I could have easily been a statistic. Growing up in Brooklyn, N.Y., it was easy - a little too easy - to get into trouble. Surrounded by poor schools, lack of resources, high unemployment rates, poverty, gangs and more, I watched as many of my peers fell victim to a vicious cycle of diminished opportunities and imprisonment.
I wasn't expelled for anything vicious, just being cheeky, not doing what I was told, answering back, and always rising to the bait if someone said something annoying about my dad.
Liberals worry that what's best for the individual might not be better for the public at large. But that philosophy assumes something vicious about each and every one of us. It assumes we only care about ourselves.
We're in a kind of vicious cycle where the media tell the politicians, and the politicians tell the people, that perception is reality, and the perception of saving dooms a politician. I don't believe perception is reality, or that all Americans think that.
When I began, the guitar was en-closed in a vicious circle. There were no composers writing for the guitar, be-cause there were no virtuoso guitarists.
At Camfed, we have focused on transforming the vicious cycle of poverty in many rural African communities into a cycle of opportunity. Alumnae of Camfed's programs go on to become role models and mentors for future generations of young students. We call this the 'virtuous circle,' and we know this is a model that works.
We would naturally prefer not to reckon with the worst of what people do or say on the margins, but we have to. Especially if it seems possible to trace a line from vicious rhetoric on a computer screen to violent action.
I had called her up a couple of weeks before then, because I had heard this vicious rumour that she did not like the movie. It was very upsetting for me. I am very sensitive to that, because I am portraying her life and did not want her to be unhappy.
Going to rehearsals was too depressing, and missing rehearsals was also depressing, so it was like a vicious circle.
Our criminal justice system is failing all of us. It is not keeping us safe. It is contributing to a vicious cycle of crime and punishment.
