SF Boy Who Raised $$$ to Help Columbine Teen Failed by Society (sad)

[Yollam]

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/01/18/MNG9IGP0I71.DTL



Bayview success story's tragic end
Heroic track star shot dead after failing school, turning to crime
Patricia Yollin, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 18, 2006


When Rashad Williams was growing up in San Francisco, he was a track star with a future. In 1999, at age 15, he turned into a national hero by raising $40,000 for a victim of the Columbine massacre. Last year, he robbed two banks. In December, he died -- shot to death by a Clearlake man who said his home was being invaded.

Rashad Williams was 21.

"I don't know how I'm going to deal with this," said his mother, Sheila Burton. "My child is gone."

For Williams' friends and family, it is a shocking end to a life that was as improbable as any life could be...


What a heartbreaking story.

What a waste.

[Squatch]

1. Failed by society?

:shrug:

[Yollam]

2. Read the story.

More specifically, his school.

[Squatch]

3. OK, I read it...

I still don't understand how this is society's failings?

I don't mean to be glib and maybe I'm missing the point, but he could raise $$$ for a stranger but had to resort to crime for himself/his family?

[Yollam]

7. Not to make excuses for what he did...

...but there are not enough good opportunities out there for white kids, much less black kids who didn't quite excel academically. You could argue that a better man would have turned around and somehow made it into an opportunity, or at least just persevered and survived. But an awful lot of us are not better men. I guess all I'm saying is that in a saner, more decent, better America, this boy could have made it. He obviously had a lot of heart and took it hard when he felt everyone had blown him off.

By saying I think society failed him, I'm in no way letting him off the hook for his crimes. I wish he'd found less destructive ways of acting out. I can't imagine what made him that desperate. Drugs, maybe?

[Squatch]

11. And there we are back to "society" failing him.

Who, exactly, in "society" failed him? His track coach? The IRS? Or little ol' me?

It sounds like he had many opportunities to excel, which he did when raising money for somebody else, but chose another path when it came to his own future.

Why didn't he ask for help?

[Yollam]

15. Maybe he did.

Maybe nobody listened.

All I'm saying is that seeing a boy with that much heart and initiative turned that way makes me think we must have failed him in one way or another.

Feel free to disagree.

[Squatch]

19. LOL...don't worry, I do.

It's my position that this kid failed himself and that I, as a member of society at large, bear no responsibility for that failure.

[Yollam]

22. Our society fails to provide living wage jobs for 1/3 of its citizens...

...and most of them are not unlike this boy. Our society doesn't even deem them worthy of a decent living wage even though they work their asses off with no benefits or health care. That's the future he probably felt he was facing. That hopelessness drives a lot of people in that direction, IMO.

There is a huge societal failure, whether you acknowledge it or not. Everyone who works full time should make a decent living wage with full health care.

[SoCalDem]

4. A waste, but he was the one who ultimately chose his own path

It sounds as if he got a fair amount of attention at 15, and then changed himself.

Before a kid truly "fails" , there are usually many attempts made to reverse that trend, but the kid has to want to accept the help..

History is crowded with people who start one way and then finish another.

I feel for his mother, but it sounds like she thought he got a "free pass forever" when he was lauded for his good deed.

[Squatch]

5. That's sort of what I was getting at...

ultimately a person has to choose their own path.

[trotsky]

6. But certainly the position one is put in makes a difference, doesn't it?

I mean, that's part of why we consider ourselves liberals/Democrats - we realize that poverty and desperation can sometimes force decent people to make the wrong choices, right?

[Squatch]

8. Not necessarily...

I think that poverty and desperation can make the wrong choice more appealing, but the correct choice is always present.

[trotsky]

10. I really doubt that.

Circumstances can make the "correct" choice nearly invisible, or taint the decision-making process so as to make the "correct" choice look wrong.

Do you think that human beings are born with an innate sense of right and wrong, and their upbringing can't override or contaminate that?

[Squatch]

12. Well, let's examine two of his choices:

1) Rob bank
2) Do not rob bank.

We have to assume that a youth who would raise thousands of dollars for a complete stranger would recognize the correct choice here.

[trotsky]

13. I would prefer that you just answer my question.

Do you think that human beings are born with an innate sense of right and wrong, and their upbringing can't override or contaminate that?

[Squatch]

17. Well la dee da...

Unfortunately, your question is non sequitur in this case.

[trotsky]

20. I'm not talking about this case specifically.

I'm just asking in general. Your response, if you choose to provide one, does not have any relevance to this particular incident.

[Yollam]

18. He went to crime, yes.

But it mentions that his robberies were unarmed, and he was killed breaking into some guy's house. People do idiotic things out of a sense of desperation sometimes. There were other ways he could have gone but was unable to see that.

[SixStrings]

9. Explain to me how 'society failed him'?

Please. This is ridiculous. I see a man who had every opportunity to live a normal life here. In fact he probably had more opportunities than the majority of people.

So it's my fault he got bad grades?
It's my fault his mother kept having kids she couldn't afford?
It's my fault his 'father' ran away when she was two months pregnant?
It's my fault he smoked weed but couldn't afford to buy it?

I've got to hear your explanation how this is society's fault.

[realisticphish]

14. Yes, he was poor

yes, his living situation was bad. But that does not exclude him from the ability to make a good choice, i.e. whether or not to turn to crime

[Strawman]

16. Tragic. Unnecessary

What kind of society are we if we don't look at the example of this young man and think how and when we could have intervened to help him? This was a good kid with a good heart. We should have seen to it that he was placed in an environment that would raise him up rather than let him fall.

Seems like everything went downhill when his stepfather and mom split up. Maybe those two adults didn't handle this as sensitively as they should have for this child's well being. But I'm sure they had little help, no resources, and stressors that most finger pointers can't really comprehend.

Bottom line is that bad environments destroy even the best and brightest children. We could act to make things like this happen less. We could make circumstances better, but we don't. Easier just to point the finger, blame it on this or that personal failure of the kid or his family and ignore the fact that kids like these and their families have no leeway and the shit they have to deal with is compounded by environmental factors. How is that strategy working out? Not well.

[Beam Me Up]

21. Society fails us every day -- This is just one example.

Society fails us every day that it allows a criminal class to set the domestic and foreign agenda for our nation. Society fails us every day as it allows this criminal class to not only set the national agenda but literally get away with murder, treason, war without provocation, the transfer of hundreds of billions of dollars from one sector of society to another--and the continued deception of a nation and a world through the hamstringing of the corporate media.

Those of you who don't think society has "failed" us ALL OF US are not paying attention. The wealth of our nation--the material wealth of our nation and the moral wealth of our nation--have been STOLEN from us all, leaving every man woman and child of us poorer in every regard.

Yes, of course, individual decision matters in every instance. But when criminals as corrupt as hold high office in our nation right now are allowed to get away with the most insidious of crimes with seemingly unassailable impunity, "society" can not claim either innocence or ignorance.

B M U

[NaturalHigh]

23. I read the article, and society did not fail this kid.

He made his own choice, which was to turn to crime, and he was killed while trying to rob someone's house. From what I read in the story, he came from a decent family, even if there were hardships. For some, hardships help to mold a firm character which actually helps them in their lives. Sorry, but this kid doesn't get my pity.

[MamaBear]

24. For What It's Worth

For what it's worth, and just my opinion, but it seems to me that when an individual is perceived as "capable," they don't get much help. People saw this young man slipping -- his grades, his loneliness for his stepfather -- and figured well, he's hurting, but he's strong, he's capable, he'll bounce back.

When he couldn't bounce any more, nobody noticed, because they were still seeing him as strong and sweet and capable and the one they didn't have to worry about.

Only they did have to worry about him, as much as the one they perceived to be at greater risk.

So yes, in that way, "society" did fail him, and in so failing him allowed, permitted and maybe encouraged him to fail himself.

I call this a tragedy.

The choices you make are governed by the choices you perceive as open to you to make; depression clouds the vision and choices that may seem clear to you and me may not seem clear to the person who suffers.

So it's still a tragedy, as far as I'm concerned. RIP Rashad.

[FreedomAngel82]

25. How sad

:(

[Loonman]

26. "Society's fault" bullshit

Yeah, let's take no responsibility at all for any of our actions.

[Yollam]

27. The boy has taken responsibility for his actions. He's dead.

Has our society taken responsibility for making sure that all its young people feel that there is a future in it for them?

[trotsky]

28. Something we should keep in mind...

why did crime go down when the economy was doing so well under Clinton?

Was it just a coincidence that people were able to make the "right" choice more often?

I am disturbed at some of the freeper-like responses on this thread. I don't think anyone is suggesting that no one should be responsible for their actions, but instead that we should take this as a wake-up call to give more people more opportunities to succeed. I thought that's what being a liberal was all about.

[Yollam]

29. Thank you.

In no way did I excuse what the boy did. He went the wrong way. But if he had had the proverbial "village" looking out for him, there might have been someone who could have stopped him and helped him turn his life around. I'm white and came from a middle-class family, and am having a very hard time just keeping a very modest roof over my head. I am not about to start acting all sanctimonious about a boy who saw a lot of his friends who "did the right thing" ending up in low-paying, wage-slave jobs with no benefits or job security. I'm disillusioned to a degree, I can only imagine how disillusioned he might have felt.

Keep letting NAFTA, GATT, FTAA, etc. to send all the decent jobs for non-degree-holders overseas, and there will be more and more of this. Not everyone is cut out for college, but the fact that someone is not college material should not mean a sentence to poverty if they are willing to work, but that's how it's becoming in this country.

I am sorry, but I'm a leftist (not really a liberal) and I believe that we should be our brother's keeper to a much greater degree than we are today.


It amazes me that someone could look at what that boy did, and then what happened to him, and not be moved. He was not a "bad" kid. He could have made it, with help and guidance.

[sandnsea]

30. The preventive measures

Child care assistance so he wouldn't have to be responsible to get younger children to school. Good schools in every neighborhood so they wouldn't have to travel elsewhere to them, and so mom wouldn't have to work 3 jobs to pay for private school. Plenty of help so that every child that needs a tutor gets a tutor. Plenty of social workers so that kids in trouble don't fall through the cracks.

I am reminded of "Country Boys". I could not even believe that school built that boy up to go to college and then didn't bother to give him the tutoring he needed to score high enough on his SAT to get into college. They knew his math score was low. They set him up to fail.

So yeah, a functioning society could have done more, although there's never any guarantees.

[yodermon]

31. I hate threads like these on DU

I really fucking hate them.
Is this a progressive messageboard?

No one seems to give a flying fuck, or even inquire (beyond the rhetorical soundbite) :
WHY DID THIS HAPPEN?
WHAT CAN BREAK INSIDE A SEEMINGLY WONDERFUL SOUL TO CAUSE SUCH DESTRUCTIVE BEHAVIOR?
Might it happen again?
Is there something endemic to the culture that enables such situations?

It's easy to pile on oh-so self-righteously and say "see, this kid made his own bad choices, and, well, fuckem" How helpful. Hope that makes you feel better. Now get on with your perfect fucking life.

If this is your attitude then Rashad Williams is nothing more than a scapegoat for you; a poison container. The only difference between you and the freepers is that they abstract this attitude to the entire population in question (ie poor, urban, black).

If you can't feel compassion or a desire to REALLY KNOW WHAT WENT WRONG on an individual level, then you'll never really look for solutions on the macro level.

I swear sometimes this Underground needs a sub-basement.
:(

(note none of these sentiments are directed towards the OP. This is a blanket response to the thread as a whole.)

[Yollam]

33. I was taken aback by the responses as well...

I'm no soft-on-crime bleeding-heart either. But I guess 20 years of non-stop right-wing harangues on all talk radio and cable news have etched themselves pretty deeply into our nation's consciousness, to the point where even "liberals" will take the attitude that "he screwed up, nothing more could have been done, end of story."

You say you hate threads like this, but maybe we need more of them. At least if they provoke some constructive dialogue, some hearts might be softened just a little.


But for those posting hard-assed replies, get this: If this boy had lived, I would want him to be tried and punished for his crimes, okay? That's not the point of the thread. If all of you think that people getting into crime is just about their being "bad", or "foolish", and that we as a society don't owe ALL our young people more avenues toward a productive and prosperous life, then we just must be living in completely different worlds, experientially and philosophically.

The one I inhabit is damn hard, fraught with dangers to life and livelihood as well as temptations to do wrong that look all the more tempting, the more desperate I become. But I'm 37. I have the benefit of almost 2 decades more experience telling me that an embezzling scam or a big drug deal is NOT going to be the way to easy street for me. I didn't have a lick of sense at 20, either, but I was white, and I at least knew I had my folks' house to go home to if I screwed up. Maybe Rashad didn't feel he could go home. I don't know. There but for the grace of God, go I.

[fujiyama]

32. Unfortunate story

but I don't think this was anyone's fault but his own. He made his own choices and he chose poorly. He came from a good family - his mother sounds like an amazing woman. She did all she could. He obviously was talented. Sure he was overwhelmed, but even after he failed school, his life was not over. He could have worked and eventually taken the GRE. There are ALWAYS other options than turning to a life of crime (unless perhaps stealing food just to live).

But it sounds like in the end he had very bad judgement and that's what killed him.