Ethnically Speaking by Larry Meeks

Dear Larry: You are right about this "stop snitching" garbage. I'm sick of hearing the word snitch — there's something about the way it sounds that I don't like.

These rappers don't get the difference between snitching and reporting. Criminals who turn in their co-criminals in order to escape jail are snitches, because they are guilty, too.

In the Jewish prayer book there are benedictions calling for divine punishment for snitches. Snitching is seen as a form of dishonesty and betrayal.

Reporting is different. Reporting something means that you, for example, prevent butchers from selling tainted meat, or prevent fire hazards in buildings. Revealing that someone is planning a school shooting or bombing would be reporting, not snitching.

I had a 12-year-old girl in my class who was raped by her mother's boyfriend. She told the doctors at the emergency room that five boys in the school attacked her. She said it happened in the stairwell. She said she was bound, gagged, blindfolded with duct tape and raped by all five boys. She then claimed it happened at a time when she would have been in my math class.

I told the police that at the time the rape allegedly occurred, she was in my classroom, and I didn't see any marks or duct tape on her. I added that she didn't look any different than before. Of course her story was a fabrication, but her injuries were real.

The school counselor and I surmised this little girl was hiding something.

It turned out that her mom's boyfriend was the guilty person. She made up the lie about the five boys because she didn't want to get the boyfriend in trouble, because she liked this guy.

This example is the ultimate outcome of this whole "stop snitching" crap. It sends a message that if your mom's boyfriend rapes you, your sister, daughter or a loved one; or if your father smacks your mom around, you don't snitch. It also sends the message that people have to suffer abuse.

My school insists on having gangster rap and hip-hop in all aspects of the school. I've been so vocal about how inappropriate it is that the other staff members are sick of me.

If I see any of this "stop snitching" crap in my school, I'm going to the newspapers. — A Snitch

Dear Snitch: Your letter is a powerful example how otherwise rational people are cowed into silence/non-action because they do not want to be called a snitch, rat or whatever convenient label the criminal has foist upon society. If good people do nothing, the bad person wins.

I pray your letter is a wake-up call to this complacent generation. I have found most changes happen because one person gets tired of a situation and decides to do something about it.

Notable Quote: "This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man." — William Shakespeare

To find out more about Larry Meeks, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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