Sugarcoaters–Uh, I Mean Sportscasters

 Haute Route - photo by JoAnn Sturman

Scott Sturman

My son chides me for having three favorite NFL teams, but when it comes to professional sports, it’s not a bad idea to hedge one’s bet.  Last Monday night was agonizing as my least favorite team, the Seattle Seahawks, pummeled my third favorite team, the San Francisco 49ers.  It was more than one could bear to watch Pete Carroll whine then gloat, as the Niners self destructed.

As the game degenerated into farce, announcers Mark and Bob were forced to entertain a bored audience, who expected a nail biter.  They raised the heartening story of Compton raised and Stanford educated cornerback Richard Sherman, which I’ll attempt to paraphrase.

Bob:  “Richard grew up in Compton’s gang infested neighborhoods but never joined.”

Mark:  “Awesome!  How did that ever happen?  I mean he had the deck stacked against him.”

Bob:  “His parents kept him out of the gangs.  His mother was influential in the community, and out of respect the gangs laid off.”

Mark:  “He went to Stanford and played for Harbaugh.”

Bob:  “His parents emphasized the importance of school– if he received bad grades then he couldn’t participate in sports.”

Mr. Sherman is a success story and makes for good press.  Sportscasters and their producers, who reach millions and could make a difference, rarely get to the crux of the issue; it’s easier to sugarcoat.  Imagine if Bob and Mark’s dialogue were more like this:

Bob:  “Richard grew up in Compton’s gang infested neighborhoods but never joined.”

Mark:  Strange isn’t it, Bob, how we’ve come to praise behavior which should be expected.  Normal used to be raising kids that didn’t get into too much trouble during their youth, who went on to be good citizens.  Normal is now the exception.

Bob:  Since this conversation is taking a new direction, I’m going to trash these talking points our producer gave me and follow your lead.  Richard’s success has everything to do with having two parents, who were serious about their responsibilities.

Mark:  Data from the 2010 U.S. Census was released in May and as reported in the Huffington Post revealed some worrisome data.  68% of black women who had babies were unmarried.  Compare this with Asians at 11%, Hispanics at 43%, and whites at 26%.

Bob:  I read that article and also one from the Christian Science Monitor which reported the same statistics but warned about drawing conclusions without further examination.  It’s true 36% of all moms are unmarried, but of the 62% of new moms in their early 20s who fall into this group, their is often a significant other in the picture.

Mark:  True, but it’s also been shown that these guys are less likely to hang around.  Clearly, as both articles point out, the children of these mothers are at risk.  Statistically, they have a much higher probability of under achievement in school, running afoul of the law, and using illegal drugs.

Bob:  It’s interesting to see that this behavior is much more common among low income women with poor education.  Again from the census–57% of moms without a high school diploma are unmarried, while 9% of those with a bachelor’s degree or higher fall into this category. 

Mark:  If one controls for income the results are consistent with this trend.  69% of mothers who make less than $10,000 a year are unmarried, and this rate plummets to 9% as incomes rise to $200,000 per year.

Bob:  It difficult to understand how these trends can be reassuring to anyone from either side of the political spectrum.  It’s a big problem and one that needs to be solved.  But before I get into this, I have an anecdote I’d like to share with the audience.  My father was one of nine children and my mother one of four, who grew up desperately poor in the Depression, and not one of them went to jail.  In fact all of them became productive citizens and contributed in their own way to society.  So when income is mentioned, my antennas raise because you know as well as I do that poverty and single mothers usually go hand in hand.

Mark:  I have a similar experience, and the common thread was men and women raised their children together.  Because of this simple dynamic, their children achieved greatly despite material poverty and any other excuse the pundits make.  Despite their modest circumstances, public education was excellent and gave children the foundation to succeed.  Contrast this with the abysmal education available in the inner city described in Waiting for Superman.  The kids don’t have a chance–no dad and functionally illiterate to boot.

Bob:  I read an article of Steve Spancake’s, $16 Trillion for Nearly Naught, which discussed the expenditure of $16 trillion since the inception on the War on Poverty, and there has been little to show for it.  The progressives think all it takes is to throw money at a problem, and it will go away.  When will they ever learn that their philosophy rewards destructive behavior?  On the other hand, right wingers have this illusion that preaching abstinence and the avoidance of sex education and birth control will solve the problem.  I wonder how many of them have even been in a place like Compton?

Mark:  Whenever the social fabric of society becomes tattered,  I am reminded of Robert Ruark’s book, Something of Value, which is set during the time of Kenya’s Mau Mau Rebellion.  If public policy tears down the family unit, then it must be replaced with something of equal or greater value, or there are certain to be problems.

Bob:  Well, Mark, I think we’ve both lost our jobs tonight. Bill Cosby was on to something when he talked about the disintegration of the black family.  As long as only 30% of black children have a father in the picture,  we’ll be praising the exceptions for a long, long time. 

  Tibetan Rider - photo by JoAnn Sturman

An Evening with an Original Gangsta

 Potala in Lhasa - photo by JoAnn Sturman

Scott Sturman

Between a disturbing book and a special guest, our book club’s last session was considerably more interesting than most.  The book, Monster, by Kody Scott describes the author’s life as a hard core member of the Crips in south central Los Angeles.  Suffice to say, Mr. Scott’s experience could not have been any more different than the 60+ year olds discussing his book on a Monday evening after work.  There was plenty of material in the book to provoke a lively discussion, but without a former Crip gang member in attendance to share his personal experiences, most of us would have retired considerably earlier that night.

Clarence, not his real name, is one of eleven siblings raised in the heart of LA’s gangland.  Today four of them survive, the others dead by murder or AIDS.  All of the children, men and women alike, spent time in jail, and Clarence’s only surviving brother has spent the last thirty years incarcerated as a convicted murderer.  What makes Clarence’s case unusual is despite joining the Crips at age fifteen and achieving the distinction of an Original Gangsta, he has held a job for the last twenty-seven years and successfully battled to keep his old demons at bay.

The inner city gang scene is violent, complex, and disheartening, but Clarence made several points which go a long way toward identifying and addressing the problem:

With nearly three in four black children born out of wedlock, one of the club members asked Clarence if Bill Cosby’s criticism of this irresponsible conduct had any influence on the behavior of black males in the ghetto.  “No,” he responded, “in the mind of a gang banger Bill Cosby and his message are not cool.”  He went on to add, however, he considers the male’s parenting role crucial and absentee fathers as one of the major causes of chaos in the inner city.  Clarence’s father sired all of his siblings, so his family did not reflect the usual hodgepodge of half brothers and sisters, but his father was an incorrigible alcoholic and took no responsibility raising his children.  That task lay solely with his mother and the gangs of South Central.

“Clarence, do you think gun control would reduce gang violence?”

He chuckled at the silliness of my question, “Gang bangers needs guns and will always be able to get them.”  He then asked our group how many of us owned guns and was astounded that several did not.  

Despite earning his GED in prison, Clarence reads at the grade school level.  He pointed out to the group that he attended atrocious public schools but never failed a grade although functionally illiterate.  At this point one of the members mentioned the movie Waiting for Superman, and the conflict between the needs of students and the stance of the powerful teachers’ unions.  Often union membership is heavily represented by minorities which curiously opt for job security and benefits at the expense of society’s most vulnerable students.

The transition to a law abiding life has not been easy for Clarence; he has struggled with alcohol and drugs, and the temptation to supplement his modest hourly wage with a quick buck lurks constantly.  He has a number of assets in his favor which separates him from his contemporaries who are either dead or in jail:  He detested prison life and swore he would never return.  He married a working woman who cares deeply for him.  Lastly, he is a deacon in his church, where the position affords him prestige and the opportunity to interact with boys and men who are at risk for indulging in criminal behavior.            

One morning earlier this month on the way to the hospital,  NPR aired a report stating more than half of all first born children in this country are born out of wedlock.  Our anesthesia group provides services for obstetric patients, who for the most part receive MediCal.  Although the NPR statistics were sobering, the single parent model is the norm in our group’s practice.  When I arrived on the OB floor to relieve a colleague I mentioned the NPR news report which by the way was reported in the Wall Street Journal the same day.  I expected disbelief and outrage, but she simply responded, “I thought it would be more.”

After the session with Clarence this birthing demographic is hardly reassuring.  His experience represents an extreme, but children raised in single parent homes are far more likely to perform poorly in school, use drugs, fall afoul of the law, and have children as teenagers.  An enormous amount of money has been spent to eradicate poverty–$16 trillion since Lyndon Johnson declared the War on Poverty, but there’s not a lot to show for all the effort.
($16 Trillion for Nearly Naught by Steve Spancake)   The answer has eluded the experts for fifty years, but someday they may swallow their pride and admit that two parents, good schools, and refusing to reward bad behavior are what Clarence needed all along.  

    Tanzania - photo by JoAnn Sturman