Northeast Portland is no walk in the park; it's the closest thing to a war zone in the City of Roses, in fact. Bicyclists and joggers are randomly attacked, thieves break into homes and cars, drug dealers ply their wares openly, and gunfire is common. Sometimes, bullets even go whizzing by mom, dad and baby while they're out for a walk. But, The Oregonian today quotes one shooting victim who narrowly escaped death, as asserting that guns and society are to blame for young men shooting stray bullets.

Julie L. Davis is a 38-year-old schoolteacher who was walking in her Northeast Portland neighborhood with her husband and 15-month-old child, when a gun and society nearly killed her. She suffered wounds to her arm, and was briefly hospitalized after being nicked by a flying bullet.

Police booked an 18-year-old man into jail Tuesday in connection with the shooting. Kevin Clifford Ford had been among a group of young men arguing when he allegedly fired several shots from a 9 mm pistol, police said. When Davis heard what happened, she said she felt angry and vindictive. "They could have killed me or my husband or baby," she said. Her feelings changed to grief when she saw Ford's mug shot in the newspaper Wednesday. "He looks so young and scared out of his mind," she said. "He could easily have been a face sitting in my classroom." She blamed the shooting on a society that has sanctioned the ownership of too many guns and allowed poverty to fester. "It's far more tragic for those kids than it is for me," she said. "I wasn't expecting a bullet. But they live their lives expecting bullets."

Here's what's tragic: guilty white liberals making excuses for young thugs shooting stray bullets on the street. Of course, you don't have to be white to blame guns for the shootings of innocents, as we learned again recently in Chicago. Ford has been charged by Portland police with attempted murder, second-degree assault, and unlawful use of a firearm. No charges were filed against society.

In February, Jason Maxfield of Northeast Portland was bike riding with his wife. They found themselves amidst a group of 30 to 40 youths. The story was widely covered, including on Northwest Cable News. According to Maxfield's account, published in an Oregonian op-ed, some of the youths charged at him, knocked him from his bike, punched and kicked him; and his wife was hit and threatened with a gun. Police happened by, and the couple escaped serious injury. Maxfield wrote:

Obviously, the teenagers who assaulted my wife and me were responsible for their actions and ought to be punished for their crimes. But law enforcement can only be part of the solution....My wife and I were assaulted in front of several houses, but nobody seemed to notice. Perhaps they were afraid to get involved. If someone had noticed the rowdy teenagers and called the police a few minutes earlier, my wife and I would have been fine. Fifteen minutes of police work could have prevented the hours of investigation that surely are now keeping officers off the streets.

Good point, as far as it goes. Shall we talk about ingrained "stop snitchin'" values in high-crime areas though, Jason? Who is responsible, in the end, for instilling the community values of which you speak? Society, or the parents?

Maxfield continues.

....we must also ask the deeper questions about why these kids are disconnected from our community. We must address the social inequalities across our city. The economic renaissance across Northeast and North Portland is lifting some people up, while their neighbors are left behind or forced to move.....If we remain optimistic and committed to community responsibility and social justice, Portland can remain a shining example of a "city that works."

Social inequalities are inevitable. Different investments - meaning different choices made by individuals - yield different returns.

Urban liberals are bedeviled by this. Such as Northeast Portland school parent and writer Whitney Otto, who in this Oregonian op-ed, says she keeps her kids in a crumbling public school system because:

..I think this idea of your child's education being taken care of ignores the larger picture -- all those kids who won't get a Good Education....I...worry about the fate of public school students when caring, involved parents, like some of my friends, pull out. Public school is more than a system; it's a reflection of society's ideals...It's hard to teach the way other people live without contact with those other people. I'm not saying that's the purpose of public school, but often it's a byproduct.

It never dawned on me that teaching the way other students live really ought to be a primary concern in K-12 education; mastery of core academic subjects is what matters. True, one's sense of personal virtue may grow by having one's child schooled with - as Otto notes - "five categories of students immune to explulsion." But the great equalizer is not exposure to special needs students or people with different-colored skin. It is reading, writing, arithmetic, science, and arts. It only takes a village to raise a child if the family has fallen down on the job.

TECHNORATI TAGS: PORTLAND, OREGON, NORTHEAST PORTLAND, CRIME, PUBLIC SCHOOLS, PARENTING, LIBERAL DEMENTIA

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at March 30, 2006 11:20 AM

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