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“Really, in North Minneapolis?”

I’m going to take this opportunity to say something is wrong in a system that observes destructive behavior and sits back and does nothing. This “feud” as fantasized by the Star Tribune is just another example of “Someone’s sleeping at the wheel for Black youth.” Here’s one for you, rather than a “Project Cease Fire” for Minneapolis, why don’t we start “Project Stop the Dumbing Down of the Community” and get some real results versus Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak’s bias statistics about crime and murder in Minneapolis since he’s been in office.  

By Donald W.R. Allen, II – Editor in Chief/The Independent Business News Network

Minneapolis, MN (IBNN NEWS/Youth Intervention-Politics/July 8, 2012)…The Star Tribune published the story on Sunday (7/8). “Gang feud that killed Nizzel grew for months.” I find this highly suspect because if some “knew” about the possible insurrection between these groups, where was the intentional engagement for these “kids.”  Who was responsible for picking up the phone and calling MADDADS?

Obviously  nobody…Oops.

“We will take you to the lack-of-progress room where local politicians, poverty-pimps and social service agencies have missed the mark on community engagement…how delicious!

This is what the story said about poor, Black, north Minneapolis youth: “They consider it to be kind of a fact of life that people get killed, that houses get shot up, that adults go to prison, and therefore those things are not a deterrent,” said Inspector Mike Martin, who wrote the department’s internal report. Though he agreed to discuss the report, Martin was not the newspaper’s source in obtaining it.

I would like to take a shot at answering this situation, which is deep-rooted in culture, structure and the psychology of child development as it pertains to the relationship of environment and the need for nature and nurture.

Noted behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner said in his views on major theories of personality that, “Personality evolves gradually over the life-span, not in stages.” Biological psychologist Hans Eysenck said, “In development, there is an unfolding of an genetic blueprint with maturity (or maturation), that inherited predispositions will interact with learning experiences.”

While I am not a fan of the City of Minneapolis using the press for their personal public relations firm, this story by Star Tribune “good guy” Matt McKinney, tells the whole story of chances for intervention, collaborations and solutions based on a history of violence that have been clearly documented by not only law enforcement – but also social service agencies at the local and county levels.

In Minneapolis, if a Black youth thinks that a part of life here is growing up going to prison or killed, we have a serious challenge within the community. When community leaders in our cultures have chosen to turn a blind eye to an eye-soar in our community that has let children slip to the extreme of having no self-confidence, low self-esteem and a lack of critical thinking skills, it’s time for the new watch to take over. This non-managed downward spiral must stop before and internal civil war starts and gives Minneapolis’ White overseers the opportunity to call in law enforcement to eradicate the “Black Problem” – which are the youth of Minneapolis.

We must also “POINT THE FINGER” at the Minneapolis Public Schools who has operated a bureaucracy based on benign neglect. I’m sure there’s a list somewhere that has identified these children-turned-murders as “challenged individuals.” They, (the youth) slipped right out of a the system because they are considered “undesirables” in a public school system where middle-class teachers have low expectations for poor, Black, Native and any other race of children that have been abandoned by public education.

The solution is accountability.

At some point we have to back off the teachers union that protects “low expectations” in public education and has assisted in pushing more “politics” and some “personal agendas” into education therefore “dumbing down” administrations, teachers and more importantly students.

The gang activity is minor in Minneapolis. These are young children who haven’t had the opportunity to be kids and are forced due to educational and economic reasons to go “get money the best way they can.”

The genetic blueprint for north Minneapolis and it’s incidents of Black-on-Black crime – to include murders has never been able to unfold in a way beneficial for the community as a whole is to first stop the cover-up, “Crime is down,” (LOL) – and start being intentional about who the city, schools and police departments have at the table.

If you’ve noticed, when you (city-schools-police department) ask the same folks to assist you with youth violence issues in Minneapolis – the first thing you see is their hand out attempting to get a check.

As of today, July 8, 2012 – 5-years after Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak’s, “Blueprint for Action,” you’ve seen the qualitative and quantitative show that not a damn thing is different.

It’s time to stop this insane process of cherry-picking stupidity in problem solving.