INC NEWS - column on sale of crack pipes disguised as "romantic" trinkets (N&O)

[John Schelp]

column: When the menu changes, youth's choices will
improve
By John Schwade, Durham News, 16 Sept 2006

It was on the menu.

The restaurant was acclaimed for its menu, and seemed
the perfect place for a lad of 20 years, aspiring to
sophistication, to take his date. Bewildered by the
selections, he ordered an item with one familiar word:
"steak." He didn't know the meaning of the other word,
"tartare," but the waiter assured him he had made a
good choice.

When the steak tartare was served, the greenhorn
gourmet instantly learned not only what it was, but
how to prepare it: grind beef, mix in vegetables and
spices, mold it into a mound, and serve it raw.
Humbled, the young man asked the waiter to return the
pound of flesh to the kitchen, where frying
transformed it into the most expensive hamburger he
would ever eat.

He had made a bad choice. Yet 30 years later he still
wonders why such an unhealthy concoction, a feast only
for the na•ve or indiscreet, was even on the menu.

Today, when unknowing or reckless young people make
"bad choices," the consequences are more severe than
humiliation before one's dinner companion. Kids, we
are told, must be taught to make "good choices," lest
they or others suffer death, disability,
disfigurement, incarceration, addiction, AIDS, etc.
Nevertheless, now more than ever the menu presented to
children and youth is full of bad choices. 

The implications are understood by the Rev. Melvin
Whitley, who announced his intention to propose an
ordinance at the Sept. 21 work session of the Durham
City Council that would ban the sale of crack pipes
disguised as "romantic" trinkets.

When crack pipes are on the "menu" of seemingly
legitimate businesses it causes harm beyond the
obvious facilitation of self-destructive behavior.
Children and adolescents witnessing the open sale of
crack pipes may draw the same conclusions arrived at
by prison inmates I've spoken with:

* Crack isn't as bad as they say it is.

* They are too stupid to realize what the pipes are
used for.

* They are afraid to stop people from selling or using
crack.

* They don't care if crack destroys us. That's why
they let the CIA put it in our neighborhoods.

Halting the sale of crack pipes in local stores won't
stop crack use, but even forcing merchants to hide the
pipes refutes these interpretations. It tells kids
that selling or using crack is not a legitimate
choice, and the honorable citizens of Durham are
neither na•ve nor cowardly nor uncaring.

That's a small but significant step in aiding
neighborhoods such as Whitley's, where residents
endure incessant gunfire and death threats for
"snitching" as they hunker down in houses with more
iron bars than a modern prison. In the words of
Durham's terrorists, they've got these neighborhoods
"on lockdown," which is another choice offered to
children and youth.

Incredibly, "Lock Down the Block" was presented as
"Step 2" of a thug curriculum appearing as a series of
advertisements for rapper 50 Cent's G Unit clothing.
50 Cent was pictured supervising his small change as
they enforced the eternal curfew he'd imposed.

These ads were printed in the hip-hop magazines that
essentially serve as the menus of "bad choices" for
young people.

XXL magazine, for example, publishes articles for
children (e.g., how to select a bicycle) and promises
"hip-hop on a higher level," but stoops to telling
kids how to: form a gang (from Fat Joe of the Terror
Squad); display gang allegiance (an ad for New Era
caps informs, "It's not a cap, it's a flag"); buy
marijuana; pimp women; torture disobedient women;
smuggle drugs into prisons; absorb bullets ("Cam'ron
took 'em and smiled"); select a wheelchair; dress for
your own funeral; and become your own god, so you can
decide who should live and who should die.

Likewise, The Source offers support for the "Stop
Snitching" campaign, and just in case witnesses are
not intimidated, advice on what hip-hop "gear"
defendants should wear to court.

These criminal menus are sold throughout Durham.
Merchants have a right to sell them, but the First
Amendment also guarantees your right to object, to
signal to both current and potential terrorists that
"thug life" is not a legitimate choice.

As long as outrages are presented as sensible
alternatives, Durham's citizens will endure them, and
each will cause us to wonder how a young person could
make such a "bad choice."

It was on the menu.


Durham resident John Schwade is a psychologist at a
state prison.