Stabbings and Rotten Teeth

[bacchuswino]

So a large number of teenagers got into a brawl with weapons in the parking lot where I worked today.  Kid got stabbed and everyone ran off.

Gang bangers in Santa Barbara are sad pathetic things.

There are socio-economic considerations to be made, but honestly the bangers in this town kind of disgust me.  They're all so young too, most of them are in

Comments

[thelastmehina]

Gangs tend to form when law and order breaks down or is unavailable. Whether it's the Five Points of New York City, the Mafia or the Bloods & Crips, gangs form because the established constabulary isn't interested in protecting a given class of citizen. Not only that, but the economic deck is also stacked against the given class, and they find attaining middle-class privilege almost impossible thanks to artificial (read: racism-inspired) barriers.

Having been systematically disempowered, the gang forms as a way to take back power. If you study the old gangs in turn of the century New York or the Mafia, a big part of their ethic was protecting their own community, because the cops wouldn't. Being barred from legitimate work, the gangs also turn to crime. Since they get involved with crime, this necessitates violence.

In short: most gangs form under a cloud of poverty and desperation and a sense of, no one else is going to take care of us, so we've got to stick together and fight back against the assholes.

Gang culture also tends to get romanticized and glamourized. See: Mafia movies. See: hip hop culture. These gangsters are portrayed as tough, manly men with lots of money, women and respect.

Then you get overprivileged teens who interpret their angst as oppression and their inner insecurity as signs of persecution. So they emulate gang culture because they want to be tough, Robin Hood-type figures that shit dollar bills and enjoy the adoration of many hot women. It's a very juvenile fantasy.

[bacchuswino]

Oh agreed.

Though it gets pretty sticky in places like SB. There are plenty of kids in this town that don't have much money. However there are actually rather good services for them and there's not really a sense of oppression and desperation.

Hell, the fucking Police Station in this town CLOSES at night for fucks sake.

When I was a teenager there was a gang of skin heads that fit your description of overprivileged teens, but most of the ones that are killing each other today don't.

Really it's a percieved sense of oppression, kids primed to believe that they've been given the short end of the stick due to certain popular memes in culture today.

But these kids don't live in Los Angeles, or Riverside, or Bakersfield. They live in Santa Barbara. The millions that are spent in this town alone is rather dumbfounding when you look at the size of our population base.

These kids aren't really being barred from work, as most of them aren't even really working age yet. 16 year olds are aged veterans for this crowd, most of them range from 12 to 14, and they are VERY violent with each other.

Hell, in that crummy neighborhood I used to live in there were a whole bunch of little white crosses on the sidewalks where kids had been stabbed to death by other kids.

Such a strange and pathetic trend in a strange and pathetic town.