Ma'ake
08-09-2015, 02:04 PM
The Dominique Hatfield saga has not been easy, for Ute fans. For Domo, and those close to him, it's certainly quite a lot tougher. We were all inspired by Domo as he escaped Crenshaw, and now we all hope he somehow finds a way to turn in a more positive direction... but I've heard the saying paraphrased a few times since this all blew up:
"You can take the kid out of Crenshaw, but it's hard to take Crenshaw out of the kid".
I've seen Domo's story over and over, long before Hatfield ever came to Utah, actually before he was born.
My wife's African American, from a town in Kentucky about the size of Provo, and she comes from the "hood". The American South has its own fascinating history, but the scars of the South definitely impact a large number of African Americans, regardless of where they've migrated.
Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson... I've seen their stories, before they decided to play a role in that tragic theatre.
One of my colleagues is a physician who grew up in Provo, actually played with Whitt and they remain close. This physician did his residency at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, and did a fair amount of work in Detroit.
His wife, also in medicine, had a short assignment in Toronto, Canada, which is not far from Detroit, and is similar in size, and also in racial diversity, with a very large population of Jamaican immigrants, including Utah's Phil Dixon (from the early Majerus era), Tristan Thompson of the Cavaliers, and many other athlete-exports.
If you've never been to Toronto, I highly recommend a visit. If it was in the US, it would be our 5th biggest city, about the size of Houston, with impressive ethnic diversity, and stunningly low amounts of crime.
My colleague, having been floored by the contrast between Toronto and Detroit, asked one of his colleagues at Ann Arbor, a Chinese-Canadian from Toronto, why Toronto has such a low fraction of the problems Detroit had/has.
"Social Policy", was the reply.
The people in Canada, having watched the riots in Detroit and Los Angeles (and elsewhere) and the social upheaval and high rates of crime in many large American cities, decided to try and avoid these issues as they began seeing greater and greater numbers of immigrants, from Carribean Commonwealth nations, India, Hong Kong and other sources of population inflow. So, they implemented a housing voucher program, trying to avoid the formation of ghettos and other concentrations of immigrants who might come to Canada with modest skills, and modest incomes.
Basically, this housing voucher program has been a success. There are other differences between large US cities and Toronto, and Canadian culture is a bit different than American culture, but in terms of answering why Canadians don't have the types of ghettos that perpetuate engrained levels of dysfunction, the housing voucher program is largely the reason why. The Canadians saw the difficulties Americans were having with school busing, and decided the problem needed to be addressed earlier, before kids get to school age.
My own kids have blown away my wife's family, who can't get over how "well spoken" and impressive they are, going to college, never been to prison, aren't in Rehab and don't have 5 kids by 4 women, or whatever.
I tried to explain that it really wasn't that hard - they just grew up as middle class kids, in Utah - but I caught myself and just said "thanks" and pointed out positive attributes about their cousins.
I'm not naive enough to think we could implement a housing voucher problem in the US, and if we did, by itself it would not magically transform troublesome areas like Crenshaw, Compton, SW Houston, (as Jim Croce used to sing about) "The South Side of Chicago", Ferguson, Missouri, or inner city Miami.
Maybe this post and Whitt's physician friend's experience in Detroit and Toronto can be some food for thought.
"You can take the kid out of Crenshaw, but it's hard to take Crenshaw out of the kid".
I've seen Domo's story over and over, long before Hatfield ever came to Utah, actually before he was born.
My wife's African American, from a town in Kentucky about the size of Provo, and she comes from the "hood". The American South has its own fascinating history, but the scars of the South definitely impact a large number of African Americans, regardless of where they've migrated.
Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson... I've seen their stories, before they decided to play a role in that tragic theatre.
One of my colleagues is a physician who grew up in Provo, actually played with Whitt and they remain close. This physician did his residency at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, and did a fair amount of work in Detroit.
His wife, also in medicine, had a short assignment in Toronto, Canada, which is not far from Detroit, and is similar in size, and also in racial diversity, with a very large population of Jamaican immigrants, including Utah's Phil Dixon (from the early Majerus era), Tristan Thompson of the Cavaliers, and many other athlete-exports.
If you've never been to Toronto, I highly recommend a visit. If it was in the US, it would be our 5th biggest city, about the size of Houston, with impressive ethnic diversity, and stunningly low amounts of crime.
My colleague, having been floored by the contrast between Toronto and Detroit, asked one of his colleagues at Ann Arbor, a Chinese-Canadian from Toronto, why Toronto has such a low fraction of the problems Detroit had/has.
"Social Policy", was the reply.
The people in Canada, having watched the riots in Detroit and Los Angeles (and elsewhere) and the social upheaval and high rates of crime in many large American cities, decided to try and avoid these issues as they began seeing greater and greater numbers of immigrants, from Carribean Commonwealth nations, India, Hong Kong and other sources of population inflow. So, they implemented a housing voucher program, trying to avoid the formation of ghettos and other concentrations of immigrants who might come to Canada with modest skills, and modest incomes.
Basically, this housing voucher program has been a success. There are other differences between large US cities and Toronto, and Canadian culture is a bit different than American culture, but in terms of answering why Canadians don't have the types of ghettos that perpetuate engrained levels of dysfunction, the housing voucher program is largely the reason why. The Canadians saw the difficulties Americans were having with school busing, and decided the problem needed to be addressed earlier, before kids get to school age.
My own kids have blown away my wife's family, who can't get over how "well spoken" and impressive they are, going to college, never been to prison, aren't in Rehab and don't have 5 kids by 4 women, or whatever.
I tried to explain that it really wasn't that hard - they just grew up as middle class kids, in Utah - but I caught myself and just said "thanks" and pointed out positive attributes about their cousins.
I'm not naive enough to think we could implement a housing voucher problem in the US, and if we did, by itself it would not magically transform troublesome areas like Crenshaw, Compton, SW Houston, (as Jim Croce used to sing about) "The South Side of Chicago", Ferguson, Missouri, or inner city Miami.
Maybe this post and Whitt's physician friend's experience in Detroit and Toronto can be some food for thought.