LETTER: My Mistake

Bravo! Bill Madison's column was wonderful. I knew that all the time I spent volunteering as an undergraduate at William and Mary was, as he puts it, an expression of my "own selfish motives." It has become clear to me that when I was a Big Brother to a 12-year old African-American boy living in the projects of Williamsburg, I was buying into the "petting zoo mentality." My motives were selfish. I guess I was fooling myself into thinking that I could actually have a positive effect on this boy's life. Just because he had no father present, his mother was murdered when he was four and his grandmother had no time for him, I guess I was out of place spending between two and four hours every week with him. I know he probably would have had the chance to go canoeing, fishing, go-cart racing, bowling, etc., even if I wasn't doing it with him. I know he should have looked in his neighborhood for someone to spend this time with him. I know the 16-year old boy next door would have loved to be his Big Brother; he was recruiting him to become part of his drug dealing gang. Granted, I didn't drive a Mercedes and wear lots of gold. However, I really thought that showing him a college setting and helping him get his grades up was worth something to him. You must forgive my mistake because, you see, I went to a public college. I didn't have to look down from my Ivy Tower to see what was happening in my community. And I sure as hell did not look down my nose at those trying to help. BENJAMIN DOBRIN Graduate Student School of Social Work