Starr
12-12-2005, 01:07 AM
They must all be mentally ill, and in need of antipsychotic medications!
www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051208/METRO/512080354/1003
HAMTRAMCK --To some, they're ethnic gangs. Others call them youths -- sometimes of different nationalities -- who punch, beat and knife each other.
Either way, an outbreak of violence has community leaders worried in this 2 1/2 -square-mile stew where recent immigrants and longtime residents pride themselves as being an oasis of diversity in a region marked by segregation.(yes, it sounds like they are getting along splendidly)
Longtime tensions -- and new ones -- have erupted into bloody fights this year among the 25-plus ethnic groups in the city of 23,000 residents. In spring, Hamtramck High School spent $22,000 installing discreet, saucer-sized cameras after averaging a fight every three days. The middle school may follow suit, and there are ongoing discussions about stationing full-time police officers in schools.
"It's a mess, and it's a wonder no one has died yet," said William Hood, a community activist who campaigned unsuccessfully for City Council last month.
Police and school officials downplay talk of gangs or ethnic violence but acknowledge altercations have grown increasingly violent. They say fights sometimes break down along racial lines, but that's inevitable in a school district where students speak 26 languages and dialects.
"I don't know if there's an ethnic problem so much as kids being more violent nowadays," said Police Chief James Doyle. "In this day and age, it always seems to escalate into bats, sticks, knives or occasionally guns but if it's not organized. If it was, this would be the United Nations of gangs."(don't blame multiculturalism, diversity is our strength)
Community leaders have hosted meetings throughout the year to broker peace and foster understanding. Titus Waters, a school board member, said they've eased tensions in the city where any given street is lined by Polish bakeries, Arab markets, Indian restaurants and Bangladeshi offices.
Like others in this fiercely proud city, Waters said Hamtramck's diversity should be an example for a metropolis that 2000 Census figures showed to be the most segregated in the United States.
"Hamtramck can still be a model for the rest of the world, but right now, we've got some knuckleheads who continue to cause problems," he said.
Others claim the trouble is just now brewing. Ronald Davis, a former Detroit detective, compares the situation in Hamtramck to the flowering of youth gangs in the mid-1970s in Detroit.
He's a member of a new group, Hamtramck Unified Social Services, formed by church leaders, civil-rights workers and social workers to get community leaders of different ethnicities to sit down together and find common ground.
"You've got Albanian gangs, black gangs, Hispanic gangs, Liberian gangs, Burundi gangs -- you name it -- there's mistrust everywhere," said Davis, a social worker.
Racial cliques persist
Patrick Victor has walked the halls of Hamtramck High enough to wear out two pairs of shoes a year, memorize the number of steps in every stairway and know that -- despite all efforts at integration -- different ethnicities stick together.
In classrooms, students wearing basketball jerseys study alongside those in Muslim headwraps and Hindu holy forehead dots, or bindis. They study together, but come lunch or breaks, students separate, said Victor, who became principal two years ago after eight years in the school.
"If two black kids get into a fight, it's just a fight," Victor said.
"But if it's a black kid and an Arab, it immediately is labeled racial by outsiders. Our fights are over the same things as Grosse Pointe or anywhere else, but when it happens in Hamtramck, it acquires a different dynamic."
Victor said most altercations stem from disputes about girlfriends or misunderstandings -- just like in most high schools. To students and teachers, the ethnicities of combatants are an afterthought, Victor said. Outsiders zero in on race. "By admitting there was a problem and taking steps to correct it, that perception seems greater," Victor said.
Exact tallies aren't available, but Victor said the 925-student school recorded about 50 fights in the 2004-05 academic year. Security cameras have cut that number by about a third this year, Victor said.
Comparisons to other districts are tricky. Michigan keeps track of fights but lets schools self-report the data. Many critics have questioned the validity of the numbers.
History of animosity
Waters and other longtime Hamtramck residents say tensions between Arab and black students have persisted for years at the high school. No one knows why they began, but student Terrell Beasley said animosities are passed down like old generational family feuds.
The black 17-year-old was attacked in June by a group of about a dozen Arab-Americans who jumped out of a car and beat him with a bat or cane. Briefly hospitalized for nerve damage to his neck, Beasley insisted there was no provocation for the attack.
"It ain't really the school's fault. It's the students' fault," said Beasley, who is now a senior.
"It's just the way things are. Blacks and Arabs don't get along. It's been like that since the beginning. You fight, then someone's family member goes after somebody. It just keeps going on and on."
Beasley said fights have decreased this year at the school because students don't want to risk 10-day suspensions. Now, some settle their differences away from school grounds, he said.
"Outside the school, on the streets, it's a different story," said his friend, Randy Cammon, 18, a senior. "I just watch my back."
Like other urban districts, the school requires all students to pass through metal detectors to enter the school. For the last few years, students have been required to wear clip-on photo IDs. The measures have helped, said Fatmir Palojak, 17, a senior whose family emigrated from Kosovo eight years ago.
"Things are getting better," he said. "Last school year, I saw a lot of fights between ethnic groups. Before it was every day. Now, it's more calm. With Arabs and blacks, it's just a cultural thing -- hate."
Several fights erupted during the Hamtramck Festival over Labor Day weekend. Hood, the neighborhood activist, said some were attacked with bats. Doyle said accounts were exaggerated and blamed outside troublemakers.
Waters graduated from Hamtramck High School in 1981. Back then, fights broke out between blacks and Arabs, but he said the animosity "didn't last this long. This is different."
"I love Hamtramck because of its diversity," he said. "There's violence, but I don't think it's racially motivated. How can it be?(how blind does someone have to be to deny something right in front of their face?) All the kids listen to the same music, dress the same and are part of the same culture nowadays, whether they're black, white, Polish, Arabic, Bosnian, Albanian or Bengali."
www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051208/METRO/512080354/1003
HAMTRAMCK --To some, they're ethnic gangs. Others call them youths -- sometimes of different nationalities -- who punch, beat and knife each other.
Either way, an outbreak of violence has community leaders worried in this 2 1/2 -square-mile stew where recent immigrants and longtime residents pride themselves as being an oasis of diversity in a region marked by segregation.(yes, it sounds like they are getting along splendidly)
Longtime tensions -- and new ones -- have erupted into bloody fights this year among the 25-plus ethnic groups in the city of 23,000 residents. In spring, Hamtramck High School spent $22,000 installing discreet, saucer-sized cameras after averaging a fight every three days. The middle school may follow suit, and there are ongoing discussions about stationing full-time police officers in schools.
"It's a mess, and it's a wonder no one has died yet," said William Hood, a community activist who campaigned unsuccessfully for City Council last month.
Police and school officials downplay talk of gangs or ethnic violence but acknowledge altercations have grown increasingly violent. They say fights sometimes break down along racial lines, but that's inevitable in a school district where students speak 26 languages and dialects.
"I don't know if there's an ethnic problem so much as kids being more violent nowadays," said Police Chief James Doyle. "In this day and age, it always seems to escalate into bats, sticks, knives or occasionally guns but if it's not organized. If it was, this would be the United Nations of gangs."(don't blame multiculturalism, diversity is our strength)
Community leaders have hosted meetings throughout the year to broker peace and foster understanding. Titus Waters, a school board member, said they've eased tensions in the city where any given street is lined by Polish bakeries, Arab markets, Indian restaurants and Bangladeshi offices.
Like others in this fiercely proud city, Waters said Hamtramck's diversity should be an example for a metropolis that 2000 Census figures showed to be the most segregated in the United States.
"Hamtramck can still be a model for the rest of the world, but right now, we've got some knuckleheads who continue to cause problems," he said.
Others claim the trouble is just now brewing. Ronald Davis, a former Detroit detective, compares the situation in Hamtramck to the flowering of youth gangs in the mid-1970s in Detroit.
He's a member of a new group, Hamtramck Unified Social Services, formed by church leaders, civil-rights workers and social workers to get community leaders of different ethnicities to sit down together and find common ground.
"You've got Albanian gangs, black gangs, Hispanic gangs, Liberian gangs, Burundi gangs -- you name it -- there's mistrust everywhere," said Davis, a social worker.
Racial cliques persist
Patrick Victor has walked the halls of Hamtramck High enough to wear out two pairs of shoes a year, memorize the number of steps in every stairway and know that -- despite all efforts at integration -- different ethnicities stick together.
In classrooms, students wearing basketball jerseys study alongside those in Muslim headwraps and Hindu holy forehead dots, or bindis. They study together, but come lunch or breaks, students separate, said Victor, who became principal two years ago after eight years in the school.
"If two black kids get into a fight, it's just a fight," Victor said.
"But if it's a black kid and an Arab, it immediately is labeled racial by outsiders. Our fights are over the same things as Grosse Pointe or anywhere else, but when it happens in Hamtramck, it acquires a different dynamic."
Victor said most altercations stem from disputes about girlfriends or misunderstandings -- just like in most high schools. To students and teachers, the ethnicities of combatants are an afterthought, Victor said. Outsiders zero in on race. "By admitting there was a problem and taking steps to correct it, that perception seems greater," Victor said.
Exact tallies aren't available, but Victor said the 925-student school recorded about 50 fights in the 2004-05 academic year. Security cameras have cut that number by about a third this year, Victor said.
Comparisons to other districts are tricky. Michigan keeps track of fights but lets schools self-report the data. Many critics have questioned the validity of the numbers.
History of animosity
Waters and other longtime Hamtramck residents say tensions between Arab and black students have persisted for years at the high school. No one knows why they began, but student Terrell Beasley said animosities are passed down like old generational family feuds.
The black 17-year-old was attacked in June by a group of about a dozen Arab-Americans who jumped out of a car and beat him with a bat or cane. Briefly hospitalized for nerve damage to his neck, Beasley insisted there was no provocation for the attack.
"It ain't really the school's fault. It's the students' fault," said Beasley, who is now a senior.
"It's just the way things are. Blacks and Arabs don't get along. It's been like that since the beginning. You fight, then someone's family member goes after somebody. It just keeps going on and on."
Beasley said fights have decreased this year at the school because students don't want to risk 10-day suspensions. Now, some settle their differences away from school grounds, he said.
"Outside the school, on the streets, it's a different story," said his friend, Randy Cammon, 18, a senior. "I just watch my back."
Like other urban districts, the school requires all students to pass through metal detectors to enter the school. For the last few years, students have been required to wear clip-on photo IDs. The measures have helped, said Fatmir Palojak, 17, a senior whose family emigrated from Kosovo eight years ago.
"Things are getting better," he said. "Last school year, I saw a lot of fights between ethnic groups. Before it was every day. Now, it's more calm. With Arabs and blacks, it's just a cultural thing -- hate."
Several fights erupted during the Hamtramck Festival over Labor Day weekend. Hood, the neighborhood activist, said some were attacked with bats. Doyle said accounts were exaggerated and blamed outside troublemakers.
Waters graduated from Hamtramck High School in 1981. Back then, fights broke out between blacks and Arabs, but he said the animosity "didn't last this long. This is different."
"I love Hamtramck because of its diversity," he said. "There's violence, but I don't think it's racially motivated. How can it be?(how blind does someone have to be to deny something right in front of their face?) All the kids listen to the same music, dress the same and are part of the same culture nowadays, whether they're black, white, Polish, Arabic, Bosnian, Albanian or Bengali."