<p>Re: Todays Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The administration at Morehouse College is at a loss to understand the involvement of a three of its students in the robbery and killing of a fellow student. Each of the alleged perpetrators reportedly hails from a upper-middle class family background. This is the second felonious event that has brought unwanted notoriety to the campus in recent years.</p>
<p>Is their something wrong with Morehouse's recruiting criteria? While Spelman College's profile has risen dramatically, has Morehouse relied too much on its legacies and not paid enough attention to the character of its admitees?</p>
<p>It interests me how people are shocked by crimes committed by "upper-middle class" teens. As if being upper middle class somehow automatically gives you superior ethics. The two boys who killed 13 people at Columbine High school both came from upper middle class backgrounds. Educated, intact families. This social status and its inherent comforts didn't shield them from a sense of alienation, hatred and the need to lash out.</p>
<p>an article more fully describing these events alluded to in the above article</p>
<p>*Three years ago, a Morehouse student received a 10-year sentence after he fractured a fellow student's skull with a baseball bat because he thought the student had leered at him in a dormitory shower.<a href="actually%20he%20recieved%20two%2010-yr%20sentences-%20to%20be%20served%20concurrently%20for%20aggravated%20assault%20and%20battery">/i</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0333,lee,46206,1.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0333,lee,46206,1.html</a>
[quote]
The incident may have shocked some at the nation's only all-male, predominantly African American college, but it was no surprise to gay students there. For them, taunting and the threat of physical violence are part of everyday life. In the months to come, they would discover that not even such a brutal assault could open the eyes of the vast majority of students, faculty, and administrators.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This social status and its inherent comforts didn't shield them from a sense of alienation, hatred and the need to lash out.
<a href="http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/politics/15217252.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/politics/15217252.htm</a>
I don't think that was the motivation in this most recent killing however.
It sounds like he may have been killed for monetary gain according to police documents. The student who the others say coached them in the attack, told police he was "serving the will of God".</p>
<p>I don't think any generalizations can be made about Morehouse from this unfortunate, tragic incident. </p>
<p>I would like to draw a cause and effect relationship between avaricious crimes like this and popular culture (particularly rap), where the glorification of violence, utter misogyny, awful objectification of women, and testament to greed is out of control. But I do not have expertise to have any conclusion as to cause and effect obtain, and am left speculating that anecdotally at least we are doing ourselves no favors with our current popular culture.</p>
<p>Not so fast, Mam1959.</p>
<p>We certainly can make some observations and speculate about admissions at Morehouse when we learn that at at least one of the persons involved in this incident had at least one criminal conviction on his record, didn't finish high school, and apparently was admitted to Morehouse College with ease. People are entitled to ask for and earn a second chance for youthful mistakes but the school has a responsibility to its community to use sober judgement.</p>