I Know Who Killed Me (But I Ain't Telling You)

That is insane. As I read this story I stare out my side window at the open fields and houses and listen to the quiet and my kids getting ready for school without any of those fears or burdens. I can't help but think "Thank goodness we don't live there." I am so far removed from the violence and grime it almost seems like it's on a different world. It's too bad I can't share that with people who think violence and crime are the only ways to live. 17. That's way too young to be bleeding out on the street.

Out of curiosity ... is Frank Main African American?

nighttimer said:

another clueless mommy can wail and cry about how this couldn't have happened to her good boy.

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That struck me when I read the story...the fact that she called him a "very respectful child." Maybe he was, I don't know, but he was the victim of a murder due to his involvement with drug dealers...hardly upstanding behavior. Where has she been?

I'm with nighttimer on this one, solidly. I'd add that if White-on-White crime approached anything near the rates in some inner cities, the marches would be going too.

But here goes Don, thinking outside the box again.

I consider the War on Drugs as racist an activity as FedGov has ever been involved in. The incarceration rates show simply unbelievable disparities among the races, and the War is in general fought in poorer ethnic neighborhoods. Not a lot of SWAT-served warrants in Beverly Hills , although there are plenty of pot smokers.

As long as the largest dependable income stream for some entire neighborhoods is illegal drugs, there's no solving this one. More cops just means the drug lords buy bigger guns.

Ok, back in my box.

Don said:

Ok, back in my box.

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If only...

i agree with don that the war on drugs is a travesty and is a direct cause of not only the trafficking of drugs in poorer neighborhoods, but also the ferocity with which turf is protected.

refusing to cooperate with the police is not unique to black inner-city neighborhoods; italians, jews and many other minorities at one time or another have absorbed the insular attitude that things are best handled outside the purview of the authorities.

certainly the mistrust is based in a history of police abuses, but it is also sometimes unfairly perpetuated by so-called leaders and pundits, and often at the expense of the people in whose interests they claim to be acting.

and to the extent that such attitudes have been exploited by commercial tv, music and film companies, such hardcore "street" attitudes potentially have the reach to extend into suburbia and across racial lines.

a tragedy all the way around. a dead kid on one hand, and a murderer who will almost certainly walk free, thanks to the g-code.

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Motherfuckers just follow a nigga around dude
That's real
Some shit though, fuck these feds
redneck, racist motherfuckers, man!


[Scarface]
I don't wanna run no more, but I know that if I stop
I'll be another nigga headed to heaven hangin wit Pac
These motherfuckers look at me like I'm a slanger
Makin threats to my family, dawg I'm in danger
Who do you call when these agents want you dead
and they hit these penitentiaries and niggaz make a pledge
So I dip and dock the feds
all my homie caught out on indictments
Caught up on the phone talkin prices
25-to-life's the mandatory minimal
My whole community gets treated like they criminals
Why are them bitches gettin' motherfuckers hung
Got a C.I. on the inside and everybody's sung
Mothers and fathers seperated from they sons
Households are broken, you couldn't hold your tongue
If it's yours, say it's yours, take the case, do your time
When you was out here gettin' money from it everything was fine
Now you cryin' in your jail cell, stressin' on the case
And the D.A. is at a nigga every other day
I can see it in your face, in the middle of your soul
You in question of your manhood homey - keep the code

[Chorus]
We don't talk to police, we don't make a peace bond
We don't trust in the judicial system, we shoot guns
We rely on the streets, we do battle in the hood
I was born in the G Code, embedded in my blood

We don't talk to police, we don't make a peace bond
We ain't trustin in the judicial system, we shoot guns
We rely on the streets, we do battle in the hood.
I was born in the G Code, embedded in my blood

[Scarface]
See I be on some street shit, don't talk to police
I won't accept a visit from agents who wanna see
if I got shit to say about a nigga case
I'm a motherfuckin' nigga through and through, I ain't gay
Know a nigga caught a case and he took his 25
Sat it out on appeal, and gave him back that time
A soldier in his mind and his actions said the same
Told a cracker tell your mammy suck his dick and see Rick James
Ain't no motherfuckin' game, we been livin' this for real
When the government is workin', real niggas never squeal
Right here the truth revealed, Troy you a mouse
Yeah you rappin' but the homey Lil' Pots can't get out
Niggaz they hit the pen, they get charged, then get out
On a rule, 35, he a bought it for the cops
You can hear it in his voice, I done listened to the tapes
Now you showin' up in court, testifyin' for the state

[Chorus]
We don't talk to police, we don't make a peace bond
We don't trust in the judicial system, we shoot guns
We rely on the streets, we do battle in the hood
I was born in the G Code, embedded in my blood

We don't talk to police, we don't make a peace bond
We ain't trustin in the judicial system, we shoot guns
We rely on the streets, we do battle in the hood.
I was born in the G Code, embedded in my blood

[Scarface]
I'm knowin' all the scams, all the tricks to the trade
Know a nigga tryin' to get clean, and you get in the way
Know a nigga tryin' to get green, and you stick out the bait
Cause a nigga like a dopefiend, can't rehabilitate
Still we stickin' to the G Code, we playin' by the rules
We don't fuck around with new niggas, cause new niggas is fools
We don't photograph the homies, that'll catch a nigga up
On a picture you a victim, bottom line nigga fucked
Only connect the real, stayin' down with the truth
I got love for you Ant, you a real nigga Spook
My nigga Spoonie Gee, I can only name a few
But there's a thousand motherfuckers in the pen bulletproof
So this one here for you, I'm a rep it 'til I die
Fuck a 5-K-1, check his P-S-I
Send his ass to the top if he say he sit at home
He a motherfuckin' snitch, snitchin' niggas need it sewn

[Chorus]
We don't talk to police, we don't make a peace bond
We don't trust in the judicial system, we shoot guns
We rely on the streets, we do battle in the hood
I was born in the G Code, embedded in my blood

We don't talk to police, we don't make a peace bond
We ain't trustin in the judicial system, we shoot guns
We rely on the streets, we do battle in the hood.
I was born in the G Code, embedded in my blood

nighttimer said:

If the Klan or neo-Nazis were shooting down Black kids at the rate they kill each other daily, all the usual suspects would be marching down the streets of Washington chanting the same old tired-ass slogans and demanding the federal government mobilize to stop the slaughter.

But when it's just one more dead nigger killed by another nigger likely to end up the same damn way, nobody gives a shit.

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I'm not clear on your meaning here.

Do you mean people like Sharpton and Jackson who whore themselves out on inter-racial issues, but are somewhat less vocal (if not silent) when it comes to more severe intra-racial problems?

Nighttimer's video reminds me of a speaker I once heard...he was a young black man, and he said that he and his friends used to use the "N" word all the time. They considered it "taking the word back from our oppressors", and "turning that word from something derogatory to a symbol of brotherhood." But anytime his mother would hear them, she'd very quickly and angrily say, "We don't use that word here. There are no niggers in this house, and there never will be." He tried to explain to his mom, but she never understood; wouldn't even listen to it. She just repeated, "There are no niggers at my house."

Then, one day he was out with his mother, and a white man called her a nigger. He said that the rage that welled up in him was like nothing he'd ever experienced. He wanted to kill that man. But his mother put a hand on his shoulder and said, "Son, that man ain't talking to us. There ain't no niggers here," then calmly led him away. And then he understood where she'd been coming from the whole time; no amount of calling each other the "N" word or trying to assign it new meaning meant a damn thing when he'd heard his mother called that. He never used that word casually again.

I think about that story every time I hear that word used casually, or in a "friendly" way.

I also think about a pit bull I rescued from my neighbors when I lived in Austin (I bought the dog, I didn't steal him). They heaped abuse on the poor thing, figuring that was how you made a dog mean; I hated them for what they did to that dog. I'm pretty sure, judging by the scars, the reaction he had to other dogs, and the extremely docked ears and tail (below what would be "cosmetic"), that they fought him for money. They were black, and the dog's name was Nigger...presumably the most hateful thing they knew to call it.

nighttimer said:

I hate "thug culture" like God hates sin. This self-hatred will do what slavery, the Klan, the Tuskegee Experiment and COINTELPRO couldn't do: make Black people extinct.

One day you will have to go to a museum to find out who we even were.

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I don't know what the hell to do with this feeling, but these couple of lines, after reading all I have from you, hit me in the head like a hammer.

It doesn't feel like "white guilt" or any sort of construct. It feels like a fulcrum of evolution, but one we have a hand a hand in, one that we could bend one way or another. I want to understand better what helps and what doesn't.

I really don't want to turn this into a victim competition, but I just think it's prudent to keep in mind that other minorities and demographics suffer from the War on Drugs as well.

Maybe the victim feared for his family's safety if he gave the police a name, although how much one would consider that in the last moments I don't know.

Even so, what a waste.

Additionally, I believe most criminal organizations tend toward codes of silence with the police.

Additionally, I believe most criminal organizations tend toward codes of silence with the police.

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Perhaps, but that only begs the question, is this about a "criminal organization" or a larger community dynamic?

I want to open this discussion to the very edge of behavioral boundaries, but of course that means transcending race and poverty and talking terribly frankly about what is and isn't excusable in what is inherited in the human condition. I want to know what makes "making" death acceptable, and life a burden or a joy. I'm going to start by saying that this punk - shot in the chest - was probably a ruthless shit. But I also sadly think that his life may have been worth more than his sacrifice. . . .

nighttimer said:

Absolutely. They operate on a paradigm that White racism is somehow more insidious and threatening to African-Americans than our own pathological inability and refusal to attack the root causes of our own self-destructive behavior. It's easier to scream "racism" at a corporation for the lack of dark faces in the boardroom than it is to demand police and government action against a drug dealer or a gang terrorizing a housing project.

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THis has a lot of truth to it but I think the problem is more insidious. There is a core of the black populace, old timers and young up-and-comers who have linked 'being black' to 'being oppressed'.

First off, yes, it is true, blacks have always been oppressed, however how we dealt with that oppression has undergone a fundamental shift resulting in the self perpetuation of negative behaviors that keep us down.

Back in the old days 60s, 50s, 40s, etc, blacks lived with the adage that you just had to be better. That the world wasn't fair but tough shit be twice as good if need be. Do what you have to do. This was how I was raised.

And so, as opportunities came, blacks worked hard and were grateful for those opportunities.

But as the opportunities started to come, it seems that some blacks (especially those like Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson) could not evolve and move their constituents in a positive direction. They couldn't embrace the positive momentum and roll with it. Instead, they just kept/keep focusing on the negative.

True, America is not completely free of racism, but for the most part, blacks have more opportunity now than we have had at any point in history. Most whites are not racist and the majority of whites don't condone outright racism which is a far cry from the 50s and 60s.

But as a community (and with the help of those like Sharpton and Jackson) we are moving backwards because we refuse to acknowlede and fix our internal problems and instead only point the finger at external wrongs.

nighttimer said:

The War on Drugs might as well be called a War On Black People. All it does is funnel dope into the worst neighborhoods, destroy families, turn Black men into convicts and locks them away in rural areas to be guarded by White men who have no other employment available. It's a great big racket and nobody gives a damn about it until it spills over and touches them or someone they know and care about.

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MSNBC did a special on a white community in Mondecito California that for the most part grows pot in the open and the powers that be let it happen. If this were a black community, there is no way in hell this would happen.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/54312/cnbc-originals-marijuana-inc

nighttimer said:

I hate "thug culture" like God hates sin. This self-hatred will do what slavery, the Klan, the Tuskegee Experiment and COINTELPRO couldn't do: make Black people extinct.

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The current embrace of 'thug culture' is the single most harmful thing to ever happen to blacks.

I tutored a few teenagers who took pride in misspelling words and using embonics in their schoolwork.

A couple of them thought my help was a waste of time because they didn't need school. They were going to be millionaire rappers.

I've had more luck arguing with brick walls.

Mel...

Williebee said:

Perhaps, but that only begs the question, is this about a "criminal organization" or a larger community dynamic?

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I don't know about that...

But to answer your question, I'd read a sociological take on the situation that discussed this phenomena in poorer parts of post-industrial cities, but its conclusion was an urban-nomad life, not living in a stable home, as is sometimes necessary to avoid being constantly hounded by police for information (because most who live near each other know stuff about each other, but I suspect the average person cares about his or her neighbor more than an outsider), is essentially alienating at the same time it protects one from the police.

Perhaps, but that only begs the question, is this about a "criminal organization" or a larger community dynamic?

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Or both, perhaps? Other cultures besides the urban black community have had an ethos which tends to suppress achievement.

Monkey said:

Nighttimer's video reminds me of a speaker I once heard...he was a young black man, and he said that he and his friends used to use the "N" word all the time. They considered it "taking the word back from our oppressors", and "turning that word from something derogatory to a symbol of brotherhood."

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Damn, I think I understand that now - that's an explanation that makes sense.

I've seen/experienced the "no snitch" thing when I was in high school. I think it develops as the "safest" path of conduct to protect ongoing activities that "the authorities" (school teachers and administrators, parents, police) strongly disapprove of. I've got a bit of a longish story about it (and me being naive, and doing something that prompted the 'underground' rules to be spelled out for me) at a virtually all-white private "prep" school I went to one year. Let me see if I can write it and post it later.

His mother surely had some "denial" about his being bad and in the gang (I've so OFTEN seen the mother of some arrested or killed kid say how good he was, when the situation strongly indicates otherwise*), but might have had what she saw as legitimate reasons for thinking he was doing okay, perhaps he got dressed up and went to Church every Sunday (There's a saying, going into a church doesn't make one a Christian any more than going into a garage makes one a car). I saw many kids in high school doing things they were "supposed" to do solely to make their parent think they were "doing okay."

One of my first thoughts was that the reason he didn't tell was to keep from prompting retaliation against his fellow gang members, NOT against his family. In a real way the gang IS his (ugh, I've heard THIS before, too) "new family."

Williebee said:

Perhaps, but that only begs the question, is this about a "criminal organization" or a larger community dynamic?

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Maybe, the-community-at-large is the whole of society and, if so, maybe we, the United States of America, or even, the worldwide society of mankind, is, in fact, predominantly "a community of criminals" and those that aren't YET experiencing the affect of universal criminality are the fringe or sub-culture of the dominant culture.

Is there something wrong with me for having respect for the kid?

Maybe, the-community-at-large is the whole of society and, if so, maybe we, the United States of America, or even, the worldwide society of mankind, is, in fact, predominantly "a community of criminals" and those that aren't YET experiencing the affect of universal criminality are the fringe or sub-culture of the dominant culture.

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Neighborhood, town, maybe. "whole of society"? That's more than a bit of a reach.

kuwisdelu said:

Is there something wrong with me for having respect for the kid?

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I wouldn't phrase it that way exactly, but you might want to reflect on the truth that your sentiment, shared by many in that community, is what helps perpetuate the killing fields those communities have become.