the middle of the road

I grew up in the Boston burbs, South of our South Side which like Chicago is now a very depressed area. As a child I drove through the ghettos of Boston on the way into the city. My father never shied away from these old routes into downtown Boston. Formerly the home of Boston's Jews, many a home there is quite beautiful. Now young black men live there with guns in their pockets, occasionally killing each other or whatever children happen to be in their way. Many of them cannot read so they have not read their way out of the violence. I do not look down on them and quite often they have seen my northern European white face looking back at them as they cast a glance my way, as I pass through their neighborhood while driving a black co-worker and friend home in the middle of the night. I wish they would simply read about the world around them and know that many of us are looking over at them, or up at them in many cases. Some of my favorite Black men and women, appear in the media each day and their words and spirit are priceless. I get frustrated by gang violence because I think, "To what end?" Old men leave the gangs in their 20s and 30s because they know...to no end.