Is the violence in Chicago out of control? (Washington: apartment, school)

[RingWalk]

Originally Posted by ofcjim40

I don't think he's afraid of "getting his girl stolen", I believe he's getting sick of watching pieces of trash walking around like they think they own everything that is within their eyesight.

Yes this is pretty much it.

[RingWalk]

My point was that here, there, everywhere, there were a lot of young people out last night, more than usual, either causing trouble or trying very hard to give the impression that they were about to cause trouble.

Why does it add to the thread? Because I've lived here more than a decade years and I saw this in a greater numbers than usual.

One of the groups of kids was yelling epiteths at some Mexican girl getting off the train. Stuff like that. Maybe some of you are down with that; for me, when it's the fifth time you've seen something of that nature that day, it makes me angry.

[quigboto]

I think someone is either very naive, or is being willfully ignorant if they can't tell the difference between a group of people hanging out and having a good time, and a group of na'er do wells that travels in packs in order to intimidate people. Usually the distinction is pretty obvious to anyone with half a brain.

[urza216]

To add on to the previous post, I'd like to say that there are actually three times of people - the naive, the paranoid and those who can make the distinction. Just because he's a 21 year old black guy with a doo rag, it doesn't mean you have to walk to the other side of the street.

[RingWalk]

Urza:

Thanks for the tip. Like I've said, I've lived in the city for 10 years and move about freely in most neighborhoods and I'm intimidated by few people as I was both a good wrestler and also boxed a little in high school. I am not frightened of minorities nor minorities with doo rags. I am annoyed at gangs of *******s poisoning the environment for everyone else in public places. I can guarantee you could ask anyone on the train I was on if they were annoyed by the behavior of these groups of kids and they would have said "Yes."

Do you know why? Because the behavior is meant to annoy and incite. It is consciously aggressive behavior.

If seems like you are trying very hard to identify with a hard urban culture or pain yourself as some kind of street-smart, gritty individual.

However, in the land of adults, here is what happens: If places like Blemont and Clark get too nasty, people move. When the environment on the El gets too volatile, people stock taking it. Most adults don't care about the why. They have their own problems and they don't want to deal with it.

[SAI126]

Originally Posted by RingWalk

Urza:

Thanks for the tip. Like I've said, I've lived in the city for 10 years and move about freely in most neighborhoods and I'm intimidated by few people as I was both a good wrestler and also boxed a little in high school. I am not frightened of minorities nor minorities with doo rags. I am annoyed at gangs of *******s poisoning the environment for everyone else in public places. I can guarantee you could ask anyone on the train I was on if they were annoyed by the behavior of these groups of kids and they would have said "Yes."

Do you know why? Because the behavior is meant to annoy and incite. It is consciously aggressive behavior.

If seems like you are trying very hard to identify with a hard urban culture or pain yourself as some kind of street-smart, gritty individual.

However, in the land of adults, here is what happens: If places like Blemont and Clark get too nasty, people move. When the environment on the El gets too volatile, people stock taking it. Most adults don't care about the why. They have their own problems and they don't want to deal with it.

Every now and then a voice of sanity about the current situation in urban America.

[urza216]

Look, buddy. You have no idea where I've been or what I've been through. And it's not just an urban thing. I've spent an enormous amount of time in suburbs like Chicago Heights and Sauk Village where problems like this are much more prevalant than Lakeview in the city. I was just in Cal City and the West Pullman neighorhood in the city the other day. My best friend was stabbed to death in a drug deal and I've seen the desctrucive nature of this lifesyle. While you call them scum and filth nd low lives, I've seen it. I listened as someone talked directly to me and only me about how they wanted to put a 9 millimeter in a Latin King's chest. This "urban culture" sucks. Period. And I don't adovate it.

[FBJ]

I live in Philly and this has been going on in my city too. Just yesterday groups of teens were in downtown philly and just terrozing everyone for no reason.

It was no such thing as this type of behavior in the year of 2000. This is something that has started in the past 3 or 4 years. It referred to as a flash mob

[ofcjim40]

So Urza if you don't advocate it, why do you try so hard to defend people that are clearly not being productive members of society? This is not a color, race or class thing. There are people that act like scumbags from all walks of life. It's usually pretty easy to tell the difference between someone trying to be "urban", but otherwise acts like a civilized human being and has no ill intent and roving groups of thugs. The latter usually want to remove all doubt of what they really are about. You seem to want to act "street" and like you've "been there seen it", I would imagine your streets smarts are there to know the difference.

[urza216]

Officer Jim,

I don't consider myself someone who lives his life in fear but I do stay alert. And if a guy is mad about another guy looking at his girl, I try to keep my distance from this kind of guy. Who knows how he feels about me looking at HIM the wong way? What about you, Jim? I guess you just assume his anger was legitimate and not a terriitorial animal on a short fuse..?