What can I say about Eugene Kane's column in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on the recent outbreak of robberies on the Marquette and UWM campuses?
I think Kane writes this stuff just to get people upset. He can't be serious. I know Kane is better than this. It's a shame he resorts to such tactics.
It's his style to taunt, a sick sort of amusement.
From Kane's "Classes clash in campus robberies":
Some call it the perennial battle between the townies and the college kids.
It's what happens if your college is located in a predominantly working-class area where local yokels resent the presence of a bunch of privileged youngsters who spend four years in the community before setting off for better climes.
Often, it's more a class thing than anything else. The townies are the young people who end up as employees in the service economy; the college kids end up owning the store.
That's not exactly the same dynamic in the recent rash of street robberies at Marquette University and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campuses, but it's in the same ballpark.
Two teenage males were arrested this week in connection with three armed robberies near the UWM campus. The robberies, in which victims were robbed of cell phones and wallets, were remarkable only in their brashness. It's apparently part of a trend.
Across town at Marquette, another spurt of robberies on campus this month featured a scary incident involving students kidnapped in a stolen van and driven around in order to make ATM withdrawals.
Kane has tried to morph the ruthless thugs committing the armed robberies on innocent students in Milwaukee into something out of Breaking Away.
His townies v. college kids stuff doesn't fly. This isn't a feel good underdog story.
We're talking about ARMED ROBBERY.
The college kids aren't being jerks. They're going about their business and the thugs are going about breaking the law.
This isn't a class struggle.
Kane's townies could go to college if they applied themselves. They're responsible for choosing to be criminals.
He goes on:
Drive through any of our various metropolitan campuses and you'll see most students seem oblivious to their appearance as easy marks. Whether it's the carefree gait or the book bags slung over their backs, some students must seem as enticing to would-be robbers as a baby seal to a shark.
This is called "blaming the victim."
The students are easy marks. Of course, they become victims. The thugs can't control themselves. What a load!
The degree of racial segregation in a place like Milwaukee also contributes. Many of the black males who end up committing crimes on college campuses probably operate under the false assumption that every white college kid is loaded with cash and credit cards. It's the flip side of white kids assuming every black person from the central city is from a poor family or a drug dealer.
No.
I don't buy that.
This isn't about stereotypes. To use Barack Obama's phrasing, it's not about "typical" black males or "typical" white kids. Segregation isn't a contributing factor here.
We're talking about people choosing to commit ARMED ROBBERY, breaking the law.
Kane makes it sound like black males are banned from becoming students at Marquette or UWM. Of course, that's completely false. Some black males in the city are making bad choices.
College students in Milwaukee deserve special protection; they represent our future work force and brainpower. At the same time, some students ignore the law when it comes to raucous parties and rampant drug use but insist on swift police response whenever crime hits them personally.
That's a cheap shot. It's very unfair to use such a broad brush when describing Milwaukee's college students as taking part in raucous parties and rampant drug use.
The battle between townies and campus kids has been going on for decades, but in a city like Milwaukee, it's more serious than that. Here, it's a battle between young people with drastically different futures, mainly due to their opportunities for better education.
Sadly, the only place they ever seem to meet up is on the police blotter.
The ARMED ROBBERIES at Marquette and UWM are not a battle between townies and campus kids.
It's crime, pure and simple.
Tax dollars are being poured into public schools to give every young person in the city of Milwaukee an education. What's sad is that so many don't seize the gift of that opportunity.
If they don't show up in middle school and high school, they can't expect to make it in college.
If they do show up but spend more time fighting than studying, they are choosing their spot on the police blotter.
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