Papa was a rolling stone.

• Author: Vatz, Richard E.
• Position: SOCIOLOGICALLY SPEAKING

IN JUNE, The Baltimore Sun had a front-page article authored or contributed to by five of the newspaper's top reporters on the "record violence" and the fact that the city is in "crisis." The well-written-- but incorrectly focused--account looked at the city's "top law enforcement officers" (the mayor, police commissioner, and states attorney), and how they have been working to alleviate the violence. The lengthy examination looked at the problems of out-of-control crime and the police, highlighting the latter's difficulties in combating crime, including a confusing and ambiguous Department of Justice consent decree. The account indicated that the top political leaders, but not other political principals, were inexplicably confident that the city would "turn the corner" and that the violence will lessen significantly.

The piece notes that the city leaders speak about the "root causes of violence--poverty, substandard education, and a lack of job opportunities. ..." What is missing from this analysis and virtually all other public analyses of city violence is the most-telling of interrelated causes: fatherlessness, the city's criminal culture, dysfunctional families, and timorous politicians and religious leaders.

"Square Off," Baltimore's long-running television discussion program, devoted a segment of a June show to the problem of violence in Baltimore, including particularly articulate and perspicacious guests, such as former Mayor Curt Schmoke and rising local media star and businessman Tyrone Keys. However, there was not a mention of changing dysfunctional families or Baltimore's population or criminal culture. To see a lengthy discussion of ever-increasing city murders, shootings, and violent crime with no reference to the culture there, fatherlessness, and defective families is like evaluating a baseball team with no hitting, fielding, or speed and suggesting that, if it gets some faster players, the problem of losing could be solved.

There is a general avoidance of even mentioning the problem of fatherlessness in high-crime discussions. Exceptions to this in Maryland include shows on WBAL-Radio, on which this writer has been a guest and has criticized local politicians for uncourageously avoiding this key issue. On July 22, 2017, I was a guest on "The Jimmy Mathis Show" and Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh called in, yet refused to speak to me.

I have come a long way in my obligation as a semi-public figure to talk about such matters...