Tuesday's column (It's all about The Game)
Here's a plan to keep at-risk kids off drugs, away from gangs and out of trouble.
Invite a tattooed, baggy pants "gangsta" rapper to meet a classroom full of impressionable high schoolers.
Make sure his biography includes jail time. Make sure he's been hit by gunfire. Make sure he brags about having pulled drive-bys.
Make it clear that his conviction for carrying a loaded firearm in a school zone is no big deal. Make sure he brings a posse known for packing their gats.
Guns belong in schools right?
Believe it or not, at Muir High School in Pasadena Tuesday, Amer-I-Can brought rapper Jayceon Terrell Taylor, a.k.a "The Game" , a.k.a. "Chuck Taylor" to speak to 50 kids who are part of Mustangs on the Move.
The program, which also consists of Mentoring Partnership for Youth Development, targets students at risk of dropping out, according to its organizers.
Organizers of the Muir event claim "The Game" was all about mentoring.
Take Game's advice, "I just want you to stay alive," for example.
Of course his music is full of instruction. Like the rap on "Real Gangstaz"
"The kid roll with a greasy nine/come through and blast/I return shots like Arthur Ashe/You do the math/ ten shots ten dead bodies/(expletive) bein' sorry/it ain't nuttin' but a gangsta party."
A few years back, I remember talking to Colin Powell before a speech at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.
The former U.S. Secretary of State and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff talked about the importance of volunteerism and mentoring. His examples didn't include role models like "The Game."
He talked about real adults helping real kids learn to tackle real problems.
In an interview, the retired 4-star Army general said his ultimate goal was "to surround our children with responsible caring adults and let our children grow up in safe places where they are protected from some of the dangers out there on the streets."
I hoped to ask Pasadena school Superintendent Edwin Diaz if "The Game" held similarly lofty goals for the children and teens of Pasadena.
I wanted to ask, "Why 'The Game?'
"Why not City Councilwoman Jacque Robinson? Why not potential First Lady Michelle Obama? Why not Powell? Why not U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas? Why not former Deputy District Attorney Chris Darden? Why not former Pasadena police Lt. Rick Law?
"Why not one of the thousands of successful black men and women who live or work in Pasadena every day?"
Unfortunately I didn't get a call back. It was graduation day for about 60 percent of the kids who started there as freshmen four years ago.
The other 40 percent?
Probably off somewhere listening to "The Game."
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FRANK GIRARDOT
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Okay. This is an interesting development. It takes a bum that worked himself out of the bumlife to talk to another bum stuck in the bumlife. They are the only people the bum will listen to. A bum will only trust another bum.
My question is... are all those kids sitting in that classroom assumed to all be bums (violent gang members)? There are probably a few. I don't know. Certainly, not all.
Would I take a non alcoholic to an AA meeting? Yes, if they were interested. If, for some reason, it resonated with them even though they weren't drunks... or drunks yet. But the people in AA don't like that. They only want people that are at the point were their life has become unmanageable over alcohol. That way, they get help to stay sober, too. It's a synergistic formula.
I am not sure that model transfers to the general population of students with regard to gang activity. I think, if given a choice, I'd like my students to hear success stories from people who come from maybe the same place and have had the same barriers before them--and achieved success in spite of it all.
Attraction rather than promotion works in the negative, as well as the positive.
Look at me, I am talking like I have all the answers shooting my mouth off like a big shot wisenheimer. I zero of what this program is really all about or what it is modeled on.
School principals are ultimately responsible for the activities at their schools. Ask Muir HS principal, Sheryl Orange, how the "Game" became a mentor.
When she was principal of Burbank Elementary, she told me that she had no control over what or how her staff of teachers ran their classrooms, or taught their students. Upon hearing that comment, I removed my daughter from the school.
Thanks for bringing the story to our attention.
These kids aren't gonna listen to the Game. Kids are stupid..but they do have street smarts - they know "the man" told "The Game" to do this..or whatever they think.
Great article - I've also discussed this a little bit on my blog (before I even saw your article/blog about it..)
The game started has "gangsta" career after he finished highschool
Kids need to hear from positive role models that have grown up in gang areas but did not hang around with gang members and completely avoided gang involvement. They do not need to hear from people that glorify the gang lifestyle. They hear from them enough out in the streets and by listening to their music. The problem with this approach is that it confuses kids into thinking that they to can gangbang and the later on successfully leave the gang lifestyle. The fallacy here is that they might end up seriously injured, in jail, or dead. Kids need to be taught from the onset that gang resistance is paramount.
It's interesting how this Frank guy from the star news acts as if he cares about poor mexican and black kids at John Muir...does the Star News send reporters over there to talk to kids...if not then this guy has no place running his mouth about what goes on there...oh maybe he has kids of his own there...I doubt that very seriously.
so inviting Colin Powell is positive...a man who has taken part in destroying thousands of lives through wars...what rapper has THAT track record