Welcome to a new post detailing gang issues in our world today. In this post I am going to try to connect two issues, which have a correlation with each other.
First I want to address that I recently ran into a student, I had in class several years ago, at a local burger joint. At the time I taught to him he was a self proclaimed Blood gang member, and was always sporting some sort of red clothing or article. Well it just so happens that he was still sporting his colors but this time he had a small child with him; his child.
We talked for a little bit just catching up on life in general. I asked him if he was still involved in a gang. He looked at me and said “what do you think” as I noticed the red garb he had on. I asked him if he ever intended to get out of the gang now that he had a child of his own, to which his reply was, “where is the motivation in doing so?” I then looked at his little girl and replied, isn’t she motivation enough? His next reply seriously startled me. He said that she would be representing soon enough and she would know more than he does about gang life. I didn’t have any reply to his bravado as it left me literally speechless. Later in the evening I reflected back on our chance meeting and could only feel sorry for the child, because she had no idea what kind of life she would soon be leading.
On June 7th of this year a 14 year old child in suburbia Maryland was brutally victimized by admitted gang members. He was beaten so badly that it claimed his life. Although he had been in constant contact with his mother via text message, it was not enough to prevent the inevitable. The school had even been warned that something was up with this child and the gang members that were harassing him.
Sadly, as is usually the case, the claims were dismissed as hearsay. I can tell you from experience that these students, (gang members), often have more rights than their victims, which always falls under the due-process banner. Often, it usually takes a shooting or some other violent offense before something is done. In this case, the victims rights and the due-process procedure of the perpetrators will do the victim no good now.
It is a sad testament when gang members have more rights than someone they are harassing in school. I feel really bad for the parents of this child because he will never fulfill his true potential, while the gang members will serve their time and eventually be set free. And to make matters worse they will probably bring their own kids into the gang life just like the student I had in class plans to do.
So, the correlation is that no matter what interventions a school or community does to intervene, gang life is often a vicious cycle. A cycle that can only be broken by a family member who finally takes a stand and says, enough is enough. I can only hope that school district officials will read this post and seriously take immediate action when something like this is brought to light. If schools don’t take these matters seriously what happened in this case will become the norm. And this is not acceptable for anyone involved.
Although I could go on and on detailing why this might have happened you may want to buy a copy of my book, which outlines the true motivation of why children join up with a street gang.
If you need to contact me via this or other issues related to street gangs feel free to drop me a line at: cabgil@aol.com and I will be happy to offer some advice. Also, if you would like to purchase a copy of my book you may do so by sending $19.95 plus $4.00 s&h. to P.O. Box 13591, Las Cruces, New Mexico, 88013, c/o Gilbert.
Thanks and come again for another post outlining gang issues in education and in our world.
Gilbert R. Cabrera