shots?

I wonder were one to take a look at the W-2s of perpetrators of violence in Crown Heights, if there would be some median income level? In my opinion, there is a correlation between violence and class.

It's fitting, in my opinion that Captain Planet uses the word 'value' to describe what's lacking in the minds of many who commit violent crimes. One of the arguments that Sam Harris, author of 'The Moral Landscape' makes is that there is a correlation between moral values and the facts that exist in one's life. I would agree. I would argue that the ethos of a gang member has a great deal to do with his access to goods and services -- rather the lack of access to goods and services. It's easy to judge their behavior as 'bad', but I think that the situation requires a deeper analysis. I don't think the moral ethos of a gang member is lacking, instead, I think that the moral ethos differs from that of most who are not gang members. Indeed, there is an almost unanimity about what is acceptable behavior and what is not, in a gang. The moral code they follow is appropriate to the world that they live in. It just so happens that I live in an uncomfortably close proximity to that 'moral landscape'.

I think I have an understanding of what Captain Planet means when he/she says '...if ignorant people have children...', etc., but I think that the word 'ignorant' is used (understandably) as a pejorative and not in a demonstrably productive way. The solution, therefore resides in making the 'ignorant' less so, or providing them with access to goods and services. I cannot fathom most having access to either route.

With time there will be less water in the tank, and the fish will thrash with increasing ferocity. Stay clear.

A good friend was raised in a poorer n'hood of Kingston. Growing up, nobody in the area had much money but her mother kept the house clean and God forbid she or her sister weren't in the house by sunset. The mother come looking for them and of course, given that the mothers all knew each other, finding the lost children tooks minutes, not hours.

Another friend was raised in a very poor family in a small village in the DR. She tells the sad story of a particular Christmas when the entire family of four's present consisted of a single apple.

Nonetheless they all stuck together and looked after each other. She, being the best and brightest, got sent over at age 12 to the US for an education. She's now in ther 30's and has managed to bring over to the US not only her mother and two siblings but also most of her cousins as well.

What do these families have that the gang bangers lack?

I can say that both my friends have nothing but disgust for the hoodlums hanging out on the corners.

Can you wonder why?

CP -- I hear you. You make sense. I don't disagree.

Once, while ill, I stayed home and watched 'Reading Rainbow' on PBS. Levar Burton read a great story about a mysterious man who came into a small town where people were unhappy. He played the spoons. He took out his spoons, sat in a corner and began to play them softly.Passersby heard his catchy tunes and some started whistling, some started nodding their heads, and some were so inspired that they brought out their own musical instruments - drums, guitars, harmonicas, etc. - and they started to play along to the rhythms the spoon player made. Before you know it, the whole town responded to the rhythms that he inspired them to create. Once he saw that, he quietly stopped playing got up, and walked away, leaving the town to revel in the beauty of their own making...

Sometimes, when I am witness to negativity around me, I try to do something similar to the spoon player to 'sweeten' the air. Often, it takes the form of really good incense. I'll light a stick and put it in my window, in the hope that the smell will sooth an angry mind. I want to get wind chimes, and attach them inconspicuously to trees, so that when the wind blows, a sweet sound will be created. Sometimes I put on 'Kind of Blue' and let it play in loops for hours. Most of the music I hear around here is always so rousing, and agitating. Rare do I hear something soothing. Even the gospel music I hear sounds like a scream to a wrathful god; it's crazy.

I feel more emboldened in my point about different values , as I've come across a part of Sam Harris's book where he creates two realistic archetypes of individuals that exist in the world. It's all on page 15 of the book. I will paraphrase below.

First his argument: "...[S]ome people have better lives than others, and these differences relate, in some lawful [causal?] and not entirely arbitrary way, to states of the human brain and to states of the world. To make these premises less abstract, consider two generic lives that lie somewhere near the extremes on this continuum":

(I will paraphrase this part)

The Bad Life - You're a widow who has lived an entire life in the midst of civil war. Your daughter was raped and dismembered --- before your eyes -- by your fourteen year old son. You had to run away from him and the gang of drug-addled soldiers who egged him on to rape and kill his sister. Your life has been one long emergency.

The Good Life - You are married to a loving intelligent and charismatic person, and both of you have marketable, interesting careers. For decades your wealth and social connections have allowed you to live a life where your objective has been to pursue what gives you joy. You do what you like to do.

He then implies that ''...these differences have a [causal] relationship to human behavior, societal conditions, and even states of the brain...''

I wonder what sort of world Mr. Webster grew up in?

Without knowing Mr. Webster, it is certainly very probable that his life was a version of The Bad Life.

My thought process is as follows:

Although lots of factors go into determining whether a person is sent to prison (such as the quality of legal representation they receive, their race, their class, etc), there still is a strong causal relationship between being violent and going to prison.

It is almost as strong as the casual relationship between not paying your rent and having to look for a new apartment.

In fact, I would assert that most people who participate in a life of violence get to brag about doing one or more "bids" before they are 30.

So, now that we can agree violence often leads to prison, looking at the lives of people incarcerated for violent crimes seems like a logical next step.

Information about the typical lives (including childhoods and adolescence) of adults in prison for violence is readily available. While there are exceptions to every rule, it is pretty clear to me that the majority had version of The Bad Life. I don't think it is a stretch to declare causation between those experiences and the violence that put many of them in prison.

To me, that is the easy part. The hard part follows; the part about "What we should do with this knowledge and insight?".

If Bad experiences are likely to create a person whose norms are radically out of line with those who have lived the Good Life, and the mere presence of people who have Bad Lives can destroy the chance for the rest of us to have Good Lives ....excluding anyone who might have had a Bad Life seems like the "safe thing to do".

Yet, it isn't so easy:

-Excluding such people further from "us" is likely to make their lives worse, and is likely to create a self-fulfilling prophecy in which there are more of "them" than ever.

-We also have people who seem to have really Bad Lives, yet do not become violent. Likewise, we get the occasional person who had a seemingly good life who is violent.

These things make it very hard to create a response, but then the challenge gets even harder!

If we are honest with ourselves, we can acknowledge that we live in a society that is unable (or unwilling) to prevent people from having Bad Lives.

The end results are:

-even though we understand that "their" environment and history may cause them to be violent, we continue to allow situations that we know are pretty likely to create more of "them".

-even though we know at some level that "we" may share some responsibility for creating "them", we fear that our Good Lives will be destroyed by "them" infecting us.

In many ways, violence can be thought of as a contagious disease with thousands of causes.

While there are lots of good ideas out there on how we could reduce the amount of violence in our society, the goal of eliminating violence isn't realistic: It seems to be an intractable part of human nature.

While we will never eliminate it, I'd like to think we could make some more progress. ....reducing it will require many different approaches.

CP: aren't less wealthy people MORE religious than wealthy people, in general? i'd say people with college degrees and graduate degrees are LESS likely to be religious. i don't think the variable you're identifying is meaningful in this case.

CatwalkerTR, while I agree with you that to a certain extent Mr. Webster's thought process is irrelevant, I do think that we need to understand the whys so that the rest of us don't end up being Ms. Gay. After all, she wasn't killed by Mr. Webster, but she was killed as a result of being around Mr. Webster. And if my death can result from merely being near someone who decides that owning an illegal gun is a necessary thing, then its in my best interest to figure out why they think that way and what can be done to change their thinking or their reality, given the number of illegal handguns in this neighborhood.

catwalkertexasranger said:

There are no acceptable reasons that Ms.Gay was murdered. Not a bad day, month, year or life.The cops didn't start shit with him, they reacted to his.

He didn't buy the gun in an instant. He had the tools of his trade, it's not a video to watched on a rainy day or a baseball glove that you will pick up when the weather permits. It's a fucking illegal gun, purchased with the worst intent at the point of sale. His time in jail and previous behaviors disqualified him from its legal ownership.

Trying to make sense of it all, how Mr.Webster came to his conclusions on problem solving makes us all unsafe and sick at the same time.

CWTR -- I share your anger -- believe me. I am trying to postulate that IF one can make sense of it, maybe one can, perceive it with acuity, respond to it safely, and who knows -- maybe even control it. I write this at 2:53 in the morning while men in a neighboring building are having an argument that is so incredibly loud and profane, that I can only extrapolate on their indifference and lack of shame and presume that they are, what I like to call, 'Bigger Thomases in the making.' I am emboldened in my prejudice as every utterance they make is preceded by a yelled 'my ni--a' or ends with it. This has been going on for over an hour. Occasionally their MOTHER pipes in with a "All of you shut the f--- up! You're brothers!"

Fruit never falls far from the tree.

As I see and hear them scream at each other, I cannot conceive of anything -- ANYTHING -- that would inspire ANY of them to change their lives (from my perspective) for the 'better'; not Jesus, not his daddy, not a piece of literature, nor some sublime beautiful thing in the world. Nothing. The die was long cast, the mold made and cooled into irrefutable solidity long ago.

I cannot change these young men. ALL of the hyperbole about positive role models -- it's too late for them. If anything, perceiving my relatively better life makes me a potential target for reasons both psychological, and fiscal: No one wants to see 'The Good Life' and not be able to have it. If they can't have it, they surely don't want to bear witness to those who can.

This is so depressing.

Virtually every great piece of literature revolves around some character "shifting". Is this just literature, or can people really change?

If these shifts, in perspective, in understanding, in consciousness, can't occur, then life is in fact pretty stupid and pointless.

On the other hand............

As if one cue, this article covering Ms. Gay's funeral is published.

To me, it depicts Sharpton as evolving, or "shifting":

And I have difficulty explaining what I mean here, but will give it a shot:

I perceive Rev Al as becoming more thoughtful in his tone and language.

Now, I'm aware this could be just my perception of him changing as a result of me changing over the past 15 years, but I see him appropriately responding to a city that has become much less violent:

...one in which the police have far fewer incidents of shooting unarmed black guys

...one in which the police shoot a lot fewer bystanders

...one in which the police force is far more integrated

...one in which NYC residents shoot each other less

...one in which NYC residents shoot the police less

...one in which a lot of the ugliness of the 90s is existent in smaller pockets of the city.

(do we have a lot further to go? absolutely)

But a lot of activist/politicians get stuck in an emergency/anger/outrage mode, and I give Al credit for being able to see that different situations warrant different language. The man is changing with the times.

Again, it could be all in my head, and I doubt there is a way to objectively measure him. Some people, after all, perceived Rev Al as inciting violence and hate, and will never let him be anything else.

Simultaneously, others saw him as "merely" someone who was willing confront authority, but did it in a unproductive manner, OR as someone who was too calm in the face of what was going on.

I found him hard to respect.

...but I now find him to be someone who I can listen to, and whose opinion I will let factor in my thought process.

My opinion of Al would depend on what happened to cause him to call for folks to shut down the city.

During the Diallo shooting aftermath, I thought he and his understandably upset followers effectively got the attention of those who have power in NYC.

I remember thinking that without Al's leadership, a lot of people would have not been able to control their anger and think the situation through. At the time, he had an army on his side that was ready to fight on his command, and he used it to get a lot of things done that otherwise weren't happening:

CCRB

Integration

More Training

etc.

....do we have a lot further to go? Yup.

By working within the system and simultaneously carrying an only slightly figurative "big ass bat", did he achieve more than a lot of others? yup

Don't worry, if Al becomes too mild or is seen as a sell-out, another leader will rise. That leader will be angrier and younger, and hopefully have no sweat pants and a better hair do.

Although the shrine is (or will soon be...) removed from the scene, and the shooting may soon disappear from our collective minds, it will never fully leave minds of the family and friends of Ms. Gay, Mr Johnson, Mr Webster and the police officers at the scene.

Ms. Gay's daughter will have to walk up those steps and across the landing she was killed everyday.

.

.

.

.

I once worked with a family that had a relative killed in the doorway to their apartment. Despite being told how much seeing the bullet holes in the door bothered the family and prevented them from healing, the damn super wouldn't replace the door or even fill in the dents with wood putty.

They had to look at that thing for 2 years before they got enough $ together to move, and had to live with a constant, visible reminder of that night.

While that job taught me a lot, I can't say miss that aspect of it.

This Sam Harris book is so enlightening. One of the interesting arguments he makes is that culture and rational thought are not necessarily correlating events. As a Black man, as a man a hair's breadth away from dire poverty and destitution, I can say with confidence that the death and destruction so many of us have been witness to, heard about through some form of medium, heard via the pop pop pop of gunshot, or passersby who recreate -- for listening pleasure -- a recent beatdown they participated in, that pathos is an irrational act.... Indulging in it, whether you are busting the ass of friend or foe is -- in the moment -- divine. Sadism is a vice that is not birthed in a vacuum, but rather the reaction to powerlessness. That explains why the anger is so intra-verted, why so few whitefolks have suffered the result of Black pathos. Because, for the most part, whitefolks are perceived as more powerful, that the consequences of randomly beating up a white dude are so dire, that the illusion of power will dissipate too quickly after the act. What else explains it?

Was Mr. Webster so blinded by gang rage that he gave no thought to bussin' his gun around his neighbors? I doubt it. He did not perceive that his Black neighbors were worth the regard. If he perceived them as worth his regard, he would have exercised some circumspect. He deserves our loathing because of this. He did not care. His behavior was irrational, and emblematic of self hate.

Fast forward to Sept 2013

The shooter in this incident, Leroy Webster, survived his wounds.

Today he was sentence to 40 years.

Photo and article: Wall Street journal

http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/BL-METROB-18615