Actually, if I take a minute...how are gay folks born?
Wait...doesn't society say that people decide to be gay, and there is NO WAY that they were meant to be that way?
I have lived in a midwestern city for 19 years. I've made fun of the city, showing what a buddy of mine would kindly call East Coast Arrogance. While perhaps at times I don't show the love for this place I've called home for nearly 1/2 my life, but it's a good town, filled with folks who are proud of it.
But I go back to my first question. A police officer died last night because someone decided that he was in a war zone and having an AK-47 was a good thing.
So in a few days, another police funeral will take place, and a man who probably was fairly close to retirement instead gets to do the dirt nap.
Not cool, right?
Now I don't know if many of you knew this, but my grandfather, Francis Brown, was a man who...well, he was a damned angel on this earth. A farmer down south, a pillar in his community, and a man of God if I've ever seen one.
He helped a young man who had multiple arrests on his record. This dude should have been in jail for life. Yet my grandfather helped him out, fed the man, tried to give him purpose.
In November 1998, that young man repaid him by breaking into his house trying to rob him. Then he shot him, leaving him to die on his bed. My aunt found him the next day.
So, are thugs born? Do racists come out of the birth canal saying "I'm gonna kill that n***er/spick/chink/wap/pick your insulting description and fill it in here!"
I always do a lot of reading between my job searches, and I love (gag) the responses some people have posted. "Ain't nothin' but a thug! An eye for an eye! We have to stop being so kind to these criminals!"
You notice how people end up with accents? I always found it cool when a person of color, say from England, had an accent. Let's go the world over...some folks feel what we call beautiful is ugly, and vice versa. Each place a child is born, that child's future is formed by his surroundings.
There is a neighborhood called Haughville (forgive the spelling; if the locals can help me out, I'll correct it later). It is a "hood." You know, a place where thugs are "born" and "raised." Let's look at those two words..."born" and "raised." When you are born, you piss and shit on yourself until you are TAUGHT where to put your body wastes. TAUGHT. You absorb lessons from your folks, your surroundings, your experiences. Unless you have positive reinforcement, most times you don't learn shit. Now, let's go back to Haughville for a second. There are good people there...I have to believe that all hoods are not filled with THUGS.
But that is what people think. Hell, I think that a lot of times, and I tend to avoid these areas.
But I grew up in these so-called "hoods." I was born in Manhattan, but raised in what is known as the "Boogie Down Bronx." Now a good chunk of Manhattan is filled with folks who, frankly, make a lot of money. And are white. NYC is the great american melting pot, true, but this remains a fact.
This is why I didn't turn out to be a thug...that's it! Or am I supposed to be one because, per Mr. Chris Rock, black folks were "born suspect?"
You know, I used to call gay folks "fag" and "d**e" when i was young, cuz well I was a dumb ass. I was influenced by my society...where I grew up. You weren't friends with gay folks. My mom once told me that you "better not bring a white woman to my house." She grew up in the South at a time where a woman couldn't use the same bathroom as a white person. She was affected by her society. Never mind what my grandfather went through back in his day.
Folks, I believe that gay folks are born that way. Maybe it takes them a while to figure it out, but it is what is.
However, thugs aren't born. I've never seen a black/white/latino/whatever toddler go gansta on me and hold onto an AK-47.
WE MAKE THUGS. AND RACISTS. We create them. Black folks create them because we destroy ourselves instead of uniting. We can learn from Latin folks, cuz guess what? They are slowly but surely taking over, taking advantage of our stupidity. They work together...and as a sports fan, when you have a team united, they are the ones usually holding the championship when all is said and done.
WE MAKE THUGS...and RACISTS. When instead of building pretty stadiums, we help the Haughville's of the world via education, rebuild their neighborhoods, stop babies having babies, and give them some sort of hope.
I was blessed. I spent my formative years in a 16 floor building between 179th and 180th streets intersecting with Clinton Avenue. My folks, especially my father, didn't play. I have received 6 ass whippings (that I still remember WELL) in my life...and some LONG ass punishments. I went to church 50 out of 52 sundays a year. When it was time for dinner, my ass better be on the 14th floor where my apartment was and eat my dinner. I washed dishes, did the laundry vacuumed the house. And my parents made sure that besides a suspended license, I spent NO TIME in jail.
I have to thank them for that.
WE MAKE THUGS. Our self centered, ignorant selves made them...much like a writer creates monsters in a book. And going all "wild wild west" ain't solving shit. This is the the United States, not places like Saudi Arabia where folks get their hands cut off, or a woman being stoned to death (a little biblical, don't ya think?) cuz she decided to get some different dick.
No one unless he serves in the United States Armed Forces should have an AK-47 on them. Also, I believe that if you have no desire for change, you should be put away for life and let the rest of us live in relative safety.
But if we weren't all about ourselves 99% of the time, perhaps we could sit down and say "we have to flush this shit down, before we all get PUT DOWN."
Someone pointed out that the individual's father who gunned down the officer here in Indy died in police custody due to a heart attack a couple years back. His father was a "thug" who got maced and died during a struggle with the police.
I wonder how the "thug" begat a "thug?"
Oh....and as for the police...how about that cop who shoved over a woman in a wheelchair? Damn that is a straight up "gansta" there. Or the other day, a cop jumps some woman and whoops her ass? You can't take a female, big burly cop?
Wild wild west mother fucker.
This ain't a perfect statement. There are people out there are simply no damned good.
But it is better than what we're doing.
We are all free minded people...people also choose to be "thugs."
But you know...hang out in a one parent home for a minute. And mama is working 2 jobs, and she is never home.
Those streets are tempting, isn't it?
To finish up, I argued with my wife this morning (correction, debated) about a woman who she knows who grew up in the hood, single parent. This woman got knocked up early, could of fell into the chasm. Instead, she now has a great job, and handled her business. She did make a choice.
So thugs are not born. Some thugs are just, well, thugs. But man, wouldn't be nice if some folks could actually SEE there is a choice to make?
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