First Draft

Kyle Bush
Professor Varner
Adv1103
October 29, 2008
First Draft
Philadelphia is considered the “City of Brotherly Love”, but in recent years all the love has been lost. The people of the city have fell in love with killing each other, and have forgotten to stop and love one another as human beings. As the days accumulate, so does the number of killings of individuals in the inner city streets of Philadelphia. While fingers are being pointed as to who is to blame, more lives are being lost. Violence continues to increase within the inner city of Philadelphia. The violence has increased in the area due to the lack of education, strategic programs of combating violence, and the complete disregard for the well being of poverty stricken people, who live in these areas.
In this country we live in there is much importance placed upon a good education. Education is said to be the key to success in this country. So, in an area where education is clearly lacking, how can an individual be successful? Currently, education in inner city Philadelphia is at a all time low, According to Fatimah Ali, well known writer for the Philadelphia Daily news, the current Philadelphia dropout rate is 50 percent.(Ali 1) Yes, 50 percent of every students who walk the halls of Philadelphia schools will eventually drop out and seek the streets for education. It is a very depressing fact because it makes everybody who calls Philadelphia their home look bad. These areas account for the most violent areas, which goes to show that education, is a key to stopping the increasing violence. Education needs more funding in these areas, as more and more kids dropout and look to the streets to find their survival. As these individuals head to the streets for education, they also take the negative impacts of not having an education. Consequently, they become violent individuals.
As a result of uneducated people becoming more violent the crime rate has increased. Since the crime rate as sky rocketed in the past couple years, programs indeed have been implemented to combat with the increasing crime rate. Programs such as Operation Safe Streets Stop and Frisk and Mothers United Against Violence. Operation Safe streets place a strong police presence in high risk violent communities and Stop and Frisk allows police to randomly frisk residents, if they seem to be acting suspicious. On the hand, Mothers United Against Violence is a more grassroots driven community program aimed to unite people, who have lost someone, and to stop the violence in Philadelphia. These programs are not the only answer; education needs to be included with.
In other parts of Philadelphia such, as suburbia Philadelphia education is not a problem. In suburbia Philadelphia, the education is clearly better. Every child gets a quality education amongst other opportunities and most importantly a real chance to succeed. In suburbia Philadelphia the crime rate is nowhere near that of the inner city. Crime in the suburbia area is scarce and almost not accounted for. There is definitely a strong police presence everywhere even though crime is subsequently low. In suburbia problems are stopped before they even start, there is no way over 400 people would be killed in a matter of a couple years in this area. The efforts to combat violence in suburbia Philadelphia are better than those in the inner city, even though there is a rarity of crime in that area. It’s apparent that this violence would not take place in suburbia Philadelphia.
It is also apparent that there is sort of a “White Privilege” in suburbia Philadelphia, since the population is mostly white. The people of this area are considerably more privileged than those of the inner city. Through reading the “Invisible Knapsack” I came across some ideologies of how whites are more privilege. The essay was written by Peggy McIntosh, who was Feminists. Within the essay she touches on some points, as to why Whites are more privileged. One point that Peggy McIntosh brought up that I thought was very interesting is a follows:
My schooling gave me no training in seeing myself as an oppressor, an unfairly advantaged person, or a participant in a damaged culture. I was taught to see myself as an individual whose moral state depended on her individual moral will. My schooling followed the pattern of my colleague Elizabeth Minnich has pointed out: whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work that will allow “them” to be more like “us”.(McIntosh 1)
This is significant because it clearly shows how the education of whites affects them. They are not taught to feel inferior, but superior to all that they can help to be like “them”. McIntosh also gives a list of 50 daily effects of White Privilege. A few of those effects are as follows:
• I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
• When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization,” I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.
• If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race.
• I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.
• If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.(McIntosh 2-4)
McIntosh’s essay clearly shows the effects of being a white person. It shows that whites are indeed more privileged than other races. Which proves my argument that people in suburbia Philadelphia receive a better education, more opportunities, and a ideal setting to become successful individuals. Now, that is clear that race is definitely a factor of the violence within inner city Philadelphia, we must shift the focus back to what is now be done to combat the violence.
Newly elected mayor of Philadelphia Michael Nutter, has made it his goal to subsequently reduce crime in the inner city. He has looked for outside sources, as well as ideas of his own, and he has come up with a Safety Now Plan to combat the violence. Mayor Nutter’s five effective and realistic strategies for dealing with the violence are as follows:
• Declare a Crime Emergency in Targeted Enforcement Zones, which are the City’s most crime-plagued neighborhoods. This policy brief outlines Philadelphia’s emergency powers and my plan to consolidate public authority to restore safety.
• Saturate Targeted Enforcement Zones with tactics that work. This policy brief outlines the use of “hotspots”, directed patrols, and constitutional “stop-question-and frisk” procedures to confiscate illegal guns.
• Focus on repeat offenders, fugitives, and probation/parole violators throughout the City. This policy brief outlines the use of correctional supervision as a tool for both safety and rehabilitation and the need to expand home-grown programs that work.
• Increase resources to sustain these efforts. This policy brief outlines the need to return police force levels to their previous numbers and the need for a new management structure, and the need to expand services to the most vulnerable families and neighborhoods.
• Develop a city where people can build better futures to ensure that real alternatives exist to a life of crime. This policy brief outlines actions necessary to reduce crime over a sustainable future once safety has been restored now. (Nutter 2)
Mayor Nutter’s plan seems efficient, but he left out education in his program. Nutter is trying to do his job a mayor of Philadelphia. Nutter and his colleagues aren’t the only ones at fault for the increasing violence in these areas. Blame has to be placed on the individuals who are involved in these violent acts within the city. They have to look within themselves to change and not rely on others who clearly don’t care to make a change to their environments.
In conclusion, to stop these people who are clearly oppressed there is much to be done. It starts with education, there needs to be more funding to bring people from the streets to the classroom. There needs to be a more equal playing field with suburbia Philadelphia, there needs to be no favoritism when it comes to controlling violence and giving people more resources to succeed.