The Virginian-Pilot
©
NORFOLK
Two years ago, Alyson Ross found herself trapped in an abusive relationship. Her high school boyfriend constantly criticized and tried to control her, she said, and when she didn't comply with his demands, he pushed, grabbed and, one time, smashed her head against a wall.
Then she found Teens With a Purpose, an organization that educates teens on topics including AIDS prevention. The group gave Ross the strength, she said, to end the relationship.
Ross, now an 18-year-old senior at Landstown High School in Virginia Beach, shared her story at a forum on dating abuse and violence Saturday. Roughly 500 people, r anging from middle school students to parents, registered for the Teens With a Purpose event.
"Today" show weather and feature reporter Al Roker was the keynote speaker. He said his 22-year-old daughter has been the victim of dating violence, so he is familiar with the problem.
"The rage and the emotion is only second to the degradation and the loss of self-worth," Roker said. He encouraged the teens to seek help if they're being abused. "There is no reason to put up with it," he said. "You have to accept that it's not your fault."
The free, five-hour forum included inspirational speeches, games, music and discussions on dating violence. The central theme was respect.
Nigel "DJ Big Dose" Christopher, a deejay for 105.3 Kiss FM, talked about bullying. As a kid, he was teased for stuttering, he said.
"It just goes to show that you can take something that may be viewed as a negative and you can turn it into a positive," he said. "You really can do anything you want."
Deirdre Love, the executive director of Teens With a Purpose, started the organization roughly 12 years ago. The group promotes abstinence and nonviolence through community events and an annual forum, she said.
Kathy Adams, (757) 222-5155, kathy.adams@pilotonline.com
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School Vouchers and Social Programs
The elite, mostly of southern white disporia, are trying to push this agenda of school vouchers so that the tax base for public schools shrink and then we basically get Argentina or Brazil: a divided society where the haves live behind walls and the have nots have to fend for themselves. The problem with the truly social darwin society where everything has gone private is that there is a tipping point. Then we get have nots raiding and stealing from the haves, under-paid police taking bribes to make ends meet and rich people having to hire private body guards and buy armour plated cars to get around. I personally prefer to pay taxes that bring-up the depraved and those not born with the perfect family to at least have access to quality education if they want it and day-care for their kids so they can work. Then we can continue to live in a society where we can drive with our windows rolled down, no fences around my yard etc. One way or another we have to pay for personal security, just the private option costs more. Perhaps when the people in need of the social programs start voting, then we may get to keep our way of life.
Raising Monsters While Claiming to be Victims.
Talk and condemnation have done nothing to prevent violence. Marches, protests, seminars are a touchy feely waste of time. The problem is obvious. The "mothers" having all of these babies and then not raising them properly in a two parent home and teaching them right, wrong, and proper social values are the true cause of most of the violence.
Only single mothers to blame for domestic violence?
I had no idea that these "bad mothers" were able to create these "monsters" on their own without help. At least they are willing to stick around and be parents, unlike their sperm donors. You won't ever believe or accept it, but domestic violence happens to all kinds of people, single or married, rich or poor. Even here in Hampton Roads, there is at least one "Christian" man beating his good little submissive wife right out of her high heels and pearls with her own vacuum.
Cycles Don't Just Happen!
If you help a "snake" he'll still bite you. If you have a "romantic" night with an abuser he'll still abuse you. Yes, the men in these relationships are responsible for their children, but there would be less fatherless children if more mothers would engage their mind and not just their hearts and hormones. More women need to stop allowing wicked men to come into their life just because daddy didn't love them, and stop accepting any attention as better than none.
Generally speaking
Generally speaking, I do agree that reproductive responsibility (or lack thereof) is at the heart of these kinds of issues, but that responsibility doesn't rest only with the mother. The lingering question is, where are the fathers then (besides some of them possibly in jail or dead)? Pop culture, such as it may be, is partly the reason why values seem to be deteriorating. Don't believe it, just turn on the TV and the radio; they wreak of it. Pop culture has glamorized sexuality, single motherhood, dead-beat dads, youth-on-youth violence, and weak/non-existent family values.
I wish Al would use some of his energy to reach out
Instead of speaking out after the fact, please speak to young black men and women that the destiny of our nation lay in their hands. Its great that they voted Obama in, but please deliver the message that they have to keep caring and provide support to the president to vote in local and state leaders who support his policies. The last president spent $700B on Iraq and wars, this president wants to spend $700 on middle class America but he faces major obstacles. I am not even black, but I am from an immigrant minority which is not very united. When things get better for the average black person, they get better for everyone, including the very rich themselves who have a greater market for their products and more skilled workers in which to draw from. The showing of elections once every 4 years is not enough as seen by the election of McDonnald. Al Rocher, we need a counterforce to the T-Party so we can bring prosperity back to mainstream America.
Ignorent comment
Why are only black men and women the destiny of our country? And why the double standard of Bush spending on wars but no mention of the surge of 30,000 troops that Obama approved and the largest monthly death toll on his watch?
Important Program
Teens need this type program to help resist peer pressure, to become their own person.
BTW, the man in the second photo did not look like Al Roker. Is the caption incorrect, or are my eyes going geboinkt?
Re: photo
It is just the way the picture was taken. Looks like the photographer is shooting up. Your eyes are fine
Al Roker Photo
What difference would it make? I wouldn't listen to Al Roker even if he was cooking, let alone wake up with him!