Even the African Americans are getting upset with the black on black gang violence out of control in

Originally posted by Hopeforeveryone
Gangs provide the emotional and financial support that is missing in many families and comunities. Then there's exploitation of younger members by older members for drug sales and to act as enforcers at the street level. To solve this problem the USA is going to have to make some pretty drastic sociological changes, you guys up for that ?

spot on- the destruction of stable, two parent families lies at the heart of most social problems, including gangs

The selfish "I can have sex with who I want, when I want, regardless of the consequences for any kids (whether existing or yet to be born)" attitude needs to be adjusted

reply to post by ATSGrunt

A shame gang rap, violence in movies and tv had to corrupt the younger generation. Too bad we don't have a more fundamental way of thinking with the head on our shoulders!

It is far to easy to point towards, music, film and even computer games as the root cause of violence, however it is simply not true. There is a lot of black on black violence today but that is not because of media, it is because of poverty and more importantly the lack of opportunity to change the current situation, this results in a loss of hope and in inbuilt frustration that manifests its self in violence, like a pent up coiled spring suddenly being released. Media has some effect, I believe it desensitizes people, where graphic violence becomes normal, where seeing someone's brains splattered against a wall becomes a laughing matter and something interesting to tell your friends rather than something that disgusts people, I have seen that change happening over the years, if some of the movies that are shown today were shown back in the 30's 40's and 50 people would of been physically sick in the cinema, now they pile in to see such graphic extremes. However what causes the descent into violence within a community is as I stated before, poverty and the lack of hope.

Gang violence is nothing new, in fact it is something that has always gone on, and always in area's of poverty and deprivation. Take a look at the movie Gangs of New York, which was loosely based from a non fiction research book called The Gangs of New York, did you notice the colour of the gangs portrayed? They were predominantly white European gangs, Irish, Italian, German etc etc the cause of their rise? Yes you guessed it poverty and slum conditions. The first sort of national gang was the Mafia, were they Black?

Give people an opportunity, give them a chance and they will work towards a better future, if they have something they can believe in they will follow it, but hey you step on somebody from birth, tell tehm they are useless, say to them, "hey see all that really nice crap on TV, well you aint ever getting it, your just gonna be a shoe shine boy for the rest of your miserable life, not even be able afford your rent or food for your kids" and people will fight back in the only way then know how, they will be full of anger and bitterness, the colour of their skin wont make one bit of god damned difference, people will lash out

"Even the African Americans" are you serious. No, are you really serious. Are you really surprised people of color are upset over people of color hurting other people of color?

Are you joking? Are you trolling? Or are you just another ignorant racist who needs to leave ATS so it can stop being such a laughing stock?

reply to post by blueorder


It is, thankfully, possible to have sex without having children. Perhaps you should edit your statement to reflect that fact.

The "even" in your title is a little insulting, but I think your heart is in the right place. Violence in some sections of our society is out of control - and the pop culture promotes it. There's nothing more stupid than seeing a white guy or Chinese guy running around with saggy pants and playing loud rap music - thinking they are cool. But that's our society and the influence of technology on the gullible. It's kind of like tats - people think they are being cool and individualistic by marking up their entire bodies, but they are merely falling for a fad. I wish we put more emphasis on critical thinking skills in our schools because they are sadly lacking. Kids are so very easily swayed into following the crowd (or what they think is the crowd from what they see on TV) and they give no thought to how those choices in youth will affect their entire lives.

drugs, teen pregnancy, smoking, heavy alcohol use, handguns, joining a gang, skipping school, bullying, pornography, homosexuality, robbery, taking on debt you have no intention of paying back, tax evation, fraud, etc. We are one sick society.

What really gets me is that often these things tend to be excused,sometimes thought of as preferable, or at the very least rationalzed (as in I wouldn't have done it if the government - or whoever - wasn't trying to screw me). God forbid we should take a little personal responsibility for our actions. It's just so much easier to make mistake after mistake and try to put the responsibility onto someone else. Like 300 lb doofus who takes cholesterol meds but doesn't change his lifestyle and then sues the doctor and manufacturer when his liver is eaten up. On the other side of the spectrum are the conservatives and those who are proactive with their life choices but who end up being considered the bad guys because they are intollerant to all the poor choices others make and which they usually end up paying for through taxes, law suits, etc.

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan
reply to post by Quetzalcoatl12

 

I grew up listening to varied music from King Diamond to Too Live Crew and Ice-T (remember Cop Killer?) I also watched faces of death with my friends while we ate things like spaghetti and tried to gross each other out. Between me and my best friend, we had about 10 different Faces of Death movies. I was a typical 80's kid. I was washed in violence and porn, like most kids in my time/location.

Today i am a well adjusted father, married for 17 years, fiercely loyal, no police record, and am a CFO.

So much for your theory that violent media begets violence. We could go on and on and on. Yet there was violence long before media came around. I know it seems all logical and stuff.....but it just isn't true. Correlation is not causation.

As have I, and I turned out well also. However media by itself doesn't effect the person. Upbringing and the lack of family or rather family figures that you can look up to is the major problem, not to mention the lack of education. You make it sound like over 300 million Americans are like you but the sad fact is that people are susceptible to different stimuli. Does that give them the excuse to use violence as a tool for what ever purpose they want to use it for? Absolutly not!!

Originally posted by Quetzalcoatl12

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan
reply to post by Quetzalcoatl12

 

I grew up listening to varied music from King Diamond to Too Live Crew and Ice-T (remember Cop Killer?) I also watched faces of death with my friends while we ate things like spaghetti and tried to gross each other out. Between me and my best friend, we had about 10 different Faces of Death movies. I was a typical 80's kid. I was washed in violence and porn, like most kids in my time/location.

Today i am a well adjusted father, married for 17 years, fiercely loyal, no police record, and am a CFO.

So much for your theory that violent media begets violence. We could go on and on and on. Yet there was violence long before media came around. I know it seems all logical and stuff.....but it just isn't true. Correlation is not causation.

As have I, and I turned out well also. However media by itself doesn't effect the person. Upbringing and the lack of family or rather family figures that you can look up to is the major problem, not to mention the lack of education. You make it sound like over 300 million Americans are like you but the sad fact is that people are susceptible to different stimuli. Does that give them the excuse to use violence as a tool for what ever purpose they want to use it for? Absolutly not!!

I accept no excuses from anyone. There is right, and there is wrong. What is right is logical, what is wrong is not. From the perspective of reasoning the human mind is a logical construct, the human animal is not.

When I grew up, i have my own sob stories. I have heard my story repeated by others, as their experience, used as an excuse for all manner of ill fitting behaviors.

Sure, social things can have an impact on your likelyhood to do what is right (as your vision can be clouded). But, at the end of the day, it is no excuse. When you realize that something you are doing is not the best way to do it, but you ignore that realization, you have just willingly done "bad". You make a choice, and choose to do it. There is nothing in your background that causes this. It is a choice made in the moment.

I demand personal accountability from others. And when I don't get it, i am harsh in my rebuff. As a manager, this makes me a "love him or hate him" kind of guy. Folks who show personal responsibility usually think I am a great boss. Those who don't think I am a hard ass that speaks rudely and harshly.

My sister and I are usually at odds. Her husband has a rough, thug background. Consequently, he often makes poor decisions. She will make the excuse, "He had a rough childhood." I tell her that is BS, and that she is allowing her excuses to cause her child to be affected. Every man with the capacity to reason is 100% accountable, in my opinion, for everything they do (every woman, too....it goes without saying).

Having said that (and hopefully with enough words to ensure understanding that it is important to me), if you watch porn all day, then rape a woman at night, it wasn't the porn that did it. It was you.

If you watch gore movies all day, then slash apart a hooker, it wasn't the movies. It was you.

If you listen to death metal and decide to sacrifice the neighbors baby to your dog, Sam, it wasn't Ozzy doing it It was you.

If we, as people ceased to accept these excuses, it may be possible that we wouldn't hear them as much. That people may realize, "Wait....no one is going to buy that I am a moron....i better not do this". And if our "justice" system would quit putting non-criminals behind bars, those who still chose to make victims of other people would have a place to stay, sequestered from the rest of us who would rather just shoot them than pay to maintain them in a prison system just because they choose to not have self control.

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


I see where your coming from, and I agree with what your saying. There is simply no excuse AT ALL for why people do the insane things they do. We (as a culture) are sometimes so hell bent on the "why" this and that tradgity happened, that we tend to want an excuse to make us understand why mind boggling catastrophes happen. As if knowing the "why" or the excuse is going to reveal something we didnt know already. As you pointed out, there is no excuse at all, so why concentrate on the excuse or the "why"?

reply to post by Quetzalcoatl12



I used to work with a guy that was pretty smart. He was analytical, and could identify his teams failures to an expert degree. The problem is, this is where it stopped for him. So we would get into quarterly business reviews, and he would show performance numbers, then explain why they were the way they were. He never provided a solution.

This is what an excuse is. It is saying, "This is why X is Y", and then leaving it at that and accepting it as failure. It is a major failure of many an upcoming manager (he got fired over this kind of nonsense).

If you take the "why" to the next step, and begin to remediate, then you no longer are making an excuse. You are being responsible.

Asking 'why' is the root of excuses. Asking "how" is the root of reponsibility.

Originally posted by Jefferton
You don't even realize how racist your title is. But you're american so that's not surprising.

You're right that the title is extremely racist, and wrong-headed, since it is usually African Americans you hear talking about how sick and tired they are of gang violence, and are often the only ones doing something about it in their neighborhoods. But worse than that is that you're well-aware of how disgusting and prejudiced your comment about Americans is, and yet you made it anyway.

I've always been a social person, I have a huge circle of friends (real ones, not Facebook/Myspace friends), and a large extended family in the U.S., and of them all, only a couple are racist, and theose couple are more ignorant than anything, not hard-core hateful. Among just people I know but aren't friends with, the percentage who are racist is probably still less than 1%, despite them not being. More of a tailored group (like those I'm friends with, where the numbers may be a bit skewed by my preference in friends essentially weeding out racists.)

In other words, the percentage of racist Americans is very small, but the rest of us sure do get swept up by that ignorance-oozing broad brush of yours. So chalk one up for non-Americans - I guess I should go around assuming non-Americans are a bunch of prejudiced scum now, right? No thanks, I have more respect for myself and others to fall to such ignorant behavior.

reply to post by ATSGrunt


There are plenty of violent crimes committed by non-black gangs. Plenty of Mexican, Puerto Rican, White, Asian, and etc. gangs that exist and I think every normal human being is "fed up with it" because most do not partake in gang related activities.

side note: Black people are not "African-American" they are black just as a white person is white and not "European-American". The only way they could be considered "African-Americans" is if they themselves moved to America from Africa

reply to post by andy06shake


There is no excuse for anyone under the age of 50 to be illiterate. We have schools now and we have for some time.

reply to post by Kangaruex4Ewe

Originally posted by Kangaruex4Ewe

Originally posted by Tsubaki
Well, I think its just genius. Red vs Blue, Crips vs Bloods.

If its no longer acceptable to openly hate Blacks, then why not foster an environment that will encourage them to reduce their population themselves? GENIUS. Glad I didn't fall victim to it.

Really?

I mean are you.... I can't.... what the hell... you didn't just... just really?

I am missing your oh so dramatic point. Hell....it seems that the person you responded to is glad that he/she did not descend into gang violence(To Tsubaki....that is my impression....if I am wrong please, by all means, correct me).

I can see his point. The USA has done virtually nothing to address the "gang problem" in our country. The only action I see is Half-Ass Programs that accomplish nothing.

Please dispense with the Sarcasm, Wit, Shock, Absurdity or whatever the hell you are implying and say it straight out. Again, all I see is dramatic nonsense.

Sooo, what's up with all of these threads lately? Does ATS = "Also Titled Stormfront?"

What's really the point of this thread?

Of course there are some African Americans upset about black on black gang violence not everyone is the same. Color really has nothing to do with it anymore, if white people were in the hood this topic would be reversed.

reply to post by ATSGrunt


I understand the sentiment behind the post but even black people? Why wouldn’t they be? For every black on black crime, I’m pretty sure “even black people” wouldn’t like it. Even black people…*shakes head*…like black people aren’t human or something.

Getting upset?

I'm pretty sure there's never been a time within black, or any other skin color for that matter, communities that face this daily threat have ever been complacent with their children being forced into gangs or murdered for not being in one or being in the wrong one.

The OP is such a sad example of "I'm not racist but..."

Gangs are a social phenomena, not a racial one. They are created by lack of oportunity, lack of education and poverty, all things that are very destructive to both the cohesion of family and community. Take away someones hope, and they try to create their own. if someone has the choice between making 40 dollars a week at a fast food place and making thousands in the drug trade they might be inclined to pick the latter.Gangs are a symptom not the disease, the disease is being poor with no hope of escaping it.

I read a few post regarding the black on black violence issue and some are being protective, as usual, of the left's political mishandling of the black community. The fact is, since "liberalism" of the 1960's set into black communities promising them everything and giving them less then they had before has been a Machiavellian trait of the left's inability or ability to destroy a society, like the blacks of the US, and make them dependent and dismissive of life as they have become. I know, one of you will charge in and say I have no standing in this area because I'm being racist. What I look at is people's actions, in the black community a black male is 9 times more likely to be killed by another black male and black females are killed at a higher rate in home based violence by black males then that of all other race on race violence combined. Additionally considering that blacks make up 47% of all prison population (male and female) and they only make up 12% of the population of the US.

It's time to end the war on blacks, sadly, liberals will die defending their "good works" until the last black male is gone. Sad really.

Those in power realized decades ago that it wouldnt be cool to just be openly racist anymore. So they made sure to create an environment where we would kill eachother. Crack coc aine from alphabet agencies (mainly CIA), and the widespread commercialization of "gangsta rap" by the big record companies were both part of this initiative I believe. drugs to break down our communities physically. Gangsta rap to water down our culture and for us to internalize so that it cripples us mentally. when your true rolemodels (malcolm x, martin luther king) get assassinated and the only rolemodels left are predominantly idiots then what's left? Most of my people have nothing to believe in but stupidity. And not only has it become the norm, but it's actually preferred. Too bad we're all too wrapped up with lil wayne and other materialistic bullsh*t to actually care about whats happened to us.