Food for thought

"While violence has been a factor in our slums and ghettos for decades, never has it been so deadly.  Today children face the almost impossible task of making life or death decisions all alone, in a matter of minutes, sometimes seconds.  Even those of us who have been lucky enough to survive enough violent encounters to have gained an amount of expertise in dealing with violence find the current codes of conduct to be so harsh, capricious, and variable that it makes it almost impossible to help young people cope with the everyday violence they face on the streets and in schools.  Today many children grow up in a waking nightmare of sudden death around every corner."

~ from Fist stick knife gun: a personal history of violence in America by Geoffrey Canada