You hear at most criminal proceedings or funerals, “My son is a good boy. He takes care of his siblings and me and never causes trouble for anyone.”

Commentary by Arif Khatib

You hear at most criminal proceedings or funerals, “My son is a good boy. He takes care of his siblings and me and never causes trouble for anyone.” That may be true, but in most cases, by the time those words are uttered, the son is dead or is on his way to prison.
   I’d like to suggest that it is incumbent upon us, as parents or citizens who really care — and as a society that cares — to do something to prevent our children from entering the criminal justice system or from being senselessly killed as collateral damage to others’ failure to take preventive action.
    We spend billions of dollars every day to fight a war thousands of miles away, yet we have a war in our communities throughout America that we largely ignore — or fight as though it were a meaningless skirmish or neighborhood squabble.
    I recently watched the presidential contenders tell us what they will do if elected. They all speak about the war in Iraq, among other issues, but I don’t hear any of them addressing the war in communities in America.
    Nor do I hear anyone from the audience asking questions about how they will help combat the crime in our communities that is taking away our potentially great minds of the future and making our streets unsafe for everyone.
    When, I ask, are the candidates going to address this problem in their speeches? How many of them are willing to say how much money they will allocate to providing jobs, job training, youth centers, after- school programs and various academic, music and sports programs that are vital to the development of well-rounded human beings and essential indications to our youth that we are a society that cares about them and their future?
    Do the candidates’ plans call for providing field trips and other education opportunities for these children if elected? Since young people are the ones most directly affected by urban violence and they are frequently the perpetrators of this violence, I think we need to ask our contenders, before making a decision as to their worthiness to occupy the White House, how they plan to address this important issue: Where, when and how did our children go wrong? What are our aspiring leaders prepared to do about it?

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