Word: scouting
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They are not exactly Norman Rockwell's image of Boy Scouts, but then they do not inhabit a Rockwellian America. The 60 members of Boy Scout Troop 503 live in a ghetto of South Brooklyn, and they call themselves the "Black and Puerto Rican Stoners" to indicate that they are as hard and as solid as stone. Their uniforms are Army-type fatigues, combat boots and green berets. In addition to being "trustworthy" and "loyal," the Stoners promise to "have ethnic pride," and they pledge allegiance to the flag with clenched fists over their hearts. Their oath...
...Jive. With this goal in mind, the national Scout organization has been working hard to make its troops more pertinent in the wilderness of the inner cities. Instead of learning how to map the countryside, city Scouts map out their subway and bus systems. Last year, in recognition of the often matriarchal nature of inner-city black society, Scouting executives broke a 59-year tradition by recruiting women as Scoutmasters and older girls as Scout leaders...
...B.S.A. has also faced up to the drug problem: last May, after Scouts at a conference in Denver admitted having experimented with drugs, a new pledge was devised in which Scouts forswear the use of drugs and promise to try to get non-Scout friends to make the same commitment...
Whether anyone in Scout headquarters envisioned troops such as the Brooklyn Stoners is another matter. Certainly their chant would startle some suburban Scoutmasters. "Stoners, Stoners, hard as we can be. Stoners, Stoners, for real. Dig on me. Never victims of a needle high. Hard work, cleaning up dirt and a forward strive, no jive. That's cur high...
...Mason and have been a Boy Scout. I do not wander aimlessly about slack-jawed with a vapid grin on my face. I, and I am convinced many Americans, happen to believe that man, in common with other members of the animal kingdom, is faced with a continual struggle to stay alive...