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.

This is NOT a movie or a video game--This Is Real!

This recent, horrific scene, from broad daylight gunplay in Trenton, N.J., is played out in just about every hood across America. Is it any wonder that innocent children and toddlers are caught in the crossfire. These punk thugs don't care about anything else but themselves. 

Is it any wonder that our teens are terrified to walk the streets, or go to a party, or have an argument these days. Is it any wonder that "good kids", who want to do the right thing and live peacefully, have to go and get a gun just to protect themselves?

In my opinion, until we as black and brown people show that we respect our lives and love who we are and will not tolerate us killing us, then other races will begin to respect our life also. Did George Zimmerman respect the life of Trayvon Martin when he shot him? It could possibly be that he was just following the "black lives don't mean anything' script that has been playing for many, many years by people who do not value our lives. Remember Latasha Harlins?

I argue that until this epidemic of black-to-black murder and self hatred stops; until we prove that we, as a people, value our human lives, then no other communities will put a value on our lives either.

Violence In Movies in the time of Sandy Hook

At first, when I heard the title to Stallone's new movie was called 'Bullet to the Head', I actually thought it was a joke. How could they, right after the Sandy Hook shootings and amid the insanity of violence in Chicago, possibly have the insensitivity and indifference to release a movie today with that title. Even if the movie's title was set way before the Newtown shootings, I figured they would, at least, change it.
I was wrong.

It boggles my mind how sheer arrogance such as this is purveyed without even a whimper from the same people who outcried the shootings at Sandy Hook. Let’s think about this clearly for a minute: we are experiencing an epidemic of gun violence in our streets and almost every week there is an incident of mass shootings and then Hollywood comes out with a mass marketed movie called ‘Bullet to the Head’.

It’s no wonder why our younger generation is confused and angry. The grownups; the people who are supposed to be the smart and rational ones, are showing an utter disregard for human suffering and showing that making money off of violence is more important. We are saying to our youth: “do as I say, and not as I do.”

Sheer hypocrisy.

How many mothers of murdered children will walk past a theatre or open up a newspaper and see the poster for this Stallone movie and not cringe with heartbreak. How many will relive the death of their child every time this trailer comes on T.V.?

Someone once said that violence in movies does not equate to violence in the real world. Then someone else countered with: if T.V. does not mold and shape reality, then why are there commercials? Corporations did not recently spend 3.7 million dollars for an ad on the Super Bowl for nothing. Statistics proved that when women began smoking in films back in the thirties, women began smoking in the real world. When Clark Gable removed his shirt in the movie ‘It Happened One Night’ and displayed a bare chest, the T-Shirt companies had a heart attack. Today, our children have become desensitized to murder and violence, because, in my opinion, they have seen countless forms of violence in the media.

If ‘Bullet to the Head’ doesn’t get people fired up in life after Sandy Hook, then dammit, nothing will.