Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Lost My Job

So as you can tell form my last post, I used to work for a youth council here in San Diego. It is under the umbrella of a policy panel which carried with it 4 main components. Youth Advocacy, community organizing and law enforcement. I worked for the Youth advocacy component of course. When I first became interested in the position I was very clear with myself but somewhat unclear with staff members about my stance regarding the "youth and drinking law enforcement task force". Problems came when I was asked to participate in a ceremony where police officers were going to be awarded for their service in this arena. I declined to participate and everything kinda snowballed from there. This "stance" is not an I hate cops thing, or I hate authority. This is the reality of the disproportionate amount of alcohol abuse in our economically disadvantaged neighborhoods of color and the lack of preventive measures and justice in those communities. Theres 4 liquor stores a in two block radius from my house. No parks. No community centers. Lighting is limited. What we do have, is an abundance of cops.

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