HOST: BONNIE ERBE PANELISTS: AMANDA CARPENTER, THE WASHINGTON TIMES JACLYN FRIEDMAN, DIRECTOR, ACTION AND THE MEDIA TARA SETMAYER, CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR PATRICIA SOSA, PROGRESSIVE COMMENTATOR SUNDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2009 TRANSCRIPT PROVIDED BY DC TRANSCRIPTION – WWW.DCTMR.COM MS. ERBE: This week on To the Contrary, ending youth violence. Then, the number of reported rapes hit a 20-year low. Behind the headlines: Matthew Shepard’s mother discusses her son’s legacy. (Musical break.) MS. ERBE: Hello, I’m Bonnie Erbe. Welcome to To the Contrary, a discussion of news and social trends from diverse perspectives. Up first, ending youth violence. (Begin video segment.) MS. ERBE: This week, the Obama administration responded to a teen melee in Chicago in which 16-year-old honor student Derrion Albert was killed while walking home from school. Cell phone video of Albert’s slaying was posted on YouTube and viewed worldwide. According to the Justice Department, close to 1,500 young Americans were killed in 2008. A new survey finds more than 60 percent of children were exposed to violence in the last year. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced plans to end youth violence including funding for counseling and mentoring. Officials say parents, schools, law enforcement, and community groups need to help young people steer clear of crime. They believe teen violence isn’t just an inner-city problem. ERIC HOLDER [Attorney General]: Youth violence is not a Chicago problem anymore than it is a black problem, a white problem, or a Hispanic problem. It is something that affects communities big and small and people of all races and all colors. It is an American problem. (End video segment.) MS. ERBE: So Tara Setmayer, is teen violence America’s problem, a race problem, or a class problem? MS. STEMAYER: After 40 years of debasing our morality in this country it’s no surprise that this would manifest itself this way. It’s an American problem. MS. SOSA: Well, unfortunately, in the United States race and class are intertwined, so I think it’s both. MS. CARPENTER: And I think it comes on to socioeconomics. When there’s not opportunity in a community and people aren’t looking out for the young folks, you’re going to have violence. MS. FRIEDMAN: The reality is violence and poverty are related, and in America, poverty and race are related which makes this an American problem. MS. ERBE: Okay. And Jaclyn Friedman, welcome to the panel. MS. FRIEDMAN: Thank you. MS. ERBE: But, can you imagine, for example, if you’re going to go into the neighborhoods and try to resolve this – and there was just some horrendous situation in New Hampshire where four white youths invaded a woman’s home, killed her, almost killed her nine-year-old daughter. But can you imagine those youths, those guys responding to mentorship from black counselors or the kids in Chicago responding to mentoring from white male role models? I think we’re so race divided in this country that I actually do think it is up to the local communities to resolve these problems. MS. FRIEDMAN: Well, I think you’re really assuming that the communities are homogenous, which isn’t the case in a lot of places. But I think you’re right on that it is a community problem, and especially when you’re talking about gang violence, which was at play in this horrible case. The General Accounting Office did a great study that linked poverty and violence. And one of the things that it showed is that the real factor is when a community is poor. If an entire community is poor, the socioeconomic factors are such that they don’t feel like they have other options, and the kids growing up – they’re looking for protection, they’re looking for a place to belong, they’re looking, actually, for economic opportunity in the drug trade and they’re not being given other options. MS. SETMAYER: Well, I think that there are a lot of factors that contribute to this but for me the biggest factor is the breakdown of the family unit. Socioeconomics plays a role as well especially in our urban areas, but if you go back 50 years in the poor communities in the South where there was still a strong family unit, you did not have this type of violence. And in the black community, in 1970 you had 60 percent of children growing up in a two-parent household. In 2004, it’s 35 percent. Those numbers correlate directly to all these different cases of violence, education, what’s going on in our inner- cities. That, to me, and the acceptance which seems to be – this acceptable gangster culture that’s in urban communities absolutely is directly responsible for what’s going on there now and no one is taking the task for it. They make excuses. What’s going on in Chicago isn’t new to the people who live there, or Atlanta, or Los Angeles, or any other major urban area where you have all this violence, but yet a gangster culture has now become something that’s popular, crossing racial lines. It’s mainstream. And that is – you look at this and you say, well, what do you expect? MS. SOSA: I think the moral component is critical – and you’re right, Tara – but I think this is also a reflection of the inequities in this country, the economic inequities in this country, the fact that parents both have to work and sometimes have to work two and three jobs and they cannot supervise their kids, that schools are not well funded to provide the kinds of programs and the after school curriculum that the kids need in order to be engaging a healthy environment. They can’t. The money is not there. So I think it’s not only the individuals and the families, not wanting to do it because they’re not able to do it because they have to survive and it’s a hostile economic environment for the working class. MS. SETMAYER: So 70 percent illegitimacy in the black community with fathers not being in the home, you don’t think that plays a role in that? If you had two- parent households there wouldn’t be – okay. MS. SOSA: I’m not disagreeing. No. Absolutely. Tara, that plays a role in it, too, but I think the economic – that’s also a reflection of the inequities and the lack of opportunities and the lack of opportunities for black men. MS. ERBE: Let me jump in here because how much – the data figure that Tara just raised – 70 percent unwed motherhood and the single motherhood in the black communities – we have a culture that now condones single unwed motherhood. We also have churches that press young teenage pregnant single girls to have babies, whether they are prepared to be mothers or not. How much are those factors – when they get pregnant, I’m saying. How much are those factors involved? MS. CARPENTER: Well, the breakdown of the traditional family certainly is a factor. But I think one thing that’s been absent from this conversation so far are solutions. You know, we can talk about getting more funding for the communities. People in the communities need to step up. I was down in Savannah, Georgia, talking with a guy working on a totally unrelated story. I found out he’s a member of the Guardian Angels where they go into the inner-city and they teach parents to say, listen, you can go out to the street and if you see – you know, they’ll report something to the cops. I saw a kid get murdered. Well, why didn’t you call the cops when they are congregating there in the street playing music loud at night? People need to be responsible for their neighborhoods and that is the first, best step we can take to solve this. MS. FRIEDMAN: You know, it sounds almost like you’re advocating more community organizing. The neighborhood where this happened in Chicago – MS. CARPENTER: Sure. I’m not against community organizing. MS. FRIEDMAN: – is where Obama got his start as a community organizer. MS. CARPENTER: Sure. MS. FRIEDMAN: And we see, unfortunately, the erosion of programs like that, the defunding of programs like that. MS. CARPENTER: Well, there’s volunteer programs. I mean, to say that we need federal funding to do this – you know, people don’t need anything to get a community group together and say, listen. Let’s have a neighborhood watch meeting. We should encourage people to do that and not wait for money to do it. MS. FRIEDMAN: Well, they do if – if both parents are working two, three jobs, you actually do need funding for that and you also need – MS. ERBE: But, Amanda, particularly you, I want your thoughts. I mean, the churches in this community, the black churches in this community in Chicago, the white churches in New Hampshire – I don’t know if these four guys were born to unwed mothers, single teen mothers or not. But what about a teen girl comes to the church, says I’m pregnant and they say, you go have that baby? They give you a few blankets and a crib and then you raise him in a situation where it’s not a good situation for a child to come into with no father around, no money, et cetera, et cetera. Isn’t that a contribution to this? MS.