Since our President, Mayor, Police Chief & OUSD Superintendent have all called for working with our youth, I think such activities would resonate far and wide and help the youth of our City. In part in Christopher’s name and memorial.

Finally, do not heed the words of the most critical among our population. They are not the ones who will be remembered. Instead it is the voices of moderation, reason, and positive change. Especially those who convert those positive words to positive action. Like Christopher.

I had so hoped to meet you at the church on Monday, and to put my arms around you and say how very, very sorry I am for the loss of your beautiful son. The huge crowd of people at the service was a tribute to the impact that Christopher had on the world in his brief, precious life. Your own tribute to Chris at the service were some of the most touching words I’ve ever heard a mother speak about her child, and it’s evident that you possess an inner strength that will help you and your family carry on after this tragedy.

It breaks my heart all over again to read your description of that dreadful evening. No one, and certainly no mother, should ever have to endure such horror. I’m sure all of us here wish you peace and healing.

You and Pastor Jones are to be commended for having raised a young man of such outstanding grace, courage, and character. You are absolutely right; that child’s name can never be sullied. He was a treasure. I am one of many who will never, ever forget Christopher Lavell Jones.

Blessings to you and your family.

Good to hear from you again. I’m done I think with this thread, unless more data arrives on what actually killed this student there’s not a lot that hasn’t been raised. Your reference to wounding people struck a nerve. I use words to try to get people their due. If the people I’m addressing nod and smile and go on doing what they have been doing, I didn’t get through to them. So I talk for a living if you will. I have to be sharp and to the point with people I am trying to help – they are much of the problem on occasion.

I really do worry about what the detractors here will do when they encounter people who genuinely dislike them and very much intend to use words to wound (This is nothing).

I realize my opinion is not welcomed in quarters that may need it the most – I’m really used to that. Actually that was commmon in the family line of work anyway. (No you can’t have a Codeine refill, Yes the breast has to come off, No you can’t play football with that broken arm, etc) Even before my generation got into our professions – which are different from the teaching and medicine/dental of the previous generations. I was not brought up at the dinner table to sing Kumbayah – some blacks were. And then there’s the school integration thing my generation went through. If we are trying to hurt someone you will know.

We all (Black Professionals) deal with black folks with preventable trouble and spend our professional lives in many cases not being able to roll back these problems as much as we want to. Although I never did run a school district. Grandparent’s generation did. Their black students never had these problems (like this) in any appreciable number – maybe because of those black teachers and administrators. Things are different now.

Will someone tell me if there is any consensus or feeling that the black casualty rates seen with the killing of Chris here, require any kind of adjustment or response on the part of OUSD’s educational program??

When a white high school child at a white high school dies in a DUI car crash somebody has CHP Tow a wrecked car to the school grounds to make the point that DUI kills and the school wants the student DUI activity to stop right now. Any of you ever seen that? Or see similar reports of direct action taken if a white casualty rate elevates. What do you think Piedmont High would be doing if one too many of their Jewish kids started having any kind of elevated casualty rates – say, autoerotic asphyxiation. You’d probably see Celebrities flown in to tell them to knock it off.

Should OUSD do anything at all about the gunshot death of their black students other than have a memorial?

I don’t think a memorial makes the point. Not on this board and not at the school with the kids. Memorials are for the living to commemorate the decendent. These efforts we do here (on the blog) are to ask that something be done by OUSD policymakers to make the black boys wear better.

Because we do not want more of these stories anytime soon.

And I don’t mind being the skunk at the garden party.

Chris was a shining light at EOSA. A young man dedicated to God, music, family and friends. I miss him everyday and feel lucky to have known him for a year and a half as a student at EOSA.

Yes, this blog – as a whole – is about OUSD, policies, staff, students, and the whole mess.

However, I (and several others who’ve posted) have read this particular blog-post as being intended as a memorial to one student. Perhaps that was Katy’s intent, and perhaps it wasn’t – she hasn’t weighed in to let us know either way.

In general, I (and most of the other regulars) don’t have a whole lot of objections to your continual, tiresome repetition of your dogma, other than the obvious; it’s continual, tiresome and repetitious. However, your words really seem inappropriate (is it possible that you *deliberately* intend to wound?) to this one particular post – but clearly you’ve missed that distiction.

And one of the reasons I’m being prompted to continue making this point is that it’s not being acknowledged – it’s being misinterpreted. You typically suffer premature death among other reasons because you are not avoiding risk – actually you can be taking risks whether you realize the significance of what you are doing or not. There are many reasons why a given person or group will go about risky behavior – including not having proper value of themselves and their health, and not perceiving various things they do as being risky. Bad schools and/or bad families go for risk. Better schools and/or better families are more risk avoidant and their products tend to stay off the mortality tables.

As I’ve said before, this isn’t a Memorial Page and I do not know this victim or his circumstances. I do know a lot about risk and more than a little about the mortality tables. My thread here is always about the syndrome of dead black boys, one after another.

Now you tell me why these black children in Oakland (and Los Angeles) have such stark homicide rates? Do we even think the schools should have a role in risk management education for our schoolkids?

In defense of the schools, one could argue that the Mexican Boys sitting in class with the Black Boys have the same instruction and they don’t get shot as much, so the fault must be more the family circumstances than the caliber of the education and school atmosphere. So maybe the black kids aren’t being shorted anything in class.

Still, I wonder if anyone ever explains to the black kids that they must never ever wear a Red belt. The Hispanic kids well know what that means (Norteno). A black child with that belt on would be attacked by the first Mexican Gangbanger they encounter. So if you want a red belt and you are not a Norteno it’d better be a nice belt that’s worth it.

The uncle has posted on this blog that he’s been shot at 13 times in Oakland, an odd thing. What is he doing to avoid a 14th and possibly fatal shooting incident? Is their something about the uncle that affected his nephew (do they look/dress alike, frequent the same places)?

This is an education policy blog. I’m making this point because I have reason to believe and I do believe that there is something about OUSD that contributes to the unacceptably high casualty and mortality rates of it’s black children. That something being mis-education or lack of education about violence and people in general, and health matters. Having said that if this were so true the casualty rates for the Mexican students at OUSD would tend to be elevated also since they share the classrooms with the blacks. Or, if I am correct the other races such as the Asian, tiny white population, and mexican students could be getting enough protective factors from their demographically different families to keep them safer.

Or maybe I’m just blaming the schools because the (predominant) black single parents can’t be held responsible for anything.

Or am I just mad about the casualty rates and want to blame some institution because I’m mad about all this and can’t blame the individuals for their own casualty rates.

Anyway, Sue, you and all the others can take the position that we should stick to memorializing Chris and not talk about the casualty rate on the occasion of this, another killing. I don’t think that way. When there is a problem I recheck the insurance policies. We all should.

Oh, and Sue, stop calling murder a “senseless” killing. It can be an atrocity, a crime, a monstrous act. It’s only senseless to those who refuse to see why these things are happening and are going to continue to happen unless and until good people take action to make it stop. You sound like the people who say a drunk driving crash and killing was an “accident”.

But, I have to report that Nextset has responded to Chris’s death in exactly the same way that he previously responded to Eric’s. No compassion, or even consideration, of the impact his words would have on those who knew the young men who have passed, and who might be visiting this blog for the very first time because of someone mentioning a memorial posting for their family member or loved one. Instead Nextset has consistently blamed each victim for “allowing themselves to become a victim”. I’ve learned not to expect anything else from him, but I’m a regular around this blog.

I’m sorry for the people who aren’t familiar with his “style”, and are hurt by his words. They are hurtful to me too, and must be exponentially more painful for those people who are reading him condemning their loved one.

Please try to remember the best of Chris, and please keep letting those of us who didn’t know him, know something of who he was to you.

And please, please, please, do your very best to forget Nextset’s hurtful comments – he’s severely empathy deficient.

This isn’t a memorial to Chris, it’s a policy blog. Since you are here, can you please tell us why is it you have been shot at in Oakland and why so many times. Isn’t 13 times excessive? (What are you doing to avoid a 14th time?) Was it all at once or is it a more frequent experience?

You say your finished OUSD in 1985, since then, what other formal education or training have you had? What occupations have you done since high school? This info helps us understand your points of view.

You are making personal attacks/insults towards other people while in public discourse. Can you explain why, where you learned to do this?

Why do you believe public discourse about policy is “running off at the mouth”?