http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/05/10/national/main1606521.shtml
12 Boys Eyed In Playground Sex Attack
Victim Is 8 Years Old; Suspects Are Aged 6 Through 8
ST. LOUIS, May 11, 2006
(CBS/AP)
"Saint Louis University pediatrician and professor Ken Haller says authorities should investigate the suspects and their homes - because boys that young who commit such acts are almost always victims of abuse themselves."
(AP) Authorities say twelve boys in the first and second grade at a St. Louis elementary school are accused of sexually assaulting a second grade girl during recess. School superintendent Creg Williams says one teacher who was supposed to be supervising the recess has been fired and another has been suspended with pay. Ten of the boys, ages 6 to 8, were suspended for the rest of the school year. The other two received five day, in-school suspensions.
No names were released. The girl, who is 8, will not return for the rest of the school year. "We don't know what type of emotional scars it will have on the young lady," said Williams. The incident happened Friday at Columbia Accelerated Community Educational Center, a school with 400 students in pre-kindergarten through sixth grade on the city's north side. During the recess shortly after lunch, a student saw several boys huddled around the girl who was on the ground, and alerted a teacher. Police turned the investigation over to juvenile authorities.
A court official said the boys could face misdemeanor counts of sexual misconduct and assault. Saint Louis University pediatrician and professor Ken Haller says authorities should not just investigate the boys themselves, but the home in which they live – because boys that young who commit such acts are almost always victims of abuse themselves.
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http://www.ajc.com/thursday/content/epaper/editions/thursday/metro_44260c3d956bd17800a8.html
Apologies for 'Ol' Smokey' not enough
Laura Diamond - StaffThursday, May 11, 2006
The Gwinnett County student suspended for disrupting a lesson and threatening a teacher says she won't be in that teacher's class when she returns to school next week.
School officials from Peachtree Ridge High suspended Beth Anne Cox for five days after she sang a violent version of "On Top of Ol' Smokey" in German class.
Beth Anne said she was humming the tune when a classmate asked her about the song. She then sang a lyric about shooting a teacher. She said the lyric was not directed at her teacher, Phil Carroll. She has since apologized to him in a letter. When Beth Anne's suspension ends Monday, she won't return to her German class, she said Wednesday.
"I don't know where I will be second period, but the school said they would find somewhere to put me," Beth Anne said. "They said I can't go back to the class because I threatened the teacher. How afraid can you be of a 16-year-old? I think he just wants to avoid me because he knows he's wrong."
Carroll did not return messages left at the school or respond to e-mails sent to his school account. School officials referred questions to Sloan Roach, the school district's spokeswoman. Roach said she could not verify whether Beth Anne would return to the German class.
Beth Anne said she wasn't worried about what students would say when she returned to school and that she had received more than 70 e-mails of support.
A few students wore T-shirts to school Wednesday with iron-on pictures of Beth Anne, said Alex Baker, Beth Anne's best friend. Alex wore one of the shirts to school Wednesday and said she'd made bout 15 shirts for other students. She said she planned to wear her shirt for the rest of the week.
"Beth Anne didn't disrupt the class or do anything wrong," said Alex, who is also in the German class. "What they're doing to her is just wrong."
That's not how school officials see it. Roach said Beth Anne was upset about a grade and talked about it with Carroll. Later, Beth Anne interrupted class activity, Roach said, and sang "On top of Ol' Smokey, all covered with blood, I shot my poor teacher with a .44 slug."
In addition to the suspension, the school principal revoked permission for Beth Anne to attend Peachtree Ridge next school year. She has attended the high school since her freshman year. Beth Anne said her family prefers the school because it is less crowded than North Gwinnett High, her neighborhood school. Beth Anne will be required to attend North Gwinnett next year, said her mother, Suzanne Cox.
Roach said principals review permissive transfer requests annually. She said the principal's decision not to allow Beth Anne to return to Peachtree Ridge next year is final.
Cox would like Beth Anne to graduate from Peachtree Ridge and wants assurances the suspension won't hurt her daughter's grades. Roach said Wednesday that Beth Anne will be able to make up all missed work and receive full credit.
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http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/tucker/stories/05106.html
CYNTHIA TUCKER
Death epitomizes thug life
Published on: 05/10/06
You know I like to dedicate this song
to anybody who ever lost somebody
to the grave, to the streets, to the jail cell
I done been in situations where I done had to cope with all three
I feel like the only thing [I] haven't done [is] die
— "Live in the Sky," T.I., with Jamie Foxx
It may be comforting to think that the violent lyrics of rap music are just the overly dramatic musings of creative, if rebellious, young minds. It's just words, isn't it?
Think again. In the last 12 months alone, several young black men linked to rap music have been killed in disputes stoked by a code of conduct that finds respect in retribution and mistakes slaughter for strength.
The deaths have received at least cursory news coverage, a tribute to the celebrity status of most of the subjects. But there have been no sharp denunciations of the violence from the black institutions that matter, no groundswell of anger or disgust on black college campuses, no marches or demonstrations led by self-appointed black leaders.
Had just one of these young men been killed by white police officers, the machinery of black protest would have revved into high gear, with press conferences, marches and demands for justice. The relatively muted response to the string of dead rappers — the suspected perpetrators are mostly other young black men — suggests that a dead black man matters most when his murder can be used as political propaganda.
On Monday, more than 900 mourners attended the funeral of Atlantan Philant Johnson, 26, best friend and personal assistant to 26-year-old Atlanta rapper T.I. (Clifford Joseph Harris Jr.).
Johnson was killed and three other passengers injured a week ago in a gun battle that erupted when they were followed by two other vehicles on 1-75 near Cincinnati. Police say the gunfire followed an earlier argument involving unidentified locals and T.I.'s entourage at a Cincinnati nightclub.
A couple of days earlier, Houston rapper Big Hawk was gunned down in his hometown. (His brother, rapper Fat Pat, was shot dead in 1998.) And on April 11, Detroit rapper Proof, a close friend of megastar Eminem, was killed after he allegedly pistol-whipped and shot another man — Keith Bender, who also died — in an argument over a game of pool.
Those deaths followed a February shooting in New York that took the life of a bodyguard for rap star Busta Rhymes and a two-month killing spree in Las Vegas last year that left four rappers dead. On Feb. 1, a Las Vegas police officer was shot and killed by aspiring rapper Amir Crump, who was also killed in the shootout with police.
No arrests have been made in Johnson's death, nor in several of the other cases. Indeed, if history is any guide, many of the cases won't be solved. Boston Globe writer Renee Graham pointed out last year that the 1997 drive-by shooting of megastar Biggie Smalls, also known as the Notorious B.I.G., in Los Angeles, and the 1996 drive-by shooting of Tupac Shakur, in Las Vegas, remain unsolved, as does the 2002 slaying of Jam Master Jay in New York.
As Graham notes, rap culture disrespects those who cooperate with police, so law enforcement authorities have been unsuccessful in their efforts to uncover evidence that would stand up in court. (Rap artist Li'l Kim is serving a year in prison on a perjury charge, stemming from her lies about a shootout involving her entourage and another rap crew.) If the friends and associates of the slain rappers don't care enough to help police find their killers, there is little hope for eventual justice. Besides, too many rappers, several of whom have criminal pasts, believe that violence only pumps up their street "cred" (credibility) and fuels their popularity.
At least the dead rappers get a big funeral and their heirs profit from increased sales. Millions of young black men across the country adopt them as role models and emulate their behavior. Some of them will die, too, but their deaths will be noted only by family and friends. It's no wonder that homicide remains a leading cause of death for young black men.
Despite the unfortunate appeal of thug culture, a few brave souls have tried to curb the carnage. At Proof's funeral, Detroit rapper Obie Trice — who was left with a bullet lodged in his skull after he was shot on New Year's Eve — urged the mourners, through tears, to lay down their guns, according to the Detroit Free Press.
"I want to talk to the black men in here that's coming up in the hood, coming up in the struggle. We're killing each other, dawg. And it's about nothing. Nothing. Nothing. We're all dying. And we're leaving our kids. Our mommas. Our grandmas. Over nothing," he said.
In an interview with Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Sonia Murray, T.I., who has his own history of scrapes with the law, expressed his profound sorrow at the death of his longtime friend. "I'm not ever going to be the same," he said.
Neither will countless families whose young men are claimed by the curious and perverted appeal of thug culture.
• Cynthia Tucker is the editorial page editor. Her column appears Wednesdays and Sundays.
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http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/0512edali.html
Bling-bling, rap culture rob blacks of Ali types
By KAMAU BOBB
Published on: 05/12/06
I drive a 2003 Mini Cooper. I recently went to an Atlanta body shop to get it fixed and had to navigate through a maze of Mercedes and Porsche vehicles to get in.
The shop owner saw me looking at the cars and said, "That's one of Too Short's," naming a popular rapper. He showed me pictures of his work for other celebrities such as producer Jermaine Dupri and football player Shannon Sharpe. His secretary had a picture of herself beside actor Tyler Perry's Rolls Royce.
The owner said a lot of his work is for athletes and rappers. He gets their business from a local stereo shop that recommends him for body work. Some of his clients install $40,000 sound systems and then come to him for body work. According to him, some spend nearly $100,000 on aftermarket effects for their cars.
He told me all of this as if he was impressing me. He was.
Extravagance is awesome by definition. Many of these celebrities are fantastically popular and their lifestyles are public in the extreme. What is conspicuously missing from their public personas is a cause. Very few of them have taken a decisive public stand on any of the assortment of issues that are strangling the black community.
There is an emergent political wing of the hip-hop movement. Its sincerity, however, is questionable. Those at the forefront remain awash in three-quarter- million-dollar watches and half-million-dollar rings. They set a weak example of a lifestyle based on concern for the well-being of the black community. They are like those in Kahlil Gibran's book, "The Prophet," "who give little of the much which they have — and they give it for recognition."
Many others in this black celebrity clan are completely immersed in vacuous consumption and narcissism. Where is our Muhammad Ali?
In 1974, Ali spoke about the most lucrative title fight in history at the time.
He said he was fighting for "black people who are living on welfare ... black people who don't know no knowledge of themselves, black people who don't have no future."
His famous resistance to the draft was an example of a young black celebrity whose identity was not consumed by consumption. He sacrificed all of his wealth to stand by his people.
He did this at a time when he was at the top of his career and stood to lose the most. His later fortunes are a testament to his talent and an affirmation of his character. He was a soldier, in the spirit of the Nation of Islam, for the betterment of the collective black condition. His celebrity was only incidental to that core identity.
Our current crop of celebrities are soldiers in the spirit of Narcissus, for the betterment of themselves and their principles are only incidental to that core identity.
In a world of black fame, diamonds and millions, I am utterly inconsequential. I continue to stand up straight, however, propped up by my faith in the legacy of the black community, my pride as a black man and the example of Muhammad Ali.
By the way, the repairs for my car were $196.53. Ouch!
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