Posted on 12/04/2005 10:23:50 AM PST by NormsRevenge
Reading between the lines, I see the message: Free Tookie!!!
Correction - they grew out of despair.
What is this obsession about poor people being violent? I will tell you....
The upper middle class wants to distinguish itself as different and better. Thus, they promote nasty images of rednecks, racists, gangs, and a generally vile underclass.
It's BS. "Poor people" live good, modest, and disciplined lives. Somehow, not aspiring to money and shallow yuppie-dom has become a sign of degeneracy.
Well, now I have told you how that is.
>>It was the day of Shaft and Superfly, and those things had an effect on us.
And people say movies have no effect on kids...
I remember committing several crimes after the movie "Colors" came out.. We wanted to be thugs...
(I was never caught either..)
That message may be there, but I didn't see it. If any of these guys had expressed even the slightest notion of that, I think the reporter would have spun it up pretty good.
Great point well made. "Not aspiring to shallow yuppie-hood".
I certainly hope Mr. Schwarzenager sees that difference.
People are always talking about "root causes". Well, right there you see a root cause.
90% of the time when you talk to thugs you get the same story. Dad is not in the picture.
While they don't help the matter, they are not to blame.
"It gave them high profile, a seat at the politician's table and (I suspect) a bit of disguise to keep up some chosen activities "
In Denver he is called "Rev." Leon Kelly. Honorary bleeding cripple or crippled bleeder, whichever gang.
Let Tookie go in Monterey!
Honestly, I think he's using the influence of movies on him as an excuse. Along with being poor. I once lived in the projects of Oak Park in Sacramento, CA. I didn't become a gang member because of it. Even today, I'm still not rich, but I obey the law.
I've reached the same conclusion.
I was a street cop in the area that the crips got started in when they got started. Between 1971 and 1972 when I was working that area I arrested each and every one of them at some point during that year (there were less than 50 of them then).
Some of the nicest people I ever met were in that neighborhood, so it isn't just "poverty". These animals wanted to be animals, and yes they were killing people right from the start. It wasn't just fists, there were drive bys going on.
Thanks for confirming my memories. I remember hearing of, and seeing these guys in 1973 and thereafter. They weren't just hanging out in their own neighborhood. They were thugs, taking their thuggery, crimes, and threats to cities throughout LA County. This was never "good clean fun" as the article suggests.
That is for sure. I transferred from Lennox up to the desert to Antelope Valley in 1972 and a couple of months later was assigned to day shift. The first car I stopped that morning had "monkey man", one of the crips I delt with at Lennox in the Vermont area. He was as amazed to see me as I was to see him. I told him I'd been assigned to follow him throughout the county so I could shoot him during a robbery. Never saw him in the Antelope Valley again.
>>Honestly, I think he's using the influence of movies on him as an excuse.
I disagree. However, the movies *bring out* and or *re-inforce* the disposition of the person. So, the movies didn't take an angel and in 2 hours turn him into a devil. But they may have took a kid on the brink and released the devil in him....
ROFL! Good move!
Wow! I salute you. At least you tried, and you surely made a good difference to some of them...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.