I don't think people understand the corrupting force of having to constantly physically protect yourself when you're young. Until you get in the head of kid who goes to school every day thinking it could happen, and approaching that day in that manner, you'll never completely understand what's wrong with urban public schools.

My sense of this is that most kids would like to walk to school in peace, but somewhere around fifth grade or so, the corruption reaches out and taints them. You start by changing how you walk, the manner in which you speak, what jokes you laugh at, and when. Then you change your criteria for your friends, and try to assemble as many of them as possible. You first forays into direct violence may be only defensive or retaliatory, but this quickly spirals into offensive violence, so as to burnish your rep.

The hood is a galaxy of competing powers, and to be born there is to be drafted into your nation's Army. To spend time lamenting your citizenship, to be less then zealous in defense of your country, is to be unpatriotic, to invite charges of treason, with predictable penalties. And even this formulation makes it all sound too neat, too rational. We are, after all, ultimately talking about children, and thus people vulnerable to the worst impulses.