If You Want Eight Year Old Boys To Stop Making Play Guns, Then Dammit: Stop Glamorizing Them!

Another day; another young boy expelled from school for making and playing with a gun made out of paper. Another day, another new Hollywood movie comes out that, in my opinion, glamorizes guns. Here's the problem that, I feel, expounds on the hypocrisy of talking out of both sides of the mouth. Schools are on a mission to have so called "zero tolerance" on anything gun related. Then the next movie or video game or TV show that is geared toward young males comes out and is marketed in what I feel, is an aggressive in-your-face campaign with plenty of guns and violence.

No wonder statistics say that our young males are in trouble. They're totally dazed and confused on how they are supposed to behave and be like. This latest young boy's father served in the military and he and his son were talking about military weapons shortly before the son made the gun in school. So an eight year old boy excitedly discusses military weapons with his father and then gets kicked out of school for making one out of paper, and saying he's going to "shoot" somebody. Hmmmmm, I wonder where he got that from?

Instead of kicking him out of school, how about sitting the boy down and explaining exactly what guns are, and what their exact purpose is. Teach about the dangers and also the benefits of guns. Better yet, how about creating special classes or assemblies that educate on not only guns, but also violence. They can also discuss and correlate why young boys are so fascinated with them. That's when it could also be explained to them that Hollywood and video games are a fantasy land, that have their own mission to make as much money as possible, and they have no qualms whatsoever in using guns and violence to be successful. Let these classes or assemblies be ongoing and if a kid draws a gun or makes one out of paper, just give that child a little more counseling on the subject. By expelling the child from school, you are given that child the burden of a "scarlet letter" at seven and eight years old.

It's very hard to understand people when they talk out of both sides of their mouth.

A Mother's Song, A Son's Tragic Death--Anesthetized To Madness!

This is a story that is, to me, the epitome of a tragedy in a place where tragic stories are the norm. 

Via New York Post 3/17/14

Verbena Burgess, 50, said she was outside belting out Chris Brown’s “Take You Down” when several young men across the street from the Morris Avenue (Bronx, N.Y.) apartment building where she lives told her to keep it down. The standoff escalated into two fights, the last one of which ended with her oldest son, Tony, shot to death on a building staircase. 

Tony Burgess

“The boys threw a bottle at me for singing,” Verbena said. “I said to him, ‘Why did you throw the bottle at me?’ 

He said, ‘Shut the f–k up.’ Then he got a piece of paper and threw it at me. I said, ‘I’m going to call 911 because you’re bothering me.’ “Then he said, ‘Call them. Call your sons.’ That’s when I rang the bell.”

Moments later, Tony and two of her other sons came outside to her defense, and got into a fight with the group from across the street before chasing them off. 
“When we started fighting, they ran,” said Burgess’ brother Shaquille, 20. “So we came back inside the building and they came back and they got inside our building, and we started fighting again.

“I was in the basement in the back with my little brother fighting one of the guys and my big brother was with two other people, fighting two guys, and one of the guys came in with the gun and he shot as my big brother was going up the stairs.”

EMS rushed Burgess to Lincoln Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival, officials said.

This is a story that is almost beyond belief. I have to read these lines a few more times to actually grasp the meaning of what happened. After I process this information, what transpired was a 24 year-old young man is dead because he defended his mother who was singing and some punks objected to it. A young man is dead because of his natural in-bred instinct to defend and protect his mother. And, as what happens so many times on today's streets, a fistfight escalates into gunplay and another young black male is murdered.

More and more the self-hatred that young people of color seem to have for one another perpetuates itself. The disrespect those young boys had for this woman was only trumped by the rancorous self-loathing they had for themselves that caused them to attack the ones who looked like them and happened to challenge them. Our youth are in a perpetual free-fall with the lack of a proper education, a lack of employment and a lack of any moralistic conscience--all this added to the easy availability of hand guns in a city that has one of the most toughest gun laws in the nation.

Many outsiders--people who live well beyond the teeming city streets--must be shaking their heads at the insanity of this story. But I guess the ones who have to constantly exist on the "Morris Avenues" of America know all-too-well that this is the stark reality. These human beings are not only anesthetized to violence, but now--they have become anesthetized to madness.

Gun Control is important, but how about also--Controlling Guns!

A 39 year-old father of two, Angel Rojas (pictured below with his wife) is dead because a 14 year-old kid with a gun missed his target on a Brooklyn city bus. Witnesses said the kid's gun was bigger than him and sounded like a cannon when he fired multiple shots at a rival inside the bus.

So once again, how easy was it for this young 14 year-old boy to get the gun? Probably as simple as getting a can of soda from the local store. It seems like the iron pipeline is still thriving, and making a literal killing in a city with one of the toughest gun laws in the nation. Until we stop the iron pipeline--until we stop the influx of illegal guns from states with weak gun laws that flow like a raging Tsunami into the streets of Brooklyn, Bronx, Chicago, L.A., and countless other cities, there will be many, many more Angel Rojas' who will leave wives and children barren and alone. 

Gun Control is important, but just as important is, Controlling the Guns! #stoptheironpipeline

Man, 39, killed by teen gunman in B15 bus shooting in Brooklyn

A 14-year-old fiend turned a city bus into a murder scene in the flash of a gun Thursday when his bullet meant for a rival killed an innocent Brooklyn dad instead, sources said.

Angel Rojas, 39, was sitting on the B15 when the kid shot up the bus at about 6:20 p.m. at Marcus Garvey Blvd. near Greene Ave. in Bedford-Stuyvesant, cops said. Rojas, the married father of two, was shot in the back of the head.

The alleged killer and some other teens were in the rear of Brooklyn-to-JFK bus No. 4184 when an apparent rival boarded and started walking toward them, sources said.

“One kid pulls out a gun and he lets off a couple of rounds,” a source said. “He’s running out of the bus, still letting rounds go, and this poor guy gets shot in the back of the head. He wasn’t the intended victim.”

Read the full article here: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/woman-shot-head-b15-bus-article-1.1728690#ixzz2wcSUGnx3 

The Knockout Game

The Knockout Game

A tragic contest played for “fun” by youths with little sense of self-worth, little sense of self-love and very little hope for their future.

This game called Knockout, where someone punches a victim with the intent of knocking them out, is an alarming trend that seems to be growing in popularity on the east coast. The victims are apparently chosen at random and have included senior citizens, and women: some who even had children with them. There have also been reports that this game has caused a few deaths.

The thugs who are perpetrating this vileness are usually teens who travel in gangs or packs and are out looking for a manly thrill. They don’t seem to understand the sickness and cowardice of their actions, similar to the creeps who use guns as a way of settling beefs. It is an alarming microcosm of the larger picture of the glorification of violence that has swept up many youths who are engulfed in it in just about every facet of their lives.  This is of course exacerbated by the fact that there are very few places where teens can go and blow off steam the right way; like social clubs, youth centers and community rooms. And of course, this is all complicated by the fact that there are very few after-school jobs for these teens. Hence, they have nothing to do after school and on weekends, so they walk around in groups looking for trouble.

These young punks would probably never step into a real boxing or MMA ring and fight someone one on one. No, they operate on “gang courage’ and only feel secure when the have their equally sociopathic peers around.

The Knockout Game

A tragic contest played for “fun” by youths with little sense of self-worth, little sense of self-love and very little hope for their future.

Unlike Trayvon Martin, Where is The Outrage for Amin Sumter?

He died, alone, on the corner of Harmon Street and Crescent Avenue in Jersey City just before midnight Thursday, July 18th. His family, friends and neighbors mourn his murder and demand justice, just as those in the over 100 cities that are now demanding justice for Trayvon Martin. His name was Amin Sumpter and he didn’t live past his 23^rd birthday.

Amin Sumter did not die at the hands of a white “security” agent for a apartment complex. More than likely, he died at the hands of what basically was, another young black male. “He knew who did it, but when (the police) tried to ask him, that’s when his eyes rolled back into his head and his mouth started trembling and he couldn’t say,” one of the neighbors said. That’s when he died from being shot down in the street. He knew who shot him, but before he could tell the cops, his eyes rolled back in his head and he expired.

So where are the plans for mobilizing for his justice? Where are the people whose outrage are demanding justice today for Trayvon Martin? Why aren’t they demanding the same justice for the capture of Amin’s killer and for the end of the epidemic of our young Black and Latino men murdering each other on the streets of our cities like they were in the teaming jungles of Vietnam or Iwo Jima?

It’s been said that many people in America are episodic and only react when they see countless others reacting and then only for a short while. Then they go back to sleep until the next “outrage of the moment”, then repeat the same short-sided steps over again. But where is the mass, sustained outrage for the young males who are gunned down on the streets by people who look just like them?

I have an idea, how about erecting a wall in Washington D.C., similar to the one dedicated to the fallen soldiers from Vietnam and have the names of the thousands and thousands of children and young men and women who have been killed by their so-called peers. Maybe we could call it the Fallen Murdered Youth Wall.

Maybe the shame, agony and heartbreak this powerful structure would bring to the many who see it might just move some more people into action.