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BigDeezerrr t1_j9sacfd wrote

Reply to comment by trashpandarevolution in 4 teens, 1 woman injured in shooting in Philadelphia's Strawberry Mansion section by bulbous_mongolian

It's a hopeless feeling seeing this shit every day. What is wrong with these kids? Why do people choose to do this? Makes no sense to me.

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espressocycle t1_j9u3o0i wrote

So I'll give you the answer poor Black teens have given me. Some of them just want to live fast, die young and leave a good looking corpse but most of them don't want to live this way but they have no choice. If everybody has a gun you need one too. If turning the other cheek marks you as weak and invites further transgression you have to fight back to survive. If you can't trust the cops to enforce the law when someone steals from you or assaults someone you care about, you take the law into your own hands.

It's an endless cycle of violence and retribution that often spans generations. The kid holding the gun has usually lost a father, uncle, cousin or brother to gun violence and the kid he's pointing out at has too.

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notapersonaltrainer t1_j9ywo55 wrote

Do you work with these kids?

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espressocycle t1_ja0idkr wrote

Not anymore. I worked in communications for a nonprofit that had programs for foster youth so I used to interview them and I had some other interactions here and there. Not gangbangers or anything, just kids with really rough lives. They know right from wrong like anybody else but they tend to have a lot of trauma and self regulation issues and just do so much ridiculously stupid stuff that messes up their lives as a result. I don't know the answer here, but community mediators has generally been the most successful at reducing violence but it's hard to scale and easy to cut when the budget is tight. It also works best when the police make an effort to keep the same cops on the same beats and building relationships, but we know how hard that is.

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HotSeamenGG t1_j9tvva0 wrote

Prob have an unstable home life, no hope for a better future. Only thing they feel like they do have is their current rep and respect of their peers and would kill for it. Long term gains is hard to keep in sight when you could die tomorrow so they live fast, die young.

Not saying it's right, but when all your peers are in on it and there's no good role model present... I get it.

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