filed under "things I don't get"

[mickeym]

I have Gangland on the television while I'm attempting to write working on my spn_j2_xmas story, and every so often I'll glance up and catch something that makes me think, WHUT?.

This particular episode is about the Nashville gang, Brown Pride. One of the guys they're interviewing goes by the street name "Spook". He's 18. He's been in the gang since the 4th grade. He talks about how he was "carrying heat" by the time he was ten (TEN! O_O), and his and his homeboys' version of fun is to just go out and jump people for the hell of it. That's their version of a videogame.

He's just so incredibly blase about the idea of hurting someone else, of doing violence. It's such a casual attitude, and where the HELL does that come from? What makes these kids think this is something that's okay, good, ideal?

Stuff like this makes me crazy. Also makes me wish there was an island somewhere, where all the gangbangers could be rounded up and dropped off onto. Let 'em fight each other and leave the rest of the world safer for the rest of us. *sigh*

Comments

[surevesta.livejournal.com]

It's their culture. The grew up in an environment with their peers (and/or family) that brought them into the gang scene. From there he learned from older kids and adults in the game how to act and interact.

Some people do buck 'norms', but many more go with what they see and experience as being right. He may know, distantly, that it is wrong... but with everyone around him telling him this is what you do and then showing him that that IS what they do... that is what he learned to do.

[mickeym.livejournal.com]

It's just the whole gang subculture in general. The motorcycle gangs, the Bloods, the Crips, the MS-13, Surenos, Mexican Mafia, so on and so forth--I just don't get the ideals of "if you want it, take it, often as violently as possible." Y'know?

[surevesta.livejournal.com]

According to a sociology course I took there's a few different types of people in the world. The most common are the people that Want what society tells them to and Do what society tells them to get what they Want. The other is the people that Want what society tells them to but don't want to Do what society tells them to get it. There's also people that neither want nor do, Do but don't want, and those that reject society completely (some homeless, hermits).

It's been a while since I took the class so I can't get more specific.

I don't get it but then I don't understand people who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a huge house or a huge car either.

It's kind of the: OOOO SHINY! I WANT NOW. It'd take years to get it if I were to work for it... so TAKE.

I understand their logic in a way... I just can't comprehend how they'd be willing to hurt someone to do it. The disregard for life (human or otherwise) is apalling.

[tabularassa.livejournal.com]

That's what happens when you grow up surrounded by violence, with no love, and no positive role models. It breaks my heart that there are actually people in this world who think nothing of hurting others because that's all people have shown them. It's a vicious cycle, just like any other type of abuse. Makes me disgusted at the world we live in even more.

[mickeym.livejournal.com]

Well, I'll buy that, to a degree. But like, this kid Spook? His family moved from Mexico to Nashville so dad could find a better job and take better care of his family. The narrative in the show said the gang didn't exist when Spook and his family first got to Nashville...but something happened in between ages five and nine, that made that kid believe the best thing to do is carry a gun and go looking for a fight.

I get that a lot of gangbangers join because they're looking for love, acceptance, and so on. But there's also a lot of kids who need those things, that don't join gangs... so what makes the difference? Why would two kids raised in the same circumstances choose differently?

[tabularassa.livejournal.com]

I know that too, and I wish I could answer that question, cos then this discussion would be irrelevant. I don't know. Same reason some kids who are abused as children choose not to continue the cycle, while others do.

[mickeym.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this is another one of those "if only we could find the answer" (not unlike making sure small children don't die of cancer, etc), and I know that.

I guess the gangland shows bother me more when they're interviewing the young kids, the ones who are my son's age, or just a few years older. The older, hardened guys who've served 20 yrs in prison, or whatever, they're...it's different. I dunno. But the young ones, it's like they never even GOT a chance, and I just hate it and wonder why (and then I stop and think, "hey, maybe an apocalypse isn't such a horrible thing..." and gah).

[tabularassa.livejournal.com]

LOL I think the SAME thing, like bring 2012 (not that I necessarily believe the end is nigh, but you know what I mean) already, when I see shit like that. Like seriously, what makes a CHILD so un-feeling, you know? It's fucked up.

[zortified.livejournal.com]

I saw a documentary on Brown Pride and it was the stupidest documentary ever. It was like they had ten minutes of footage and had to stretch it out to an hour. They kept going on about how "bp" was the gang sign and OMG you can make it out in this oh-so-complicated graffiti (it was blatant) and they were all "OH MY GOD" bp stands for brown pride and they flash this gang sign at each other which was their fingers making a b and a p and OH MY GOD that's bp the gang name!

It was like gangs for kindergardeners. "If you take the first letter of each word of the gang's name, you can write it down on walls! And that's called a 'tag'."

It was insanely stupid, like they were trying to scare old white folks who've never encountered gangs except on tee vee.