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BPAL Madness!
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Red

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Macha

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I was working in an antique building in Korea town, so old that I was in an office with a mottled glass panel set in the door and a transom on top. I always wanted to paint my name on the door in gold copperplate, with "graphic artist" underneath looking like it should say "private investigator." It was that kind of building. It wasn't the best neighborhood, about a block up from the Wiltern theatre, which I could see clearly from my window. I suppose it wasn't the worst either though. There was a Korean version of a greasy spoon downstairs that served up an amazingly tasty fried kimchee rice dish and all the noodle soup a girl could want for under $5.

 

There was a noise. Loud. Probably louder after being bounced off the sides of the buildings. Not nearly as quiet as a clap of thunder hitting the tree right next to you. No backfire from a car's exhaust pipe could be that loud.

 

I looked out the window, to the street corner, where I saw a group of Asian (given the neighborhood, probably Korean) teenagers standing. A few other kids—torn up jackets, blue jeans—running away caddy-corner across the construction site for the new Metro station. They looked Mexican-American, although they were not facing me, so I couldn't be certain.

 

The teenagers who remained had shocked expressions on their faces. Not scared exactly — this was numb shock. One boy had his hands to his stomach, and he stood there, for a long second, with hardly any expression on his face at all.

 

Then the blood seeped out from under his fingers, from where he had been shot.

 

I'd seen a lot of shootings in movies and TV shows. I have repeatedly been told that we are desensitized to it as a society. But I tell you that no blood I have ever seen in any movie looked as red, as horribly, terrifyingly crimson, as the red that spread out over his white t-shirt. I called 911 — I'm told over a hundred people in the surrounding offices called 911 — even as several of my coworkers raced out to try to help.

 

It had happened in broad daylight, on a busy street, and it had taken just a moment. I never found out what happened to the teenager — if he survived. The ambulance arrived quickly, so I'd like to think he did, but truthfully, I don't know. It didn't even make the papers, which I guess means he probably lived. I don't know why he was shot. I'm quite sure it's in an LAPD file somewhere listed as a "gangland shooting." It's Korea town, right? That sort of thing happens in Korea town. And in Inglewood and in Compton and anyplace else in Los Angeles, it seems.

 

Yesterday, it was Venice.

 

I found out while waiting for the bus this morning, when a man sat down next to me and started chatting in a friendly fashion. (It is, honestly, one of the things I love about living in Inglewood — that men and women will sit down next to you and start chatting as if you grew up together.) He had a copy of the LA Times with him, and he started telling me about a boy in Venice who was killed trying to keep gang members from stealing his brother's silver cross. The fight spilled out into the parking lot of the school, and one of the gang members had pulled out a gun and shot the young man once, in the chest, killing him. The victim had not been a member of any gangs; he was only trying to protect his little brother.

 

"Why would they do that?" The man said, clearly mystified. "Why would anyone kill someone else over a cross? Don't they realize what the cross means?" He was trying to make sense of it, and failing.

 

And I had no words with which to comfort him. Can there be explanations for something like this? Can one make sense of it? The papers are already saying it was racially motivated. The attackers were African-American and the victim was Mexican-American, after all. The local police are making preparations for the expected counter-attacks by rival Latino gangs, which will, in all probability end in more shootings and the deaths of more innocent people.

 

And all I can think is everyone's blood is the same color red.

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Horrible. Shameful.

I'm 40 and I can't ever remember kids behaving this way when I was a teenager. It's almost as if the world is just toxic and breeds contempt and violence in youths. Or maybe I'm just getting old.

 

Great, though sad, post.

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Remember "A Clockwork Orange?"

 

I remember reading an interview where Anthony Burgess said that he had based Alex and his Droogs on the smart-dressing, incredibly violent street punks who prowled the streets of London in the 50s (Although it seems likely the book was at least as much influenced by the four U.S. GI deserters who attacked and beat his pregnant wife in 1943, forcing her to miscarry.)

 

And so I often wonder if it is that the youth of today are honestly more violent or not? It might help to clarify that the shooting I witnessed did not happen yesterday or even last year: if that young man survived he's since had time to marry and have children of his own. Can I blame it on the age? Or on the general poverty and inequity of the area in which I live? Has not crime gone hand in hand with poverty in every age, in every culture, throughout history? The gangbanger phenomenon is starting to span generations — with older members (who have survived) settling down and denouncing the violence of the gangsta life even as their children and sometimes grandchildren are running with the pack. It's easy to forget that the Bloods and Crips were being founded around the same time I was being born, and they themselves were the children of gangs formed after World War II (probably in response to the rise of racist violence directed against black communities by whites who were unhappy to see so many blacks moving to LA from the South.)

 

How chilling is it to realize that one of the most infamous and violent of youth gangs in operation in Los Angeles in the 1940s was called the Spook Hunters? And that violence went largely unreported or unrecognized...

 

It doesn't excuse the violence today (there is NO excuse) but I'm more inclined to blame youth, period, than today's youth. I think the argument can be made either way of course, but personally I suspect that we have always had a problem with "today's youth" in every age and every generation.

 

But I don't honestly know which idea is more depressing.

 

"I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise[disrespectful] and impatient of restraint" (Hesiod, 8th century BC)

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That was a beautifully written and saddening post.

 

What I'd like to think is that the world is getting better, actually. After all, right now violence makes headlines - at least, thank goodness, in Ottawa it does. Only a few decades ago, and it is still that way in many places in the world, if someone got killed, people would just shrug: kids got killed every day. Only a few decades ago, people dying of flu, plague, smallpox, polio, take your pick, were the norm, and people who lived to 50 were the exception. Now someone dying of a heart attack or cancer at fifty gets mourned and buried and people have walks and campaigns for heart disease; only a century ago it would probably have been viewed as dying of "deserved old age."

 

If we are sensitive enough to notice something and be shocked by it, that means it is not the expected thing; that means it occurs rarely. I can imagine, though I don't want to, a world where the shooting you saw would only get press if it was a white man getting shot: the deaths of blacks, Asians, women would be beneath notice. I can imagine, though I do not want to, a world where you would not even rush to the window when you hear a gunshot, and simply say "Oh, those (insert epithet which is now, thank god, unprintable) are at it again," and get back to your work, and the very idea that this situation is wrong, that those (insert same epithet) are people with dreams who do not want to die, would not cross your mind.

 

It does in this place and at this time. We have built a world where people do care about those less well off than them, and have enough energy left from scrabbling after their own survival to be indignant at the plight of the less fortunate and to take action about it. There are places where this is still not the case, and it is a sign that we have done well that we can actually see that this is wrong, and those places are growing fewer with each passing year.

 

We may not have seen that we still have a long way to go. And I do not want to imagine that.

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That is an excellent point, Indicolite, and one I had not considered. Thank you.

 

Perhaps someday we will bridge that gap between a world where we can be shocked that people are being killed, and a world where they would not be killed in the first place.

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