Social Economical problems that stem from gangs

[Cotton]

You also have to take into account that a lot of these kids are exposed to emotionally crippling scenarios. How well would you deal with life if you witnessed several of your friends or family member's murders? Especially say, if one of them was/were your parent(s)?

What about if your parents didn't give two shits that you were born anyway, and more than frequently subjected you to a life of taking care of yourself, starting at age 5? Complete with living conditions that include roast infested, filthy housing? What if they left you at your little age, to scrounge for food, and possibly look after your filthy diaper wearing siblings, while they went off to look for their next crack hit? Next sex partner to screw for drugs?

What if your parent(s) had not one bit of patience, because they were doped up, or coming down, and they beat you senseless because you happened to walk in on them screwing someone/taking a hit/anything? ETC ETC ETC...

What sort of life tools are you expected to possess when you grow up like this? Many make it out, MOST don't...

What about growing up with a mother who had a crippling disease... What about being 9 years old listening to your mother cry every night.. Which made you cry... What about having to wait on your mom every day when you're 9 years old because she can't get out of bed..What about seeing your mother develop horrible liasions all over her body... Or seeing her fingers become disfigured... How about your mother becoming so uninvolved in your life because of pain you start failing school....What about when you have to see a family therapist at the age of 13... Or how about her breaking both her hips... Sitting in doctors offices doing homework...

Yea I never joined a gang, or cried the blues because my childhood sucked. You don't think any of that shit did emotional or mental damage..

 

[Dana]

I just wanna state who do you think hip hop icons got this gangster imagery from? Cotton, Snoop Dogg is a former Crip. skyblue, just because you don't like an artist or genre of music, doesn't mean you should wish death upon them. With the music and how it affects young people, I ask where are the parents? It's not the music's fault anymore than it is a voilent movie. Music is mean't to be a movie without a picture. Violence & glamorizing may be a part of the content but thats why the Parental Content sticker was established. Parents need to take control of their children's actions. If they did we wouldn't have so many gang members.

 

[All Else Failed]

What about growing up with a mother who had a crippling disease... What about being 9 years old listening to your mother cry every night.. Which made you cry... What about having to wait on your mom every day when you're 9 years old because she can't get out of bed..What about seeing your mother develop horrible liasions all over her body... Or seeing her fingers become disfigured... How about your mother becoming so uninvolved in your life because of pain you start failing school....What about when you have to see a family therapist at the age of 13... Or how about her breaking both her hips... Sitting in doctors offices doing homework...

Yea I never joined a gang, or cried the blues because my childhood sucked. You don't think any of that shit did emotional or mental damage..

how about never having a mom or dad period?

 

[Cotton]

how about never having a mom or dad period?

Always got a better excuse huh?

Sorry I just don't have sympathy..

I had a shitty child hood, I don't give a fuck how you try and down play it.

 

[Dana]

opcorn2: *sits and watches*

 

[All Else Failed]

I;m not trying to down play it. It sounds really bad, but it seems like your using your childhood as a general excuse as to why blacks "act" the way they do, when in reality they probably have it worse than what you described.

 

[Elle]

What about growing up with a mother who had a crippling disease... What about being 9 years old listening to your mother cry every night.. Which made you cry... What about having to wait on your mom every day when you're 9 years old because she can't get out of bed..What about seeing your mother develop horrible liasions all over her body... Or seeing her fingers become disfigured... How about your mother becoming so uninvolved in your life because of pain you start failing school....What about when you have to see a family therapist at the age of 13... Or how about her breaking both her hips... Sitting in doctors offices doing homework...

Yea I never joined a gang, or cried the blues because my childhood sucked. You don't think any of that shit did emotional or mental damage..

Well if you want to share stories, my mother told me she hated me when I was 4, and followed through with ignoring me and doting on my younger sister. She was a coke addict starting from when I was 12 and my step father was a dealer. My mother owned a popular sports bar that made her quite a decent amount of money, with the perks of a shitload of patrons who bought coke from my step father. We lived in an exclusive community, in a huge, beautiful house, that looked pretty perfect from the outside. My step father beat the crap out of my mother and turned to myself when she wasn't around. He also abused me in unspeakable ways, and even though I told my mom about it, she didn't do anything. Instead, she told my grandmother, who was 3,000 miles away in WI, (us in AZ), that I was trying to break up their marriage. When I was 15, she lied and said we were visiting family in WI, when we got there...she left a month later and told me I was staying, and she went back to the shithead step father. She never sent me any of my treasured possessions...pictures, school awards, yearbooks, memorbilia, sports stuff from school, nothing. She's also lost all of my childhood pictures, so I have nothing to look at when I wonder what looks my little ones have from when I was their age.

Really, could go on and on about how disgusting my mother is, but really, why? We ALL have a sob story to tell, but a lot of us have an iron will that we possess that gets/got us through without leading a life of crime filled days and nights and other debauchery. I share my story, because it's fact, not an excuse, and not my fault.


No brainer: MANY people don't get through their tragedies well, because, we're ALL different and deal with life's events differently.

Edit: and I'm truly sorry about your mother's ordeal and the pain it's caused you.

 

[Dana]

What about growing up with a mother who had a crippling disease... What about being 9 years old listening to your mother cry every night.. Which made you cry... What about having to wait on your mom every day when you're 9 years old because she can't get out of bed..What about seeing your mother develop horrible liasions all over her body... Or seeing her fingers become disfigured... How about your mother becoming so uninvolved in your life because of pain you start failing school....What about when you have to see a family therapist at the age of 13... Or how about her breaking both her hips... Sitting in doctors offices doing homework...

Yea I never joined a gang, or cried the blues because my childhood sucked. You don't think any of that shit did emotional or mental damage..

sorry to hear that

 

[Cotton]

I'm not saying it's a reason. I'm saying lots of people come from hard times and they still succeed without joining gangs.

 

[Peter Parka]

First of all, kudos for Cotton for getting where he is despite of what he's gone through. I bet it was real hard work.:clap

So just remember, Cotton, you were strong, other people arn't as strong.
It's impossible to compare what you can do to others. Many people react in many ways to the same situations.

 

[All Else Failed]

I'm not saying it's a reason. I'm saying lots of people come from hard times and they still succeed without joining gangs.

Good for them.


But that doesn't mean all people can or are able to.

 

[Cotton]

I hear ya Peter but I just don't have sympathy for people that don't even try.

 

[All Else Failed]

Who said they haven't?

 

[Elle]

I hear ya Peter but I just don't have sympathy for people that don't even try.

This could go both ways. In this very thread, you haven't been open minded enough to see the views of others, instead you keep repeating your "people are stupid" mantra. So you're not trying either. It seems you remain blind to surroundings, and the fact that I responded to your story, and you haven't "seen" my response or whatver, says that you are just skimming through here.

I could be wrong, dunno, but it's frustrating to discuss with someone who doesn't really offer up different reasons behind their statements, instead to just repeat and combat.

 

[FreeWorkVest]

Sometimes, people get beat down by life before they get out of single digit years. When you go hunger, or you are abandoned or abused or whatever. When you wake up every day and see squalor and depravity, violence and want, and that is your entire world, it is difficult to rise above it. Especially when all the people around you that work hard are still poor, while the drug dealers and the pimps and the gang bangers get seemingly easy money, then it really is hard to say, I will take the hard way.

 

[Elle]

Right. I also believe that people who's human rights have been disrepected and violated in many different ways, have a sort of vendetta on life. Either they get out there to bestow their anger upon society, or they use that anger to build a barrier that will keep themselves out of that very same life they grew up in.

 

[skyblue]

ok.......i've just read 2 heartbreaking stories.......much credit for holding it together you 2

and.....this thing about getting out of poverty......i think alot of it is role models........my dad always worked,he worked till he died at 74......and he liked a drink........well i've always worked and guess what, i like a drink........i've also seen my sister being with a man who loved to batter her,even though we never knew at the time.......guess what.......her 18 year old son has started hitting his girlfriend........now thats wound my son up big time......he also works and likes a drink.......my point is that these people have role models who seem inaccessible like movie stars or music stars.....or people from where they live.......so called gangsters who still live in the ghetto........what chance do they have?

 

[Elle]

ok.......i've just read 2 heartbreaking stories.......much credit for holding it together you 2

and.....this thing about getting out of poverty......i think alot of it is role models........my dad always worked,he worked till he died at 74......and he liked a drink........well i've always worked and guess what, i like a drink........i've also seen my sister being with a man who loved to batter her,even though we never knew at the time.......guess what.......her 18 year old son has started hitting his girlfriend........now thats wound my son up big time......he also works and likes a drink.......my point is that these people have role models who seem inaccessible like movie stars or music stars.....or people from where they live.......so called gangsters who still live in the ghetto........what chance do they have?

Exactly right. Someone needs to break the cycle...

 

[skyblue]

i dont want to break my cycle.......i work and like a drink

 

[COOL_BREEZE2]

ok.......i've just read 2 heartbreaking stories.......much credit for holding it together you 2

:homo:

Actually 3 tho. There was one about no mother and father.

Whoa, the real life stories some of ya'll have is something else. Could have easily ended up on the streets or some mad house if you didn't turn it around. That much you have to be thankful for.

Me? I ain't got shit like that to share. My family weren't rich and were humble people. I guess they had their share of probs in the earlies but I hardly knew any of it. They struggled to make ends meet at times I think but persevered, built on what they had and did pretty ok in the end. And most importantly they tried as best to set a good example.

All this to say is at times you take certain things for granted and don't appreciate what you have and altho when times hard and wish you were like someone else you don't take into account that there always somebody else that has it worse and/or wish they were as fortunate as you (given their own situation).

Don't know if this makes sense or if it falls in place with the discussion. Maybe not but just some thoughts that popped in my head with no particular rhyme.