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Address by
Dr. Kildare Clarke
April 8, 2000
Let me look at two quick issues, because I know I just have five minutes when it comes to violence.
Let's look at raising your children. The government would rather tell you that you cannot raise your child the way you think is fair and fit, because it's “child abuse.” To me, when someone takes their child, and puts their hand in a bucket of boiling water, yes, that's child abuse. “I threw him down a flight of stairs”—that's child abuse.
But whether you're a single parent or both parents at home--because, believe me, it doesn't make that much difference--the discipline is what makes the difference. And you take your child and say, “I'm the parent, you're the child, and when I tell you to study, when I tell you it's bedtime, when I tell you to respect your elders or all those around you, because they're a community which helped to raise you.” And then the government tells you, you cannot do that, because “We're going to tell you how to raise the child”; and then, later on, when the child gets into problems, because you could not raise your child, the government is willing to take the child away, put it in jail, and create that industry which I'm talking about, the prison-military-industrial complex--it's a crime....
You want the child to carry on certain functions which are important to you. Because a lot of us, as parents, live our lives through our children also, because they're part of us and it carries on. However, you tell the child, “Don't do this.” You said to the child, “When you go to school, I want you to respect the teacher.” However, our laws tell us the teacher cannot discipline your child. How schizophrenic that can be!
The teacher is a substitute parent, at different times. The preacher is a substitute parent. The person at the corner store is a substitute parent. They want your child to grow up as a normal child, just like their children. Yet, the government is telling you, “No, don't do that. You can't do that.” But, the policeman can be “the substitute parent”: He can beat him over the head, he can shoot him when he's unarmed. He can lock him up in jail, because he is the jailer: those people who are called the street-level bureaucrats.
My fellow brothers and sisters: The pain of watching economic violence is real. You think about the hungry child, how can he learn? Think about the child who is wondering whether someone is going to come through the window to steal just the little television set he has. Those are the types of violence which are perpetrated against our people. And when I say “our people,” I am not separating out black and white, because the color doesn't make a difference. When I'm transfusing somebody with blood, I didn't see it marked “black blood,” “white blood,” “red blood.” When you are dying, I don't take out my stethoscope and say, “Well, he's white, let him go; he's black, he's from Mississippi, let him go; he is yellow, he's from China, okay let me save him.”
No, I take an oath to save you. It doesn't matter how much money you have or what you have or who you are, or what ethnic background you belong to. My fellow men and women: Violence is real, it's painful, it affects each and every one. The economics of it, the sociological standpoint, the psychological standpoint, the physical standpoint--whether it affects you directly or indirectly--it is dangerous, it is a precedent-setting problem. We must come together, join together, and solve it. If we do not solve it, nobody's going to do it....
No longer do we want to think. You ask someone to add two and two, they run to the computer. Where is our brain? It is there to be used. I want us to use it to help our fellow mankind, because every time we help our fellow mankind, we're helping ourself. It might not seem this way to you, but today, when you are walking, and you pass the next man in the street, and you disregard him, the moment you fall with that heart attack, or whatever, it's that same person you just passed, who you want to come and help you. So, let's not wait until it's too late to do it. Let's begin now.
Let us get government off our backs! There is absolutely no reason for government to be functional, if they cannot carry out these functions which we elect them to do, which is to make sure we are safe, to make sure we are protected, we have food to eat; to make sure we have good health care; to make sure we have good shelter; and to make sure we are educated. And, as I said, a degree does not mean education. There are many other things which go into education.
The extended family: If you go to Africa or some of the Caribbean countries, where the stranger on the street can stop your child and say, “You're doing something which is wrong,” and can cane your child, and can send him home with a note to the parent, that, “I have just disciplined your child.” And the parent turns around and re-disciplines the child. That's the right discipline. Let us continue that once more.
I have to move on, so I should move on to tell you, let us join in a collective force to stop the violence. Thank you.
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