With all due respect to Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, black community leaders and pastors at the recently-convened African American community meeting who want black males to mentor their youth and stop the killing, I think they are all off the mark ("City leaders call on black men to mentor youths and stop the violence," March 25).
May I suggest that this starts with a culture change — 14-year-old girls should not be giving birth to babies who have little to no future beyond the streets. Fourteen-year-olds should be in schools, good schools learning a skill set that will enable them to be independent mothers if need be and wonderful caring parents with a father in the home. The current business of having baby after baby only to see these children live a life of poverty and eventually crime by being raised by the streets has got to stop. It is the only way.
Workshops, speeches, forums and other events mean nothing, birth control and practicing it is what will work along with a good education. I think Ms. Rawlings-Blake knows this and I also think its high time we really addressed the real problem of government assistance run amok instead of government assistance in education.
Bernard F. McKernan