Letters to the Editor
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An irritating interview
Among the many irritating aspects, the idea that agencies should just call the parents of the kids is ludicrous. Not only is that asking too much of the agencies (as someone above pointed out, how will the agencies know their phone numbers?), but also many of the parents of these kids are abusive.
In the past we would have demanded that the twenty-year-old get a job, would we have? Would that be the past of the hippies and the punks that she references near the end?
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The approximately 1 million homeless children are mostly children with their mothers.
Not street kids.
http://www.worldfreeinternet.net/news/nws175.htm
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out of sync
I have lived large portions of my life on the margins, especially ages 13 to 18 or so. I have never been affiliated with official street families, but as an 18 or 19 year old, I definitely fed and let others stay with me, especially younger women. I knew if it wasn't with me that they were prey to older men with mal-intentions. I know what it is to be "helped" but to also "owe."
This woman speaks as an authority on this subject, but I think that she is very limited in her knowledge of the whole picture. Particularly when she is asked about where this violence comes from, her response of fantasy games floored me. She has failed to see beyond into our prevalent culture, our government, tv, movies and so forth. She is happy to implicate fantasy games as the source of the lifestyle and fails to acknowledge how many people in our country are on anti-depressents, she doesn't critically analyze the other sources of a far over-reaching fantasy mentality that is shared by the status quo.
She also seems to support that people who come from "good loving families" should have nothing to worry about. I think that certainly as much physical, verbal, emotional and sexual abuse occurs there as anywhere else, it is simply more well hidden, less proper to speak of, no reason to leave home ... you have a future ahead of you ...
I am not defending street kids or our current social system to the max, but I will emphasize that they are, we all are, very limited in our isolation and personal opinions. The solutions are not sustainable when funding and directors fluctuate from term-to-term or administration-to-administration and the solutions come from outside the problem, from the top-down ignoring the core, the center. Why don't we engage the kids, the community, the street moms and dads and the real moms and dads and dialogue about the roots of these issues? Yes, it will take time, energy, and maybe even money ... but why sit on the sidelines and judge while inciting fear about the exotic other?
I think that the kids mentalities are perfect mirrors of aspects of our larger culture as well on the micro-level of their personal family culture, history and experience. I think that what we are all truly afraid of is acknowledging this because it implicates us and doesn't just put off the problem to some extraneous mythical force beyond our control.
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hahahahahaha
so this middle aged woman hung out with a bunch of oogle kids. not real street kids.... portland and seattle are notorious for having a lot of kids not wanting to listen to mommy and daddy and cutting thier already long hair into mohawks and giving themselves scarry names like "shadowcat" this is all very hilarious to us real street kids. so lady sorry but you need to change the describing name of your youth. or if this is what it is we're changing our name. o and of course they're bragging about their violence they don't want anyone to think they're weak... i'm sure a lot of it was lies. And what kind of tough street kid does something to a disabled person. parents get your little kids and put em in boot camp. they're giving us a bad name.
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thats kind of a cheap shot.
look man, the streets are a violent place. they are filled with a lot of really fucked up shit. bad things that people don't want to know really exists here. demonizing one particular subculture of the violent conditions in this country is a cheap shot. what you fail to have noticed was that without these families many of these kids would starve or be victimized by other groups downtown. we can all thank reagan for releasing all the crazies and creating a legion of violent anti-social hobos that kill each other over food stamps and shoes. and gangs in the cities generally view the street kids as weak and easy victims. in many cities police have been found guilty of singling out street kids and beating raping or even killing them. I spent a large portion of my life as a street kid and was homeless at age 6. while i do agreee that these families are violent, it is a violent world. its easy to pretend that people don't die at night in the cold; and that many police are dirty with a power complex, when you live in the suburbs. even here from felony flats in portland, OR it seems that violence of that nature could not possibly exist so close. but i know that it does. extreme povverty breeds extreme crime. some guy mentioned brazil; the crime there is insane, as is the gap between rich and poor. its the same throughout history. these kids you easily point at from your ivory tower are frequently victimms of abuse and many are mentally ill or otherwise handicapped. Its true that many kids leave their suburban homes to live this way, generally out of rebellion. many of these kids are illiterate and cannot fill out a job application. i am not calling any of these people victims and i don't think they need pity but they are doing their best to cope with a world that refuses to accept them. many are well read and intelligent, idealistically refusing to accept the system that exploits children, animals and the environment for comfort, power, and profit. many are former students and activists. its true that many are violent, and there are really bad people in that group as there are in all groups. i could easilly say that all teachers are sexual deviates and quote cases, even record some teachers saying bad things and compiling all of the bad incidents i could find in one folder; and ultimately write a book chronicling how evil and perverted teachers are. i could exploit a high profile case and mention it repeatedly and use the outrage and shock to my advantage. but it wouldn't make any of my accusations true. and it wouldn't prove a goddamn thing but make me look like a coward for attacking someone when they can't fight back, and profiting off of it. Hack.