Friday, March 29, 2024

Resisting The Gang.

July 19, 2019 by  
Filed under Business, News, Opinion, Weekly Columns

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(ThyBlackMan.com) Turn on any news channel and within 15 minutes you hear about violence coming out of a populous city. While Chicago seems to achieve more negative publicity than other cities, New York, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia, have their fair share of violent gang-related crimes too.

Where Does it Begin?

It’s nothing new clashes between races or even of the same ethnic background trying to seek dominance. In fact, it’s a male role to be the strongest and the leader. Unfortunately, demographics in housing and school place the black youth in a highly vulnerable position to predators looking to expand their area of dominance and control.

The Appeal of the Gang

For a young teenager living in a world where dreams often remain safely tucked away in their mind, having the offering of joining a gang gives them a sense of belonging to something. The young minds want to feel secure and connected to anything. This is where a gang grabs ahold of the black youth and takes their future from them.

Hate and Violence

Of course, in order to stay in the gang, you must perform various tasks to prove your worth. Young teens learn quickly how to steal, do drugs and protect the gang they now belong to. Unfortunately protecting the gang doesn’t have anything to do with standing guard in a doorway. It means that you must defend your gang by violence. And, again, not wanting to lose their place of belonging, they do exactly what the gang leader tells them to do.

Breaking Free

A few years into membership many teens now rapidly approaching manhood want out. They now see any sight of their previous dreams eluding them. However, that’s not how a gang works, once a member, always a member; this is now your life. Some of these young teens pursue their desire to leave and end up seriously injured or dead. However, you do have rights. For instance, if you are assaulted and live in New York City, you can contact a New York personal injury lawyer and bring about a lawsuit for your medical bills and pain and suffering. Though, sadly, many young teens choose to walk away in silence.

Life After the Gang

Some of the people lucky enough to leave a gang often try to give back to the community and counsel other young teens who may also want to leave the gang but are too afraid of the consequences to take action. A former gang member can act as a mentor and provide a beneficial service that teens trust because they lived it too.

Going from Criminal to Citizen

Transitioning from a life of crime and violence to working a regular job and staying on the straight and narrow can present challenges. There is no longer someone watching your back and making sure you have a place to stay. You are now on your own, and independent. The good news is that you can move forward even if the first couple of jobs you apply for turn out to be unappealing.

Earning an Education

When you have little schooling behind you, your job search can lead you straight back to the gang. However, if you stay strong and get an education while working by studying for a GED or attending school, you can acquire the skills and knowledge you need to enter the workforce and earn a decent living.

Pick Yourself Up

Initially, when leaving the sanctity of a gang, you can feel alone and worthless. Just remember why you left, it was bad for you and your community and you want to make something of your life. Acquiring new friends at school or on the job can help you to return to society.

Young impressionable children barely into their teens are often a prime target for gangs looking for new members. Parents of these teens who live in highly populated cities with several known gangs need to do everything they can to keep their children off the streets.

Staff Writer; Todd Brown


Comments

One Response to “Resisting The Gang.”
  1. Pelvo White, Jr. says:

    African American male and female juvenile delinquency is created by white American racial discrimination that is expressed through all of our institutions. It is this systematic discrimination that forces our people into gang memberships and lives of crime.Gang membership is an alternate lifestyle which has developed as a result of the African American’s inability to live a normal lifestyle in America. Normal means having the ability to obtain economic and social justice and freedom legally. I have worked with gang members for many years and they have shared their thoughts with me.I remember one such youthful gang member known as an ” OG “, meaning an ” Original Gangster ” who worked the streets of Florida. He owned his own Rolls Royce and didn’t have a drivers license. He was a handsome, black soldier as hard as any soldier I ever fought with in the U. S. Army or help capture in Vietnam. This fifteen year old gang member told me the etiology of his development as a leader in his gang. He started out as a little child who made money which he shared with his entire family as a lookout and a runner for older gang members.He would station himself as instructed by the older gang members and warn them when he spotted the police or snitches. He would also deliver packages( i.e. drugs or weapons ) all over the town.As he grew he graduated to the status of an enforcer for the leader of the gang. He would commit violent acts, such as shootings, beating people up, or torture such as hauling a person around in the trunk of a car for hours to make people pay money or obey the orders of the leader of his gang. He was a good soldier and was finally rewarded with his own territory and all of the money he could get working that territory which he ruled with an iron fist. This is a brief synopsis of the gang member antithesis to the white racist American thesis which will remain as such as long as the African American isn’t considered a full partner in the prosperity of America as a nation. Not all African Americans are on board about your theories on gang membership.

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