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26 July 07: Bullet Time
By Steve Ives
26 July 07
Let's start with a story.
We know that far too many young black men shoot for too many young black men for far too many foolish reasons. Far too many of these young men have lived lives of
want -- sometimes extreme want, the kind of want those of you reading these words may have have difficulty understanding. Too many of these young men grew up with
barely the most basic material needs met. They grew up in a world without a positive male figure, they grew up in a world with a parent who most likely was
ill-prepared to raise a child, being one herself. They grew up in a world where discipline was swift and harsh. They grew up in a world where mainstream morals
applied 'situationally' and in a world where there was little relief for those responsible for them.
Often, parents made a choice between playtime with the kids or food and shelter for the kids -- which means somebody can't be where they are. The responsibility
of being a parent acts a double-edged sword -- the child may have physical needs met but emotional needs left by the wayside. Mom can't always be there, dad most
likely was never there and all that remained much of the time, after overwhelmed or neglectful relatives, were the ever-present streets. Here, this young man can
get the male bonding he has longed for since he could understand his world. Here, this young man can learn the traits of 'being a man' from actual males. Here,
this young man hears from others what he has observed all his life -- that the world is cold, that it is against you and those like you and that all you really
have is your image as a man and the only way to defend your image as a man is to pull that hammer faster than the guy looking at you.
And, lacking any other effective example, this young man cleaves to this philosophy at the most critical juncture of his development personally and socially.
He's put his foot down the path that does not necessarily lead to crime as many of us understand it -- he may, at some point, sell drugs to get the money he
needs to buy groceries or clothing -- but this path does not always lead to a guaranteed felony conviction. What it does lead to is the nearly irreversible
creation of a person driven by some of humanity's worst natures. 'No concern for the future because I could be dead tomorrow.' 'No concern for things larger
society deems important because larger society shows little concern for me.' 'I'll do what I gotta do to keep my stomach full and my house warm.' And it leads,
sooner or later, to coming across the guy who believes in the philosophy a little more than he does. Who lived a little worse off than he had. Who pulled that
hammer a little quicker than he did. And his life is extinguished. And his place on those cold, ever-present streets is filled as swiftly as it was vacated by
the next young man who's seeing life with eyes a little deader, with a heart a little colder, with a mentality a little harsher and harder to shape because he
doesn't want to go out like that.
This story, to various extents, plays out hundreds of times, every day of the week, every month of the year, on the streets of Philadelphia. A generation of young
men comes to find their place in a world that they see as hostile, a greater world lacking realistic opportunities. It is a world that they read and understand
better than they're often given credit for. It is a world they know they lack the skills to join as they currently are and many times it leads the young man who
didn't get that supportive shove, who didn't get that guiding word, to a pivotal fork in the road. Both roads lead to uncertainty but one is lined with trees with
low-hanging fruit. To a person that has had a rough way to go, the temptation often overwhelms reason and personal morality. And it's the fact that such a fork
exists that exemplifies the failures of both society at large and the communities that bore and bred these young men to these young men.
Philadelphia has stood and watched in horror for the past two years as many of our young people have participated in the systematic deletion of the next
generation. Bullet riddled and broken bodies have fallen to cold sidewalks in virtually every corner of this city, the end result of a collusion of numerous
social failings that result in this sinister storm that is coating our streets red and our hearts black. Mothers, girlfriends, wives and grandmothers wail and
wring their hands in agony over the waste of their beautiful babies. Fathers (where found), brothers, cousins, friends and old heads shake their heads in
disappointment because that thing they taught him to watch out for, to outrun, to outsmart since he was small, caught their boy. There is a sense of sadness in
them but it is tempered by their realization of the cold reality that they could as easily have been there. The realization of the fragility of life, often
overlooked or downplayed in a larger culture that celebrates dangerous excess and exalts those who willingly come to the very edge of death and return, is
ironically a stark reality at the bottom and fringes of our society where you find the most people dead for frivolous reasons.
It has become something of an academic pursuit to pinpoint the root causes of our recent surge in gun murders. Over the past months, we've been treated to an
array of in-the-know people, those whom we have elected to ameliorate this kind of problem, those who have survived the streets and have made it their raison
d'etre to ensure as few young people follow that path as possible and those to whom the community looks to for solace and wisdom when this dark cloud creeps over
their piece of the world. And all of them offer truths when asked what are the causes and what are the cures. Better oversight of the sale of guns. Better
schools. Better jobs. More police involvement on the community level. More proactive cooperation from afflicted communities. All of these things will, with time
and dedication, soothe the problem. But nothing will reverse it, nothing will dramatically change its speed or growth short of a total about face on the Second
Amendment.
But every time I hear the solutions and think of what it took to get to this point, I think of three things.
I think of how different the worlds people occupy are. I think of the fact that someone can live a life of true luxury a 20-minute walk away from someone living
in abject squalor, in a state of want that is supremely difficult to assuage and how, in a society that claims to believe so much so in the strength of its moral
convictions that it can send young people by the boatload to deliver it to others -- ironically, at the point of a gun -- that we can abandon those among us who
don't paddle in stride. We, as a society, allow terrible people to dictate terms of the humanity of others -- whether we accept that or not -- based not on the
higher moral standard we like to think we operate by, but simply by who can best keep up with or outdo the group -- who makes the most, who looks the nicest, who
lives the best.
And I think, with all the excuses, we very rarely see blame accepted by or foisted upon the communities that allow members of our future to come in to festering
conditions. How some members of these communities, despite the material resources they often lack, fail to exercise judgment, good sense and neighborly decency --
small things, seemingly, that ultimately separate 'good' neighborhoods from 'bad' ones. How so many people go to bed with the 'snitches get stitches or ditches'
mentality, guaranteeing them maybe a good night's sleep and the promise of uncertainty and instability to greet them with the morning sun. How it got so bad that
Ty from the block holds more sway on the block than a 6,800 member police force with helicopters, dogs, shotguns and the full weight of The United States
Department of Justice behind them should things go really sour.
I think of the culture of fear and violence that is created and strengthened by members of these communities, communities I move through, communities I have
lived in since birth. I think of the simplicity of twenty neighbors who'd like to sit on their front stoops on a warm night without a reasonable fear of catching
a bullet going to their police district, demanding action from the men and women they pay to ensure public security and pledging full eyes and ears cooperation
in return.
And I think of the next young man, who grew up cold and hungry, who decided to never be that way again and declared himself strong, a man. I think 'Will I be
sitting on the wrong side of the bus, will I be walking down the wrong side of the street, will I be coming out the wrong door at the wrong time and find myself
between such a young man and another like him, set for showdown?' I'm sure I'd think a hundred things, few pertinent, before fate does what it would. But the
reasons wouldn't matter then. As they didn't matter 406 times last year and as they haven't nearly 240 times this year. Maybe soon we'll reach the tipping point.
Enough mothers will get tired of funerals. Enough roll dogs will get tired of looking at all those airbrushed shirts. Enough people will grow tired of being
ignored and decide to be proactive and maybe the culture will start to change. No one spark is going to set it off, unfortunately.
Maybe it'll take 240.
–Steve Ives
phillytrax@aol.com
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