Lord of the Flies, Redux

Thanks to the intarwebz, it is magically easy to come upon stories, and points of view, that would have been inaccessible otherwise.

Unfortunately, there is nothing fun about this one. From What About Our Daughters: Unapologetic, Uncompromising, and Unbowed in Defense of Black Women and Girls, comes this story from just the other side of civilization:

We joke a lot about ESSENCE magazine's [For international readers, this refers to a magazine catering to African American women.] editorial philosophy being that we're all going to die old and alone and be eaten alive by 9 cats, but seriously, what is life going to look like for all of these single Black women when they are 85 years old?

In this case, an elderly woman who lived alone found herself the target of the neighborhood bully... a 12 year old boy.

YES the neighborhood allowed itself to be terrorized by a pre-teen who apparently led a gang of other teens. they tried to set her house on fire, they cursed her out, she called the police and nobody came and apparently this little group of URBAN TERRORISTS were terrorizing the entire neighborhood... and he's only 12. Of course the "grandmother" of the 12 year old says he and his friends were ....just. walking. by.... AT 11PM AT NIGHT. Notice they didn't say the mother or father, but the GRANDMOTHER. I would be embarrassed to admit, my child ran the streets at night.

[From the accompanying news story] Neighbors said an elderly woman was fed up with constant harassment from a 12-year-old boy, so she took a gun and shot the child after he and his friends threw bricks into her home.

What surprised me most about this story was the comments. When reading them, which I obviously recommend, keep in mind who the audience is.

Two other things pushed to the fore.

Patrick Moynihan told us so, in as clear a case of prescience as one is likely to find nearly, fifty years ago.

Also, guns are a great equalizer.

In both cases, being a progressive means never saying "Whoops. Sorry."