A majority of society see's gang members and gang life as a threat with only one way to survive to eliminate them. These gangsters or gangbagers lend a immedate hand to the security and safety of everyone in their neighborhood, their is a constant fear of death in these neighborhoods. But for the child who lives in that very neighborhood with no father ,a mother's on crack a sister who can't work because her arms show trax, with no one to look up to and only a hopeless future to look forward to, they turn to gangs because the outside world rejects them. The become their fathers,mothers,brothers,sisters,cousins, friends, gangs become family. Gangs are a way of life for many of these young black males becaue of thier position in culture, sense they our born in amist poverty they our already for the most part given what will look achievable and cool .Their cultural maps seem to already be set in fate ,somthing that we can never understand until theirs a way to truly trade places. I believe there is no way to complete eliminate gang life, ans passing the blame around dosent help either but yet we have to change the violent nature of many gangs . We must look as the young man and women trying to grow out of concreate.
A gang is defined as a "group of people organized for a particular purpose: who usually engage in violent or otherwise criminal behavior". Gangs usually partake in drug-trafficking,robbery, vandalism, arson, assault, and even murder. There are endless reasons why young men and women join gangs.Many have to contest with high poverty, stressed families, unemployment, under-employment, undereducation, racism. Some join join for a sense of protection from other gangs. But most join for the sense of family.The youth living in these envirorments need to satisfie this sense of emptyness , its their desire to feel secure. It gives them some kind of warmod identity, belonging, power, and protection. The gangs represent their armour from the outside world. It must be stated thoe that many things have been done to try to stop gang violence. Some of the ways that have been proposed tosolve this violent destrutive lifestyle are citizen participation, reducing of guns and weapons, programs set to address violence, and public assistance for crime, drug use, and violence. But none of them seem to work , In my opinon its because there not geared towards the typical young male or female gang member. They our being treated as projects or cases or hardend thugs not as people, looking for the same love and support we all crave. Majority of them come from broken familes. We must somehow find a replacement to the comfort and support of belonging to a gang. We must understand that people who join gangs do not see them in the same way as people outside the gang life see them.
Once a person has joined a gang, they can not see past it. The gang takes over everything, leaving no time for school, work, or any other commitments . This may be considered unhealthy by outsiders, but it gives a focus to a person's life that otherwise would not have been provided in many cases. Some of these youg men have never been exposed to happiness, they hate themselves and those around them so much that they eventually become hardened to their pain and by doing so make their lives of those around them miserable without even realizing it. These young men and women our looking for a sense of respect but when you think about it, respect is a precarious thing to all of us, once it starts to slip away, one can never get it back, and respect is all-important to people who have never had any. Hopefully a way can be found to give hope to people living in desperation, when we see this the poverty and discrimination will disappear by themselves, the gang problem with them and will see a new clutral map plotted out but the question we need to all ask ourselves is not who is at blame for the wasted youth? but yet how can we help make that one seed grow form concreate ?
No comments:
Post a Comment