The Face Of The New Community Pimps

A friend of mine with good intentions spoke with me recently about the desire of his church to provide services to aid our youth and their families. Already their small church is hosting nightly recreation, bible studies, tutoring, an occasional field trip and dinner Monday through Friday. Nearly 70 children, many who are quite hungry, pile into the small sanctuary for food and a safe place to be. The church is looking to expand the amount of children they can accommodate and have asked the local school for permission to use their facilities.

Granted, I do believe that the churches in our community should be doing a lot more to win souls then a song and dance on Sunday. I applaud the efforts of this church in particular. However, I am concerned because there are two community centers just a few blocks away from this church that are getting money to provide the services the church has had to assume. Why is that? It certainly is not because these centers are being over run with children and families. And this is not unique to this particular locality.

It is sexy and fashionable to blame pimps, drug dealers and disfunctional family situations for the plight of our children. But they are not being handed a pass to aid in the welfare of our youth, our future, our citizens like these community centers. We know pimps and drug dealers are harmful and dangerous and will not be helpful. We don't expect that of human service agencies given their mission and what we've historically come to expect of them.

Times have certainly changed and the face of these agencies have as well. I believe our modern- day community centers and schools are the biggest, most diabolic of the new-day pimps in the neighborhood and our churches have co-signed on an evil contract to allow distress and misery to bind our babies.

Pimps make their money off of the misery of someone else. Oh sure, the someone else gets a little compensation. But the pimp, the middleman, controls what and how much. While ultimately this is a means by which the "someone else" gets services and goods, the middleman is said to be necessary to keep the person safe in the transaction. The Pimp is there to make sure you receive payment. You invest the time, the pimp guarantees the payment is delivered. The pimp is the middleman and takes his cut off the top of what comes in. No consideration is given to the value of needs of the person at the end of the transaction...the intended target

The same holds true for community centers and schools. It is not about the person the intended target. While the money coming in is suppose to benefit them, that is secondary to everything else. There is a whole lot that has to come off the top first. There are the salaries and administrative costs. There are building costs, utilities, taxes and other operational costs. Once all of that is paid, low level consideration is given to what can be provided to the intended target. And as salaries and operational costs have increased and revenue has gone down... less and less is available to aid the intended target. But then... that is the pimp game.

The church of old was wise and could clearly see and would bravely confront injustice. They would not whisper about it and find a way around it. As with any other evil, they called it out and fought it head on... that was part of the ministry and mission of the old church. Creating a duplicate program because those who have been assigned to do it originally won't is co-signing on the existing injustice and evil. It is meekly finding a way around the injustice as to not ruffle feathers.

It is an injustice that centers and programs and agencies are receiving lots and lots of money to improve the quality of life of our children, to educate them sufficiently, to offer exposure and guidance and safety and food they may not otherwise get. Yet our children are not getting what is intended for them because of a pimp's callous discretion. That is wrong, that is evil, that is unjust.