I never blog

But I want to.

I'm going to try to do it more. So if I have nothing to talk about, I'll critically review entertainment. Why not?

ok. So we watched PRECIOUS. Let me say, I went in with a very flawed expectation. I thought it might be a prequel to Lord of the Rings about Sméagol and the One Ring...

Instead we got a shocking and depressing and sadly accurate story of the state of inner city culture and the cycles of abuse. I don't know much on the topic as white boy born and raised in small Utah towns, but I did serve a mission in Cleveland, so was exposed to government projects populated almost exclusively by African-Americans. Not exactly a ghetto pass, but I do have some street cred. [except for one that had all white people in the country outside of Windham Township, Ohio. This was an old military barracks, but was retired and turned into free housing for the local poor. A similar phenomena that have been addressed for centuries about common-held property vs. privately owned. i.e. it was not well cared for here. You'll notice an A and B. The B is the barracks out in the middle of nowhere, but they are part of the town of Windham A, a nice little gathering of farmers. ]

Anyway, some memories were brought to my mind after watching the movie. I shared with my sweet wife and now with you.





This is Garfield Heights where I lived. The tag A was where I lived. If you look at the lay of the land, you will notice two major roads form a mountain. The mountain was actually our assigned area and we had to walk around, over a bridge (which has "Mook" written into the cement which was wet while they were fixing it). The area up in the top right corner was an all-black neighborhood, but Garfield Heights, the portion under the mountain, was all white.

Growing up in Utah, I had never been exposed to real racism. The white folks in Garfield felt like they were on the front lines of losing their city and they had decided to not "retreat" any more. As such, if a nice black family tried to buy a house in that neighborhood (under the right "slope" of the "mountain"), they would just find their home burned down. I thought this was a joke, but on the North_East side of the street there were all black families and on the South-West side, all white (and several, random empty lots in an otherwise old neighborhood). Even the Realtors were on board. Not that they supported the actions, but they would be remiss had they not given the warning.

So the very limited exposer to the 'hood was enlightening. From the gentlemen who opened the door one fine morning to find two white kids in ties on his porch. He had clearly just woken up, but when he saw us, his eyes went wide and he said, "Do you know where you are???" and then poked his head out to look around at who might be watching. We didn't think much of it.

Same street, some guy came running out of his house as we rode by on bikes screaming threats at us and throwing rocks. One hit my companion, but only hit his backpack.

There was a nice, older couple who were members and we would visit them and they started coming out weekly again. We thought that would give us a toe-hold. We were teaching a family of 5 kids, one mom, all different dads. They were close to joining, but the mom was feeling pressure from her Jehovah Witness sister. Talking to a missionary much later, apparently all the kids, but one died in a gas-leak fire.

Near her home, a car full of young boys pulled up. I stopped on my bike and the passenger reached his hand out to shake my hand, when I offered my hand, he grabbed me and the driver gunned the car, presumably to drag me down the road, but I was able to slip out of his grasp.

We taught another lady who had a baby girl. She told me of a woman through the block who was addicted to crack and behind on payments to her dealer. The dealer kidnapped her 11 year old daughter and threatened to kill her. With no money there was nothing she could do, so the daughter was delivered in two, large garbage bags on her front step.

We would see 18 year old kids rolling around in brand, new convertible IROC Cameros. Not sure how they found the money...

Funny coincidence, one of the more disturbing scenes is the "this pig foot has too much hair on it to eat and I can't eat it without collard greens" and while I type this, I checked the news and found this:

Report: Woman eating pig's feet in bed cuts friend
By Kimberly Dick
The (Rock Hill) Herald
Posted: Tuesday, Sep. 14, 2010
Rock Hill, S.C. --

A woman who was eating pig’s feet in bed accidentally cut her friend in the arm, police say.
The 52-year-old Rock Hill woman told police she accidentally cut a friend in the forearm with a knife around 10:30 p.m. Sunday. Both she and the victim, 50, were intoxicated, according to a Rock Hill police report.
He had a deep cut to his arm. The report did not state if he was hospitalized.
No charges were filed, but the incident remains under investigation.

Read more:

I wonder if it had hair on it and needed some extra cutting...

Anyway. The movie Precious was well done. It captured the ugly side of the welfare culture and certainly isn't confined to any race. Just go to Windham Township if you don't believe me. But when your only way out of your abusive family is to have a kid, get welfare and your own apartment, the incentive is there. When the fathers have no standard by which they are measured or held to, it is not wonder they just go and do whatever they can or want to at any given time.

How do you repair such a cycle? It is tempting to just look at the dollars and cut the funding and make the individual rise up. But when you look at Precious and her situation and her kids, you would be forcing them to suffer endless abuses or starve. Cutting funding may work when you are crunching numbers, but fails when you get to the human being level.

I will go out on a limb and give one opinion. I think it would be beneficial for all involved to completely eradicate all cable and television sets from such homes. The human mind and spirit yearns for input. With a tv, it is so easy to just shut down and lay there while the programming keeps the mind occupied. Kind of like Gollum and the Ring of Power, it blinds the senses and corrupts the soul. Hey! There *IS* a connection!

Without a TV, one gets bored and at least gets out of the house. Or reads, or seeks human friendship. Put that on the, If I Were King for a Day list. No TVs if you are getting government assistance.

I'm going to go watch Fellowship of the Ring. I need a good dose of Gollum.