form and forum.
On this side of the digital divide I continue to live in a neighborhood much
changed since my parents moved into their first and only home back in the
early 1950's when I was about 11 years old.
What I carry with me through the one where my parents lived with my
grandparents to this one is the sense of community, involvement, and
responsibility for the common good as well as what goes on in one's life
behind the walls of our homes or this side of the computer screen.
Importantly I carry with me the relations between the elderly, the parents,
and the children which, after all, does comprise the place where values and
comity are learned and maintained, flourish or fail.
Several months ago I confronted a group of children about the simple issue
of trash, picking up after themselves and got the expected disrespect, stony
stares, and sullen responses; moreover the children decided to monitor my
rolling through the streets while they continued to trash and run from my
approach. I took notice of their houses for future attempts to phone,
write, or visit with their parents. Finally an older boy held one of the
children and I began to communicate some more with them.
What I was about, of course, was making my first efforts to change the
status quo. (I'm out rarely, usually on a roll and, with a quick
noncommittal wave. Except via gossip, few neighbors know me personally.) I
spoke to a few neighbors about the incident and suggested that if the
message could be given from parents to children to respect their elderly and
disabled neighbors, their neighborhood, and to pick up after themselves
things would start to work better around a very simple task that the
children could perform.
Over the last couple of days I've noticed a change. The kids are actually
telling one another to pick up trash, parents are starting to supervise
their kids. For how long and whatever means maybe, just maybe, we can still
make life better.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Trisha Cummings" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2000 8:16 AM
Subject: The Power of Community - from Old Ways
> The Power of Community
> by Graelan Wintertide
> For quite some time now, our children have been in the news. They've been
> called a generation of violence - raised on a diet of Hollywood murders,
> bloody video games, televised mayhem. We've seen the violence appear in
our
> schools, in our neighborhoods - in places we've always considered safe.
Once
> upon a time, we missed our children when they left for school, but now we
> fear for their safety. If it's not drugs, it's violence. If it's not
> violence, it's senseless murders. Even in our own neighborhoods we find
> dealers on our street corners and drive by shootings which claim innocent
> lives.
> All of us have seen the experts on television. They stand before their
> microphones and tell us how children are susceptible to violence, how they
> can't differentiate between fantasy and reality. While the cameras are on
> them, they play to our fears, telling us they'll lead us from the
> devastation and into a place where things are safe again.
> But what they're forgetting is that the problems lay with a small portion
of
> our children. The younger generation isn't filled with mindless zombies
that
> follow the media's every suggestion. They aren't lost souls that will snap
> and shoot up a school if they watch another action movie, listen to the
> wrong CD, or come across the wrong website on-line. In the midst of the
> recent school shootings, these violence crazed children we shun before the
> cameras as we point our words at their entire generation, are the same
> children that cowered in terror from the violence before them. They knew
the
> difference between a fictional shooting in a movie or on TV where they
cheer
> the hero. The best of them were heroes any of us would cheer, shielding
> their frightened peers with their own bodies, running into a rain of
bullets
> to stop the violence, and ushering others to safety. These are young,
> idealistic adults who still hope for a better world, who have yet to be
> jaded by the day to day reality we face as adults.
> And we're losing them.
> Not to the violence the politicians preach about. Not to a world of guns
and
> bloodshed, of drugs and promiscuous sex. We're losing them to another
> culture, a fictional world woven by a machine which takes no prisoners in
> it's pursuit of the dollar. Don't condemn it - that's what it was designed
> for. It gives the artists of technology a canvas on which to paint through
> their words, their actions, and share their talents. What it does is
simply
> fill a void that we've left, because as parent's and a society, we simply
> are not doing our jobs - or we can't compete alone against a culture with
> the power to influence millions.
> Think about this for a moment. In every community, there are the "good
> kids," those driven by a vision to succeed. They want to go to college;
> develop a career; get married; change the world. What they've done is to
> find a place within a culture. Sometimes it is one simply of their own
> creating - they look at their life, at the world around them and imagine a
> better way, a place where they could belong and they reach for it. And
then
> there are the "bad kids," those that are hurt and lash out, that need to
> belong so badly that they will do anything they can to fit in.
> In some ways, we're losing an entire generation. As adults, we have no
> culture to offer them, nowhere that they belong. Some of us create
> micro-cultures to fill the gap; we spend time with our children, lavish
them
> with attention, and are amazed by the miracle of life we watch grow before
> us. But once they step outside of our care, they're in a world where we
> don't know our neighbor's names, where we live isolated and alone, with
only
> a handful of friendships that we've held onto from school and developed at
> work.
> We don't need to ban movies, get television programs taken off the air, or
> pass legislature to keep our children in a safe little box. What we need
to
> do is to begin to build a culture, a network of friends, neighbors, and
> relatives for ourselves, for our children, and for our grandchildren to
> come. There is no diversion in locking a person away for a heinous crime
> when they are not being removed from anything of value. There is no reason
> for a child to turn away from inappropriate behavior when they don't
belong
> to a community where a higher standard is held.
> The key is to begin reaching out again. Spend time with your children.
It's
> the perfect place to start. So many of them feel isolated and alone. Teach
> them with your own actions and attitudes; show them with your life how you
> want them to live. Talk about things; reach out and communicate with them.
> The troubled ones don't feel you'll listen; the ones we don't worry about
> are afraid they'll disappoint you if they're anything less than they think
> you want them to be.
> Then begin reaching out to your neighbors. The next time you walk out your
> door, smile and say hello. Stop and talk for a minute. When the new couple
> moves in, bring them a plate of cookies and welcome them to the
> neighborhood. Each person that lives near you is a potential friend and a
> piece of a puzzle that will begin to unveil a culture around you. Take
time
> and develop these networks and involve your children. How simple is it to
> say, "This is my son, Tommy." The neighbor says, "I have a son about your
> age." You have just found common ground, two parents whose children may
face
> the same pressures and same concerns at the same point in time. It's a
> simple matter to join talk with another mom or dad when they're a friend.
> What you'll begin doing is creating a culture in your own neighborhood. It
> slowly becomes a place where the kids can run and play, a place where they
> belong and don't feel so lonely. Our solutions are so simple, so easy to
> carry out, yet we have yet to take that step. Reach out to your children,
to
> your neighbors, and to your community. Remember how easy it was to make
> friends when you were growing up? When you were so worried about being
> turned away and the new kid down the block was worrying the same thing?
> Those kids just grew up and became adults who have a few more worries to
> face. But by coming together, we can begin to give our children a home, a
> community, and a culture to which they belong.
> <<...>>
>
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