While this beating death of a teen was caught and recorded on a camera phone - most are not.http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/09/08/chicago.teen.beating/
But the thing is; this happens all the time.
Boys are taught from an early age that they must be aggressive.
That they must dominate instead of being dominated.
But the thing that is not being taught is when to be aggressive and when to stop before things go too far.
Back in the day, my youngest brother (a Blood) was involved in a gang fight with a group of opposing Crips.
He ended up in a coma for a few months but he lived.
The thing is; within the week after the gang fight, two of the most vocal Crips ended up dead and the others in jail.
Was I mad at the Crips?
No, not really.
I always told my brothers that the games they chose to play would have a huge impact on the events in their lives.
This time, it was just my brother's turn to be on the receiving end of a beat down.
It was just part of that game.
(And for the Crips, that was just part of the game too.)
Kids fight.
That's it.
Anyone who has gone to a hood school knows and expects this.
The days leading up to any break (Christmas, Spring, Summer,...) are often filled with fights and people getting jumped for something they'd earlier said or done, or sometimes for being in the right place at the wrong time.
And with crowds often encouraging such behavior, things often escalate to the point of death.
Is this beating case anomalous?
Nope.
These kids were taught and encouraged to act this way.
Sadly, it's all too common.
I thought fighting was pretty normal when I grew up. I just realized after I turned into a teenager that I might get killed. We went from boxing gloves at 7, knives at 12 to 22's at 14 to Afghanistan like weaponry by 16. I've seen so many gang fights you would think this is a sport.
ReplyDeleteThe trigger to stop is what separates the crazy MFers in your hood. Most cats stop but some will kill someone and if you don't see that in the eyes of that person your name is on the list. We had people who were just plum crazy and we used to warn people that wasn't the guy to play with.
Kids are kids but somewhere are teenage years someone needs to tell them the game has changed!
Kids don't even wait for their teenage years to get that thousand yard stare and a life amounts to nothing mentality.
ReplyDelete@ FreeMan - I always knew that someone could get killed but somehow I always knew that it wouldn't be me.
ReplyDeleteThat crazy guy in the hood keeps the other crazy guys in check.
Try poppin' the crazy guy and you end up with three, four or five slightly less crazy guys causing havoc.
It's odd, I always end up having the crazy dude doing my work and trying to be cool with me.
@ NoFace - I think a lot of it is that they seem to think that "Mtv Cribs" and "My SuperSweet 16" are common and expected for many other kids.
When they see that they'll never have that life, they just give up.
Without a father around to teach them how the real world works, many try to get the desired lifestyle in any way they can.
Usually, this involves some sort of street employment, which leads to a police record and then limited avenues of escape. This leads to a furthur state of hopelessness which causes many to go from "I don't care" to "I don't care if I (or you) die".
What is *NOT* common is a group of White kids beating a White kid to death...
ReplyDeleteI'm not so sure about that BigDon.
ReplyDeleteBig Don is a agitator. He's is one of those white guys who like to point out how superior he is by coming down to talk to the colored folks. He probably is in a cubicle in Seattle getting mad at the world.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy because just like his people they are everywhere and they are snitches!
We are everywhere and we are snitches? I am assuming the "they" you speak of are white people? Maybe this is for another day butif your problem is other people snitch'n maybe you should just stop doing stuff worth snitvhing about. Sorry, I do not wish to defend, nor will I defend, BogDon, but anon's last comment is telling.
ReplyDeleteAs far as Don's comment I gotta hit the BS button. As the resident suburban White boy I gotta say by graduation I had seen more fights then I could count, heard bullets fly past before you hear the gun go off (you know what I mean if you have heard it before), and seen every drug possible being done (but never sold strangely enough).
I remember the day in 8th grade where everything changed. Tomasi and Tony had beef, fought, and the next day all Tomasi's "cousins" showed up and the beat down was on.
Everyone I know carried sawed off broomsticks in the car called "hick sticks" as all the cowboys would come over to the east side of town on weekends looking to fight.
If no one died it was only because the cops and ambulances respond quicker in white parts of town... or in towns where nothing else is going on.
Fighting was just what people did on weekends, and even worse, we knew we were white boys in the soft part of the world with no street cred to match everyone's Mtv idols. "Reppin" the SLC just doesnt resonate like Inglewood, so all the knuckleheads go out lookin to prove how crazy and bad they were. Thats how people with parents, money, nice clothes, end up shootin at people.
Stupidness.
Stupidness to the point where a kid like me jerked his knee and hated all things hip-hop. I couldn't stand "ghetto culture" and all that went with it, and had one foot on that slippery slope where you start to judge a group by it's lowest common denominator.
--
Not till I went to the actual ghetto, heard Common, OutKast, Goodie M.O.B., and Talib, and visted places like Morehouse, did my mind open up.
But that's what it took.
I had to leave home to learn that stuff. Most people don't get that far from home. Most of them never learn.
Most of the football team I graduated from, all white...
have done time.
What disturbs me the most about this is that people are comparing the violence in Chicago to worn torn African Countries. When did we get that bad?
ReplyDeleteLOL @ Brohammas a bit. What if the snitching is just for no reason but they suspect wrong and are quick to tell. Everyone has a stereotype and if Blacks are thought of as criminals then whites might carry the stereotype of being snitches. I guess I can use your same statement to say if you don't like to be associated as snitches then maybe you shouldn't be so quick to snitch huh? Either way it's not relevant to this post but I wanted to respond...
ReplyDelete@Ojo - Well if you want to make people look like a bunch of animals you reference to them being uncivilized. Even when it's natural for teenagers to fight and things getting out of hand. I could have swore the white boys were fighting in the book the Outsiders with Pony Boy but since they are Black I guess it's different.
We aren't and never were that bad. You can't believe the words of people who are just scared of you period. Anything you do even simply not smiling makes for a unrealistic gripping fear.
@FreeMan, noted. Although being associated with snitches is no problem for me. I wish the city I lived in had more snitches.
ReplyDeleteI'm just saying if you are going to lump as all together and critisize us, why that critisizm? Why not "They are all self centered and arrogant." That would seem more relevant, accurate, and independant of anything a black person did or does.
@Brohammas - Well most Black people don't criticize whites because we just accept whites the way they are. You have to believe when you open your mouth that the criticism will actually change things.
ReplyDeleteThe only difference is whites have a belief that when they criticize Blacks it's actually going to change something.