Brit, you mentioned a few celebs who do some very nice things but they also do some horrific and terrible things, a lot of which include drugs and alcohol and acting out. Even the good they do is not largely impacting the kids in real trouble living in gangs or dropping out of school and I would add that those violent movies and lyrics in songs and raps are adding to the problem of violence in our country - inciting it by glamorizing it with these larger than life figures portraying a life of violence as cool and ultimately rewarding. Don't tell me a huge billboard of a sweaty, muscled-up good-looking male movie star, biceps and pecs bulging, stomach ripped and beautiful women hanging off his arms as he holds an assault rifle in each hand doesn't glamorize violence. As well as the movie or genre entertainment it is advertising. That
does obligate them to help kids who feed off it since stars rake in inordinate amounts of what is considered "obscene income" when Fortune 500 CEO's make it - MONEY. And celebs make far more obscene money than a CEO could ever dream of. And the royalties roll in long after they are dead, in so many cases due to royalties. And entertainers make obscene money seemingly the more loud and violent and shocking a movie, book or song can get. I think the people that perpetuate a violent lifestyle in their "art" are obligated to try to fix the problem in proportion to the violence they help idealize in that "art". And if they are scared - well, that says it all. They are scared to face what they have gotten rich off helping to make worse by making it seem so cool.
Couldn't hurt for them to start by finding ways to make entertainment far less violent, more uplifting and hopeful and to work at and find ways to go en mass - two dozen or more at a time into the streets of gang violence. They've got security and could hire an army of security if they wanted. I doubt very seriously some gang member is going to come out and start blasting a few dozen stars saying we are here to visit, hang and help, talk. But maybe not, maybe they'll just keep on doing what they are doing which is a drop in the bucket it seems in comparison to the haul they make off those poor kids.
And gang members aren't going to shoot the Sharptons and Jacksons and the King kids and Ben Jealous if they show up and hang with gang children regularly, spend time trying to help one on one and mentor, take them to the store, the doctor, help their moms babysit kids while she chills, work side by side telling them ways out and raising money to help those kids. I think these kids need more than foundations trying to help them - they need some men they can look up to and want to please and to pull for them and not just Trayvon.
No, they won't go down into the pits of the streets but they will Tweet and rant on TV about one Florida kid when all those little brothers and sons and young fathers on the gang streets die in huge numbers every day.
https://www.chicagoreporter.com/news...-american-city