A month ago when I wrote about a 16-year-old killing a 13-year-old, I had no clue I would be writing so soon about another teen killed, this time with five teen suspects charged in his death. But I can't say I was caught off guard by the reason given in the death, though it's still shocking nonetheless.
Police say 17-year-old Kydaryune Curry was shot to death while he worked on a car in his yard because over the weekend he had shown disrespect to one of the suspects in front of a girl. The incident was so trivial to Curry, described as a fun-loving, good kid who attended a private Christian academy, that he didn't tell his family about it.
Sadly, the notion of "disrespect" has been at the core of far too many harmful incidents that have escalated to preposterous proportions and tragic consequences. The manic reaction in the Middle East to an amateurish video insulting the Prophet Muhammad is a global example.
But the teen violence in this country, in our neighborhoods - most often among black and Latino youth, primarily young males - that spawns from such trivial disagreements feels even more maddening. These kids live here among us.
David Jacobs, associate medical director of the F.H. "Sammy" Ross Trauma Institute at Carolinas Medical Center, enlightened me several years ago that much of the violence that ends up in the emergency rooms where he works - and too often the morgues - is the result of just such trivial "disrespect" issues: "Most of the time, it's very stupid stuff. Somebody took somebody's lunch or something." Yes. Or something.
Jacobs keeps pounding the gavel for all of us to get more aggressive about tackling this issue. It's hard to know where to start. But Jacobs made an apt observation: "All kids," he said, "have a propensity toward violence." And unfortunately, they now live in a society saturated with it - on TV and other media, and for some in their communities. "Many have become very comfortable with violence."
Breaking those connections and that comfortableness won't be easy. But all of us - parents, ministers, educators, community activists - must keep trying.. "Resilience factors" help most kids - two parents in the home, being on sports teams. These kinds of things counterbalance violence tendencies, Jacobs said.
"It's a crazy, senseless thing," middle school principal Mike Dunn said of Curry's death.
Crazy and senseless for the kid who lost his life - crazy and senseless for the kids charged, who if guilty, will for all intents and purposes lose theirs.
Posted by Fannie Flono
The coordinated attacks against US embassies had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with that video. They were retaliation for senseless American meddling in Middle Eastern politics and deadly attacks against civilians orchestrated by this and previous administrations.
ReplyDeleteThe Barack Nobel Peace Prize Obama record:
* More American deaths in Afghanistan than under Bush
* More American troops in Afghanistan than under Bush
* More drone attacks against civilians than under Bush
* More US citizens targeted for assassination than under Bush
* More military spending per annum than under Bush
* More days in prison for Bradley Manning than under Bush
* More taxpayer money given to foreign governments than under Bush
But Fannie believes this guy walks on water simply because of his race and his party.
Blood on your hands Fannie. BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS.
An unconscionable act of violence over nothing. My condolences to the family.
ReplyDeleteHowever, as usual, Fannie goes off on a tangent to try and explain away the real problem here.
Here an exceprt from an article about the violence in Chicago, written back in July.
http://thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/12217-chicago%E2%80%99s-murders-for-2012-likely-to-exceed-2011
Did I go Romney on you Fannie by posting the truth?
...The data from Chicago reprise what libertarian columnist Walter Williams, who writes frequently about race and crime, disclosed about crime in black communities: blacks suffer the most.
ReplyDeleteIn his column entitled “Should Black People Tolerate This,” Williams, a black man, reprised the grim numbers, noting that life in a major American city is more dangerous for a young black man than a tour of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan.
“Each year, roughly 7,000 blacks are murdered,” he wrote.
Ninety-four percent of the time, the murderer is another black person. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, between 1976 and 2011, there were 279,384 black murder victims. Using the 94 percent figure means that 262,621 were murdered by other blacks.
Though blacks are 13 percent of the nation’s population, they account for more than 50 percent of homicide victims. Nationally, black homicide victimization rate is six times that of whites, and in some cities, it's 22 times that of whites. Coupled with being most of the nation’s homicide victims, blacks are most of the victims of violent personal crimes, such as assault and robbery.
Williams also denounced the silence of so-called civil rights leaders, who refuse to discuss the problem. He also criticized them for their “silence and concealment about black racist attacks” on whites and Asians, citing the “attacks on two Virginian-Pilot newspaper reporters set upon and beaten by a mob of young blacks.”
The story wasn’t even covered by their own newspaper.
In March, a black mob assaulted, knocked unconscious, disrobed and robbed a white tourist in downtown Baltimore. Black mobs have roamed the streets of Denver, Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Cleveland, Washington, Los Angeles and other cities, making unprovoked attacks on whites and running off with their belongings.
Racist attacks have been against not only whites but also Asians.
Williams hammered black leaders from President Obama on down for “racial demagoguery.”
It seems to me that the only person in this tragic episode deserving of respect is the dead kid.
ReplyDeleteI am, to sure these kids, a normal day was to go to someones house and get high, playing video games like Grand Theft Auto, Bully or Manhunt or some other games designed to instill this kind of hatred in young minds. They may not have the socioeconomic things other kids have but I'm sure they had a PS3 or Xbox with vivid games of murder and mayhem. If you check their school records, you will find that most if not all have poor attendence and low grades. It is a cause and effect outcome when young, developing minds are subjected to 3-5 hours a day of movies, videos and internet stimulus of a steady diet of graphic murder, rape and porn. The outcome is inevitable!
ReplyDeleteWhat we, as Americans, trivialize is the effect that the visual media has on young, developing minds to include violent pornography, assualts and graphic homicide to include torture. We continue to see the violence in these games and videos being played out in real life and ask the question, "What makes these kids do these things?"
We, as a society would do good to mount a campaign against the violent movies, porn and violent games that intrude into normal homes, Even with caring and loving parents, This sick form of entertainment creeps in and invades young minds and infects it until there is no recourse but to act on these fantasies.
It starts out as sneaking a peak at some porn and progresses to lowering inhabitions and accepting lasciviousness as normal behavior.
"I’m no social scientist, and I don’t pretend to believe what John Q. Citizen thinks about this, but I’ve lived in prison for a long time now, and I’ve met a lot of men who were motivated to commit violence. Without exception, every one of them was deeply involved in pornography - deeply consumed by the addiction. The F.B.I.’s own study on serial homicide shows that the most common interest among serial killers is pornographers. It’s true."
Theodore Bundy
At least Peter has the stones to respond to comments. Fannie on the other hand is a seagull - flies in, cr@ps over everything, flies away.
ReplyDeleteFrom Politico, on the "quote approval" controversy. Gotta love the last line quoted here, showing where The Observer and its owner stand in the media pecking order:
ReplyDelete"The New York Times has introduced a new policy opposing "quote approval," the widespread practice of letting sources edit their own quotes prior to publication.
“[S]tarting now, we want to draw a clear line on this. Citing Times policy, reporters should say no if a source demands, as a condition of an interview, that quotes be submitted afterward to the source or a press aide to review, approve or edit," the new policy states.
The move is a landmark decision in a debate that's been playing out throughout the industry, following a report by the Times that revealed how the White House, the Obama and Romney campaigns, and other organizations required quote-approval schemes as a pre-condition for interviews. News organizations including Bloomberg, McClatchy, and The National Journal came out in oppostion to the scheme, but the movement lacked an industry leader whose opposition might bring about substantive change."
Garth...
ReplyDeleteNotice Fannie's newest diatribe doesn't allow comments.
Typical CO.
If I were her nephew, I'd tell her real quick to stop writing about me and mind your own business.
What I believe and who I vote for is my business.
People reap what they sow.
ReplyDeleteIf blacks don't care enough about crime in their community to stand up to the thugs, then more power to them.
Fannie said it herself...she doesn't have a clue.
ReplyDelete