Author Topic: What Happened???  (Read 48637 times)

Offline RouxB

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Re: What Happened???
« Reply #40 on: February 09, 2012, 03:53:00 pm »
My mother must have been distantly in that family tree, too. You should have seen the whuppin' I got, aged about 5 or 6, when she caught me swearing. After that a four-letter word did not cross my lips until I was in college!  ;)  :laugh:

Yep, same mom. I still don't swear in front of my parents. When we were teens, my sister got yelled at by my father (he was not a spanker) and when he walked out the front door she let out a string of profanity directed at him. The door opened and he walked back in and asked "what did you say?" I think she nearly pooped her pants. There was never a repeat of that behavior  ;D

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Offline RouxB

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Re: What Happened???
« Reply #41 on: February 09, 2012, 04:17:10 pm »
I´m sure low riding pants mean something to some of the people where I live, but I´m not sure what. Some people I´m sure wear them as a fashion statement, others might wear it for other reasons. But what is clear is that all people wearing low riding pants don´t do it for the same reasons. Judging people by the way they dress might be very misleading.

But if we agree that the pants themselves ain´t the problem, then why not focus on the real issues. Powerty, unemployment etc etc. These are of course very hard to solve issues, but the whole pants thing seems to be nothing more than smoke and mirrors to me. I´m not sure what you mean by that. Of course my experience is...well...mine. But it´s not anymore "only" than anyone else´s, I imagine

I don't think anyone is "focusing" on the pants in attempting to address the issues of poverty/ lack of opportunity/detrimental media inf.luence-lifestyle is just a touch point for the bigger issue. Smoke and mirrors to you, something totally different to those of us most impacted by the problems in our community. When black men are constantly fighting the stereotype of being criminals, what do you think immature young men immulating that lifestyle does?? Not to mention that it sets them up as targets for those who are easily "mislead" by the way they dress. They way you dress can get you killed.

 Which is what I mean by "your experience is only yours". It is helpful to have some experience in order to gain some insight. Hang out in Compton or Inglewood or Watts for a couple of years. Spend time with multiple generations of black families. I guarantee you will have a different idea of what constitutes smoke and mirrors.

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Offline ifyoucantfixit

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Re: What Happened???
« Reply #42 on: February 09, 2012, 09:58:56 pm »
Back in 1982, I went through a punk fashion phase. It lasted about 1 year. My folks stayed on my back about it until I stopped. I remember bumping into my grandmother on the train one morning. At the next stop, she stood up, told me she didn't want to be seen with me dressed that way, and got into the next car.

It is the responsibility of adults to teach children what is appropriate, and what is not. Back in the day, it didn't matter if the adult in question was family or not. Any adult had the right to criticize a child. The words "I'm going to tell your mother" would strike terror in us. The result was that we tried not to do anything that anyone would want to tell our mothers about. Or at least not get caught.

  The truth is now agreed upon.  The parenting and fostering of the children, is the real problem.  So many of these children are themselves, products of gang members, drug addicts, alcoholic parents.  Absentee parents.  So many of the issues that have developed in these neighborhoods.  They are craving a place to belong.  A person who they can identify with.  They find a group, usually of their own age group, that accepts them, calls them family ie (gangs, or drug sales.  Pimps) etc.  They finally find that connection that they have so craved.  Throughout their life.  It is negative, but cohesive, it has rules, which they have had little of in life.  In short it is a defacto family.  That is the place they go.  That is the people they identify with.  Therefor they then dress in the manner of those persons.  They will by joining these groups become an integral part of it.  It will help them defend their life, and territory.  Natural tendancies are to join these gangs.  It is the first step in a line of death.  They accept the chance at a death.  They themselves participate in causing them as well.  If you live in that kind of neighborhood, you are almost forced to become one of them.  In order to survive.  No matter, that it is a one way cycle, leading to imprisonment, or death.  I have even heard them say, very casually.  How they understand that it is probably going to be their fate.  It is in their mind a fact of life.  It is sad but absolutely true.
  Therefor the thing that really needs to be done, is to focus on the other end of the problem.  Focusing on the dress, is trying to correct the problem, inside out.  It is a symptom, not a cause.



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Offline milomorris

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Re: What Happened???
« Reply #43 on: February 09, 2012, 11:32:49 pm »
It is a symptom, not a cause.

Coughing is a symptom of a cold. Robitussin is a remedy that many choose in order to stop the cough, and hopefully break the cold. So if pants on the ground are a symptom, we should find something to stop that "cough" too.

  The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

--Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Offline RouxB

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Re: What Happened???
« Reply #44 on: February 10, 2012, 12:22:30 am »
   Therefor the thing that really needs to be done, is to focus on the other end of the problem.  Focusing on the dress, is trying to correct the problem, inside out.  It is a symptom, not a cause.

And in medicine isn't the symptom treated as well as the cause?

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Offline Monika

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Re: What Happened???
« Reply #45 on: February 10, 2012, 01:50:45 am »
First time I ever saw Bill O`Reilly on TV, he was blaming rap music for the situation in some areas.
This discussion reminds of his kind of logic.

Offline milomorris

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Re: What Happened???
« Reply #46 on: February 10, 2012, 02:16:52 am »
First time I ever saw Bill O`Reilly on TV, he was blaming rap music for the situation in some areas.
This discussion reminds of his kind of logic.

Then he's looking at it backwards. The situation created the music, not the other way around.
  The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

--Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Offline RouxB

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Re: What Happened???
« Reply #47 on: February 10, 2012, 02:36:24 am »
First time I ever saw Bill O`Reilly on TV, he was blaming rap music for the situation in some areas.
This discussion reminds of his kind of logic.

Which discussion are you following?

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Offline serious crayons

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Re: What Happened???
« Reply #48 on: February 13, 2012, 06:45:20 pm »
I think you all are putting a lot of responsibility on parents to fight a pervasive culture that is far more interested in making money than in producing model citizens. This is a very, very complex issue. Parents might have some effect if they would all act en masse, but it cannot be solved by individual parents or even all parents as long as everything from our TV commercials to our popular music constantly drills into kids' heads the messages that adults are idiots, that crime and rebellion are cool, that insolence and profanity and misogyny are acceptable, that the most important things in life are making money and owning luxury items, etc.

My parents weren't particularly strict and I wasn't particularly rule-abiding as a kid. But it wouldn't have occurred to me to swear at my parents because nobody I knew -- nobody on TV, nobody in real life, nobody anywhere, as far as I knew -- ever did that. Simple as that.

Even the most extreme forms of youthful rebellion in the media when I was a teenager -- say, the veiled references to sex and drugs in rock music -- seem like Disney lullabies compared to the what my kids listen to these days.

 

Offline delalluvia

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Re: What Happened???
« Reply #49 on: February 13, 2012, 08:11:46 pm »
But yes, it falls back into the issue of parents continuing the cycle of behavior and attitude.

These kids obviously did not have parents who were strict with them or focused on imbuing in them a sense of self-responsibility and the importance of education.  My house, what music we listened to was strictly regulated.  If my parents didn't like it, we didn't listen to it.  We didn't like that rule, our ability to listen to the music at home was taken away.  Same for TV.  Those pants?  Who bought them for the kids?  Parents did.  Again, my parents also had a say in our wardrobes.  They didn't like it, we didn't get it.  That only changed when I started working and making my own money, then my parents helped me along with money management by no longer providing me with day to day essentials.  They didn't keep feeding me for free or doing my laundry for free, or paying for gas for the car or insurance.  That stopped and I had to pay for it myself, so my funds were always limited and thus I had to make hard decisions on what I wanted to spend my money on.

Obviously these parents are falling down in the raising of their children, but perhaps only because they were the same way.