The Sad Fate of Lionel Tate

Thank you, thank you , thank you for this La Shawn.

Tiffany, I disagree with one part of your statement, that concerning so many people failed him. He got a second chance, a new lease on life; so many people never get a second chance after killing someone–most do rot in prison. He could have taken his probation time and done so much with his life. He could have turned himself around. He did not do this. He blew it. He failed himself. He cannot blame anyone but himself for failing him.

Now he will have 30 years to become a better person and hopefully show others a different path.

La Shawn:

Tate was doomed when the liberals of the appeals court gave him probation following a murder. This no doubt sent the wrong message.

I have seen a few murderers on TV – given multiple “soft” sentences in their past life of crime – when asked if they thought they could get away with murder, they said “YES” – because, like in their past, they EXPECTED they would also get a “soft” sentences.

Why would anyone expect Tate to act any different than he did? He got away with murder, why should he think he would not get away with robbing a pizza man?

And calmly eating the Pizza? This is a young man with too much self esteem, no doubt reinforced by his “soft” sentence.

Oh the joy of having your words overanalyzed.

LaShawn I feel your pain.

Lionel Tate brought this on himself via his own actions. But I also blame his father that was not there. He gets a bulk of blame too. I also fault his mother for refusing the first plea deal, but at least she were there trying. I hope they find his father and lock him up too for simply not being there. If his mother left him alone as a child she’d be arrested for parental neglect. But fathers, they can take off and so long as they submit a check on a regular basis they are off the hook.

Over 30 years ago 80% of Blacks were born in wedlock (a 2 parent home – one man, one woman) and today 70% are born in a home with just one parent. And some of them are sent off to “grandma”, if they survive in the first place because the mother had the good sense to let her child live.

I’ve heard that in some urban areas the rate of out of wedlock births is hitting 90%.

It’s pretty easy to start a decline, but very hard to pull up.

Blacks were doing better before welfare checks and integration. It’s just a fact. Not saying I want segregation to ever come back, but it’s sad the past was actually better in some ways.

I see a whole lot of Mr. Tate’s in the future. Until parents feel the need to actually be parents.

His murder was not an intentional one. Yes there should have been a stronger sentence than probation, but let’s not forget that it wasn’t 1st degree murder. Frankly, I think this is a kid who wants some kind of help.

When you do a crime and don’t take the steps required to get away, it’s because you want to be caught, period. In my life before Christ I did a whole lot of dirt, and the one that sticks out to me was the one in which I practically screamed “I did it” and slowly strolled toward the door. I remember that day clearly because I was feeling lost, and was sick of being alone. I needed somebody to notice me.

I was 10 and just wanted to be noticed and didn’t care that it was a stupid way to do it. If I had been noticed by some high level criminal who offered me the opportunity to become part of his organization, I would have done so because that would’ve meant somebody noticed.

If I had been noticed by a nun who got me a job doing lawn care at a monestary, I would’ve taken it because it would’ve meant somebody noticed.

I’m not saying that such an action would’ve instantly chased the negativity out of me, but it would’ve calmed me down a bit and given me some focus.

State laws do differ, but 30 years for a 10-year probation violation did not seem consistent.

A quick read shows that his 30 year sentence included a gun charge for the robbery (he is getting a trial on the robbery) and his 10-year probation was previously extended 5-years for a knife and other previous “encounters” with the police.

While he is still young, it does look like he had more than two chances.

You know, I originally had “gun possession” in the post but assumed people would read the article and understand why he got 30 years. For clarity, I put it back in. – Admin

Darnell McGavock, Independent Conservative, wrote “I hope they find his father and lock him up too for simply not being there.”

This nonsense is typical of womanfirsters whether of the traditionalist or feminist stripe. Their wish to keep up the pretense of female purity and innocence is so powerful that they’ll zero in on blaming a man for some woman’s poor behavior choices. This is hardly “independent” and casting the breeder female as a helpless “victim” void of all free will is not at all “conservative.” Sheesh!

In most cases of unwed motherhood, the father didn’t fall away — he was pushed! Yet as the shocking credulity of prosecutors in the face of a woman making the most blatantly obvious false accusations of rape illustrates, the wish to preserve the image of the woman as a pure helpless victim often overrides all common sense. (Thus, an accusing female’s name is kept hidden for her purity must be preserved.) The reality is that too many women prefer to make children without fathers; keeping up a marriage is much tougher than collecting “a check on a regular basis” from their de facto husband, the polygamous Welfare State.

IC, I did grow up in a single parent home so you and I have probably shared the same view. I was also around a lot of single parent kids. I have seen a lot of success stories which is why I don’t think that is the only issue.

You are right that the one parent has to take up a lot of slack and that has a lot to do with the success or failure; your parent probably was in the same boat as mine…having to work to make ends meet but spending as much spare time with kids as possible.

Our parents did it right, and I know I would not want to raise a kid alone in this environment.

Mom was a state trooper? Wonder how much he got away with by using that line…

IC, I think that any parent taking the time, whether reading the Bible or Grimm’s Fairy Tales, to sit with their kids and spend time with them is key to bringing up well adjusted kids. Today’s kids get iPods, Xboxes, cars, and material goods but do they get time with their parents? My mom spent time with us, and did not shy away from a good ole spanking! None of us have ever been arrested, so that must work.

To # 20–I agree….if a man does not want to father a child, he keeps his fly zipped. Pretty obvious formula, if you ask me. If he chooses to embark on a sexcapade, the don’t whine when you have to pay in nine months. (Yes this goes for both sexes, but imagine the rate of pregnancy dropping if all the sperm donors were forced to pay for their progeny…)

cynical1der – I think it’s important for parents to spend time with their kids. And I feel when parents spend that time reading the Bible it is going to offer that child far more in the way of morals and values than reading a fairy tail. There is no better story a parent can pass to their child than the story of Jesus. With the Bible you’ve got faith, history and literature all rolled into one. It’s like an education combo-plate .

Well said La Shawn,

IC & cynical, I’m not from a single parent home, but I do spend the majority of time half a world away working, and I can see how my boys behave as a result of me not being a constant presence and it hurts me.

Fortunately, my boss allows me to spend as much time as work permits and to telecommute, but that still only gives me 2-3 months or so per year at home.

Lord willing, the inverse will happen after this Summer.

Ciao

It is a terrible shame that this kid threw his life away–twice. And while growing up in a single-parent home doesn’t automatically make you a criminal, it sure doesn’t help.

I grew up in a single-parent home in the 1960s. My father, an Air Force pilot, was killed in a training accident in 1958–my brother, sister, and I were latchkey kids before it became fashionable. The Newton, Massachusetts schools kept referring to us as “children from a broken home,” which infuriated my mother to no end.

But we had both sets of grandparents (and one set of cousins) less than thirty minutes away; we had very strong ties to friends and extended family of both my mother and father; and my brother and I spent our summers at a church camp where our father had gone years before.

And–let’s be candid–we were well-to-do white kids from a socially-prominent family chock full of Ivy League graduates. We had (and still have) all of The System working in favor of us. Yeah–my brother and I grew up as boys Without A Man in the House. But we had nothing like the life experiences of this poor kid.

For starters, think of the social circumstances he was in when he killed somebody at age 12. Then consider how five or six years of prison helped him (not!). Then–surprise! He gets out–but he’s still a convicted felon, and he’s on a ten-year probation. What does he put down on the job application form?

Keeping score, here? He’s been in prison since he was twelve, he’s had essentially no secondary education, he has a felony record for M-U-R-D-E-R, and his social environment for the past five or six years has emphasized violence as a way to protect yourself and deal with social problems.

I’m no fan of Hilary Clinton–but her book title is correct: it does take a village to raise a child. It wasn’t just that there was no father in this poor kid’s home–there were no proxies, no substitute fathers, no men in the neighborhood to provide a kick in the backside when one was needed. There were no men to put a hand on your head as you raced through the hallways after Sunday School, no men to ask you if your behavior reflected any honor upon your father or your family, no men to take you aside and insist that you behave responsibly with their daughter.

This is not just a problem in the black community. This is a problem across American society–nobody, anywhere, steps up and says anything when children desperately need intervention. And poor kids like Tate turn into statistics in prison. Evidently he’s guilty–and he’s going back to prison. He’s responsible for his own actions–but he’s been failed by his father, his family, and his community nonetheless.

Where, oh where are the fathers? Don’t they love their children?

Or the mothers. Perhaps where are the parents in general.

It is utterly amazing to me how throughout the animal kingdom the extraordinary efforts the simplest of creatures will go through to prepare for, protect and nurture the next generation. In so many instance the life of the parents literally are sacrificed for the life of the children. However, for humans, so many of us can’t even take the basic measures that even a simple sparrow will take — select a mate well and then build a nest first before having offspring.

Are we so vain and self centered? Where did it all go so wrong? A society that cannot even teach the most basic universal tenets of life is certainly doomed.

Travel to any penal institution where young Black males predominate — then ask them to raise their hands and answer the question: “How many of you were raised with your father in the house?”

You’ll be lucky to get one hand raised…

Look at any stats that compare crime rates between communities where Black single mother families are the norm, versus communities where Black, two-parent families are the majority.

The highest U.S. city homicide rates correlate with the highest percentages of single, Black female-headed households.

And even though the percentage of Black children
raised by single, Black fathers is small, from a proportional standpoint, those children’s outcomes tend to mirror the two parent family structure — e.g. the Teen Black girls have a much higher pregnancy rate when raised by a single mother than when raised by a single dad…so its not just about single parenting in and of itself…

You;ll get more and more Lionel Tates until there is a reversal of the “I DON’T NEED NO MAN/MALES ARE OPTIONAL” culture that has taken hold for 40 years — stop producing boys and males who feel they are of no value to their families, communities, nation and the world.

Though, I do strongly hope for his salvation, I feel, the judgment cast upon him on this blog and calling it stupidity is wrong.

First of all for a 12 year old to commit such a crime, something is terribly wrong. What… was he just a stupid 12 year old or were there more serious issues, than stupidity, behind this crime?

What was done for this boy to help him reform, besides probation?

Curiously, what would have happened if this were a white kid’s story?

I guess judging and shaming Blacks is the way to get us and our communities on our feet, right? I don’t think it works. Rather than blogging about his allegid “stupidity” worsening the situation for him. Why don’t you meet with him yourself and introduce him to Christ personally? You seem to care, at least a little… you said you pray for him.

Yeah…I just went to my mom’s nursing home, and encountered three black men and four or five black women, just walking down the hall to get to her room. And they were all working hard, doing jobs that I don’t think they get paid half enough for. To me those folks are saints. I don’t know what part of the U.S. B Gad is talking about.

IC, your mom sounds like she was pure gold. My mom made us memorize Bible verses when we were young. It’s amazing how those verses, planted deep within my mind, have bubbled up at just the right times when I needed them. “Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies.” Proverbs 31:10

“In most cases of unwed motherhood, the father didn’t fall away — he was pushed! Yet as the shocking credulity of prosecutors in the face of a woman making the most blatantly obvious false accusations of rape illustrates, the wish to preserve the image of the woman as a pure helpless victim often overrides all common sense.”

~Hogwash! If guys were waiting until they had a ring on their finger before lying down with a woman and treated that woman like a woman should be treated (after of course, beign sure to marry a woman who deserved such treatment but still keeping his pants on until then) single motherhood would account for a tiny fraction of the population.

“It’s this kind of idiot and the media’s obsession with selective reporting that fuels the stereotype of black men. To those who have never scene or spoken to a black man in person this becomes their reality. The bias in reporting is alive and well and living in both the MSM and so called new media.

Comment by B Gad — 05.19.06 @ 3:28 pm

What? Who has never seen or spoken to a black man in person?

Comment by La Shawn — 05.19.06 @ 3:47 pm”

~This is a good illustration of the divide in the US and the difficulty in overcoming it. There are White people in this country who can go through a normal day without once dealing with a Black person. There are areas of this country in which no Black people live. I had a friend in the late 80’s who, at 26, told me that growing up in one of the rural areas of Wisconsin he didn’t meet his first Black person until he was 17 years old and had traveled to Chicago. (Not that there are no Blacks in Wisconsin; that just happened to be the occasion for him.)

It is the norm for some to this day.

“In the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I pray that Tate becomes a witness to the glory of the living God.”

~Amen and amen.

Poor or absent fathers are at the root of so many social ills in America. Senseless murder being just one of them. Poor and absent fathers are behind the lack of work ethic so many boys and girls show in school. Poor and absent fathers are behind much of the physical and sexual abuse. Poor and asbent fathers can be traced to the drug problem, the out-of-wedlock children problem, the homeless problem, and so on and so forth.

When a father fails to acquit himself in his (heavy) responsibilities, not only does his family suffer, but society as a whole suffers. 21st century Feminism tries to act like fathers don’t matter. I say, we need fathers–good, hard working, upstanding fathers–more now than we ever have before.

If every boy and girl could count on their father to be a) present and b) law-abiding and c) a hard-working provider who d) honored their mother, whether divorced or not, I think we’d not see nearly so many cases like that of Lionel Tate. Where was this boy’s example when he was young? Who was guiding this young man and instilling in him the values and morals that differentiate men from beasts?

Sad, just sad. And as always, makes me a thousand times grateful for my own dad, who was always there, who worked hard, who loved my sister and I, and who loved our mother, and is still married to her, decades later. I wish every kid had a dad like my dad. I wish every dad had the ethics and iron that my father has.

One thing I will say is that there has been a systematic attack on the role of the Father in a child’s life. In fact there has been a flurry of research papers showing that a child from a single home is just as balanced or if not more balanced than a child from a two-parent home. I’ve gone through enough articles about same sex parenthood and single parenthood’s superiority over the real thing.
Also there is a shifting of the society towards the bashing of men.When the word “sex offender” is uttered what comes to mind is the human male.
Black men have been put through the greatest uneven playing field ever recorded in human history. The society is not in their favor,the women have a problem with them,its plain torture.
It is time we have a debate that is open and honest about the Black male.