An older post from December 2007Whenever I drive downtown, I am amazed at the number of folks at the main TARTA Bus Station on Erie Street or around the corner on Jackson. I haven't taken a bus in years. Didn't have to. Of course, our 'cleaning lady' had to take the bus from her house on Pinewood to get to her cleaning jobs in Old Orchard. Two buses.
When I wrote the story yesterday on the church shootings in Colorado I came to realize how many homegrown terrorists are white boys. Black boys don't blast away in shopping malls, schools, and churches killing scores of innocent people. Why is that?
Are they easily profiled and therefore stopped dead in their tracks, assault rifle in hand? Only rarely. It's the white boy, the angry white boy with the weapon who shoots indiscriminately into his helpless victims.
No, the black boy learns early on that he has no privilege like the white boys do. Doors aren't opened for him, he has to push his own open, if he can. He takes the bus; white boys ride in their soccer mom's SUV.
Do white boys know that they are born with a 2-point advantage? Add money and it becomes three. No, white boys don't know that. They were born into these advantages, but when frustration sets in, they often go out of control fast. They don't like locked doors; they don't like 'No!' Black boys find many locked doors and 'no' as they grow up. They learn frustration, they live frustration. White boys don't. So when they find themselves in one of those situations, they go wild.
Maybe white boys ought to sit on bus bunches more often in their growing-up years. A boy can learn a lot sitting and waiting.
