The incidences of violence among the youth are increasingly becoming a major social problem that begs addressing. But, how can the problem be addressed when there is confusion as to the reason for the upsurge in violence?

Although youth violence is becoming an epidemic across America it is particularly worrisome in South Florida. Just recently a 15-year-old Deerfield girl was brutally beaten, left close to death with possible brain damage, by a 15 year old boy who didn’t even know her, but was incensed by text messages the two exchanged.

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The incidences of violence among the youth (translated as middle and high school students) are increasingly becoming a major social problem that begs addressing. But, how can the problem be addressed when there is confusion as to the reason for the upsurge in violence?

Although youth violence is becoming an epidemic across America it is particularly worrisome in South Florida. Just recently a 15-year-old Deerfield girl was brutally beaten, left close to death with possible brain damage, by a 15 year old boy who didn’t even know her, but was incensed by text messages the two exchanged.

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Recent events in the U.S. and in Jamaica have many people wondering if there is a new meaning to ‘brain drain’. It appears not only to refer to those with scarce skills and brain power leaving Third World countries for the First World, but to those in both worlds who seem to be losing their brains.

How else can one explain the reaction by a large section of the American population and members of the Republican Party to the new healthcare reform law recently signed by the U.S. president?

It is unintelligent and abusive for people to react to the new healthcare law with death threats, malicious phone calls, slanderous name calling, raucous protest rallies and a general sense of disorder.

Instead of trying to find ways to improve possible flaws in the new law, which for the first time provides healthcare insurance to millions of Americans currently without coverage and benefits for those who are covered, Republicans are threatening to repeal it.

Additionally, some have decided to use scarce taxpayers’ dollars to file lawsuits to fight the constitutionality of the new law. Where is the sense in that?

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For the past couple weeks, I have received dozens of emails about March being Women’s History Month and there have been several insightful newspaper articles celebrating the accomplishments of women throughout history.  In fact, in 2010, the celebrations are focused on writing women back into history. As a woman with no children of my own, I often wonder if I will be able to leave any mark on history. When you’ve no progeny of your own to remember you or to carry on your name, the notion of your legacy gets more than a fleeting thought.

If you’re going to be part of history, I would imagine that you’re expected to break through some significant barrier, as did Dame Jocelyn Barrow, Maya Angelou, Heather Headley, Edna Manley, Beryl McBurnie and many others whose achievements dwarf those of someone like me. These women were all very talented in their various fields, and all of them were able to be influential in their communities.

What then can us lesser mortals hope for? Perhaps all we can do is identify a talent within us – big or small, do our best to make that talent work for us in a positive way and then work even harder to positively impact our own small sphere of influence.  We hope to be able to inspire someone else with what we do and how we do it. We’ve got to start some place and I am a firm believer in finding that starting spot – that jumping off comfortable thing that one does well in order to be impactful.

In my mind, there is no more powerful woman in this world than a mother. I watch my sisters and see how their way of doing things, of thinking, of solving a problem has now been internalized and fine tuned by their various sons – all six of them. It is a bit disconcerting to hear justification for an act that sounds oddly familiar, oddly older than the mouth from which it sprouts with such confidence. Suddenly, some Trinidadian flavor is now imbued with the taste of the red, white and blue of Americana.

I see and hear it in myself when I say something that I know is the exact wording of a warning my own mother gave me many years ago.

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