The Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance of Asheville/Buncombe County, a group of Black ministers wanting to do something about youth and crime, hosted a public meeting to address the recent gang problems. Rather than rabble-rousing, the ministers appeared sincere, intelligent, and searching. In almost cliché fashion, the ministers presented a statement that they want to send to the press. The floor was opened for general comments, and then the forty-some attendees broke into focus groups. Before breaking out, some in the audience voiced dissatisfaction with the aimlessness with which the meeting was proceeding.

The six focus groups were to discuss the following subject matters: Education, Economics, Home, Police, Church, and Streets & Leisure. A representative of the Urban News in the audience requested that a seventh group, Communications, be formed. The suggestion was accepted. Members of the audience were then asked to pick a group. NOBODY went to the group entitled Home. Two of the three ministers assigned to facilitate this group didn’t even bother to show. Nuff said?

If not, here’s more. One man straggled into the Home group, and Miss Reporter ditched her steno pad to pitch in. Incensed, she had one of her volcanic eruptions about basic Sunday school lessons. Had they not heard that, “No success can compensate for failure in the home?” Did not they hear the story about the kid who annoyed his dad until his dad ripped up a map of the world, making a puzzle. A couple minutes later, the kid returned to annoy his dad. “How did you do that?” asked the dad. “There was a picture of a home on the back of the map. I just put the home together, and the world fell in place.”

The focus group griped about programs, their paperwork, the stardom they bring to their leadership, and the people that get left behind unchanged. They talked about how addicts recover when they find God, not when they get squashed into fourteen different ill-considered programs with no follow-through and, more importantly, no love. The whole affair turned into something evangelical, with discussion about kids acting as if there was no God, no Final Judgment, and no consequences for their actions; kids mouthing off and showing no respect for their elders; the devastating impact, as politically incorrect as it sounds, of single moms working and leaving their kids to be raised, in some instances, by street kids.

When the groups reported back to the general audience, they spoke of needing more programs. It would have been inappropriate for the two ministers and Miss Reporter to gloat on higher ground, but they all three realized something sacred was at stake, and some of these people weren’t getting it. Courageously, the Reverend Donald McDaniel reported to the audience the wonderful truths shared by the Home group that were so targeted at the fundamental flaws of today’s society they could have made an ACLU lawyer chomp at the bit.