Mindless Creations

The blogs that I have commented on are at the top in the “Where I’ve been tab.” It’s just that simple.

I think the ultimate purpose of this blog was to invoke something from within. To pick a topic, research it, and find the emotions that article forces us to feel. I have been searching for an article to make my chest burn with the rage of an article. I have been looking for the article to make me stand up and say yeah! or No! I think I found that article. Except this one did something strange. This article made me stand up and say both. The amount of emotion that flew through my body was overwhelming and I found myself unsure what to do with it. So here I am, writing not real sure what to write about.

First of all. I was looking for another blog, or an editorial to comment on. I wanted to read what others were writing about in terms of gangs. I found it in this article–an editorial. I understand Mr. Unger’s frustration. We as a nation like to point the finger but never do anything about that thing we are pointing at. We as a nation are procrastinators. We say, “Hey, there’s our problem….now someone else fix it.” We have our Oprah’s and our Bill Gates who see problems and aim to fix them, but hey, we’re not all millionaires are we. Heck, half of us are just trying to figure out how to fill our gas tank rather than how to deal with our other problems. But, at the same time, do we really want to stand back decades from now and say, “Whoops, if only we paid more attention to___(fill in the blank)___.” I think that’s the point Mr. Unger is trying to make. He’s saying, hey, here’s the problem, but not one of us can fix it. We all have to fix it. But how do you get a nation that has soooo many other fears and worries to stand up and do something about an area most of us are afraid of. I will admit I fear some of the students I work with on a daily basis. But that fear is not of them per-say, it’s of what they’ve seen. Many of them know what it’s like to hold a hand gun and point it at another one of their peers. Many of them have seen friends being shot–and attended their funerals. Many of these kids have seen their parents behind bars. I fear that–I fear what they have seen before reaching the age of 18. I fear that we can’t change them because they don’t know any different. It scares me to death to ever think that these kids are lost and will never find their way back. I tell myself, one at a time. I tutor a gang member. I have told him he can be anything he wants and I’ve seen his eyes and the doubt in them. I have watched him cry because life just isn’t fair to him. I’ve felt my heart break as he tells me something personal. This is the reality we’re supposed to reach these kids in. We’re supposed to say, “Hey, ignore that social structure that has never given up on you, and come to us–come to someone who can’t make you any promises except that you are more than what you think you are.” Yet, I stand there in front of him and hope to reach him. Hope that he listens to me, when he hasn’t seen anything go his way. But then, I see him slam a “A” test on my office window with a big grin on his face and I know that for once he believes what I told him. I call him into the office and tell him I told him he could do it. He smiles. That’s all it takes for me to believe that these kids aren’t lost.

 I know I’ve drifted from my purpose. I’ve kinda taken what Mr. Unger did and did the exact same thing. I let my emotions guide my fingers. Maybe that’s my purpose–maybe this blog will help someone out there to reach out to that student they are fearful of. I can only hope.

FROM THE EDITOR: We’re losing our boys, and there’s hell to pay
By Bob Unger
The Standard-Times

To be honest, I went into this article with my own opinions. Before even clicking on the link I had my own views on the subject. What’s subject is that? Uniforms.

Now, first I must say that all my life (until I got to college in 2001) I had to follow a strict dress code. I went to Catholic school -gasp!- and didn’t know anything but only wearing jeans to school on designated jeans days. In high school, you had to pay a dollar when that jeans day finally came once a month. I hated my dress code–I may have liked it more if it didn’t change ever year, and if the “jocks and popular kids” got penalized for their deviations from the code as the rest of us did. But, I am totally going off on a tangent and away from what this is supposed to be about.

 So, on top of that view, I also have my adult view. I work in a school that has a dress code. WHAT? AN ALTERNATIVE SCHOOL WITH A DRESS CODE!?? Yes, it’s true. All students MUST wear the designated T-shirt with the school logo on it. This shirt must be visible at all times, if you’re wearing a coat or hoodie, the logo must be visible (unless it’s super cold, as that school doesn’t know how to provide proper heating.) The shirt may not be altered in any way, shape, or form. If you do not have the t-shirt (meaning, if you left it at home), you may borrow one from the office if there is one available, or you will be sent home for the day. Students can be written up (discipline reports) for not having their t-shirt. Pretty much, we don’t mess around.

What was the purpose of this shirt? Gangs–and slutty girls, but what can you do? We killed two birds with one stone. The predicament though, was finding a t-shirt color that was not a gang color. The following colors are eliminated: blue, red, black, green, teal, pink, khaki, tan, Gold, brown, and silver. What does that leave us? Purple–try getting a bunch of teen age boys to wear purple. The first year we had these t-shirts (last year) we chose gray. This year is maroon–you’d be surprised how many boys had issues with maroon. Have we lost students because of the t-shirt policy…maybe one or two. Have we gained? Yes, lots. Why? These are the following reasons:

1. I don’t have to think about what to wear in the morning
2. I don’t have to worry about gang representation
3. I don’t have to worry about what everyone else is wearing

So far we have yet to see issues with this policy. It seems we’re not alone.

I was drawn to this article because of the title. I also couldn’t help but see what other schools are doing to cut down on the social and material pressures there are in schools. With gang members constantly trying to claim school as their turf (see through taggings on the outside of schools and in the bathrooms), by not allowing them to represent completely removed any possible problems that representation would allow. This article was yet another short article, but made its point. More and more schools are catching on to the idea. I have to admit, we stole the idea from a school in AZ. As to just confirm everything I have already said, I took this quote from the article:

Another reason to have school uniforms is gangs.

“As soon as the gang colors start coming out you have disruptions on the campus that will occur there. You may have some gang-related activities taking place on the campus with one gang against another gang,” Blaine Muse, the Osceola County School superintendent, said. “What we’re saying is we don’t need that.”

Uniforms Considered In Public Schools
Copyright 2008 by WESH.COM
By Michelle Meredith

Okay, maybe this should have been my first post. Maybe I should make a completely different section in this blog for this purpose, but why, when someone else has done the job so well already?

A friend of mine turned me on to this website that the city of Memphis has put together dedicated solely to gangs. I put the link to this blog on a website of mine, and she knew I was doing this project, as well as she knew where I worked, and sent me the link. So I wandered onto the site not really sure what to expect. I was blown away by the content I found there. Article after article on gangs and gang members. Why aren’t all major cities creating sites like this one?

But on to the purpose for this post. I’m writing about one article in particular. This article is called, “The big 4: Gangster Disciples, Vice Lords, Crips, and Bloods.”It breaks down the basics of each gang. It’s a short article that is just jam packed with information. Now, why choose to write a post abut this article? Simply put these gangs are not only in Memphis, but they are in Grand Rapids, and all over the nation. As I read the title to that article, I automatically thought of some of my students that fall into one of those gangs. What used to be just images of gang members on TV and movies is now images of faces of students I interact with on a daily basis.

I usually rip apart articles or at least find something wrong with them to write about in this blog, but this article had things I had never even heard of, and really the only complaint I have is that more pictures would have been nice. I know I say this a lot, but read it. This one is super short, and very informative. If you want to know the basics of a gang, its all laid out in this one article–at least for the most popular gangs that are out there right now. (Though, this article does leave out Sur 13, which is another big gang that many Hispanics join.)

Big 4: Gangster Disciples, Vice Lords, Crips, Bloods
No Author Given
3/23/08
Memphis Gangs

Fulfilling the necessary “professional development” requirement for this course was supposed to be something completely different than what I ended up doing. Now, I’m not saying that I didn’t like the presentation I ended up going to, but I kind of had my heart set on the conference in E.L. Unfortunately, my MTTC test kind of took precedence over that–what can you do?

So, where am I going with this? I ended up going to Anne Curzan’s talk on slang called, “Sticking up for slang: Why language authorities can not stop language change.” I tried to take notes during this talk, but found myself more absorbing the information than listening to regurgitate–which isn’t always good as I have a horrible memory and really need to write everything down.

I do have to admit that Professor Curzan really had me thinking. I hadn’t really thought of language change that much–mainly just because that’s not really the part of “The World of English” that drew me to the subject. I understand that a large part of English is language, but that wasn’t what made me want to become a teacher. I love the art of writing and the manipulation of the language, rather than the changes it ensues. Out of the minimal notes I took I wrote down the following three statements:

• Who has the power to say whether slang is right or not?
• Students should be allowed to question language just as they can question other literary works.
• Enjoy language change–language is not decaying, just changing.

 While those aren’t really a summary of her talk, it’s what stuck with me. She brought up the points that no matter how hard we try, we’re not going to be able to stop things from changing. She told us that the word “bubble” was once argued that it should be kept out of the English Language–my only thought was, then what word would they use to describe the word bubble? See, these type of presentations don’t really help me, but more hinder me. I am a rather inquisitive individual, and these types of presentations only force my brain into many questions that I either don’t care enough about to research myself, or just let bother me until time comes to get them answered. (Ah, the joys of being a procrastinator.)

One part of Prof. Curzan’s talk really stuck out to me though. She brought up the word, “ask” and how a lot of African American’s and southerners use the word “axe” instead. She then posed the question to us as to which one was correct. I thought about it, and then she told us, that axe is actually correct as it was used in old English, and that the s and k inversion was a more modern thing–yet another change.

Pretty much the whole theme of the presentation was changes aren’t always bad, and that there are more things to worry about rather than language change.

The next part of this post is going to focus on another “slang” presentation I observed. The dean of students at Ottawa Hills gave a presentation in one of my classes about Urban slang. He told us of how his students get together to make a test called the “Urban IQ” test, designed to show people that if they can’t talk to their students, how can they teach them. He told us that every year or so he sits down with students and they go over an “Urban IQ” test making the necessary changes removing older sayings that are no longer used and putting in new ones. In his presentation, he had us take the test. He then told us that the only way to gain respect with your students is to be able to understand what they’re saying and use the language they use.

I scored the higher than most of the people in my class. Not only because of my age (I think I was the youngest person in there), but because I’m around students everyday who use slang. I enjoyed taking the test, but wanted to raise my hand on more than one occasion to tell him that certain ones were no longer used and were replaced with “fill in the blank.” I love using slang, and will try and use it wherever possible. Not because I want to sound cool, but its a way to manipulate language, and as the gentleman who gave the presentation suggested, it puts you on the same level as the students.

So when  one of my female students tells another one that she is a “bust down” or “jump off” I know what they’re talking about. Or, when two boys talk about someone “burnin” I know what they are referring to. It’s the only way to make sure the next step in these types of conversations isn’t fists being thrown.

The G.R.E.A.T. program. I’ve read about it–in fact, for another class that program is part of my research for my research paper. In short, its a gang prevention program being implemented in the schools by police officer and educators working together as one. The acronym stands for: Gang Resistance Education and Training.

 The success is there, I can’t deny it. I can’t deny that the program is working. BUT I can be leary. This program is usually introduced to young/middle school aged kids. They don’t present this program to high schoolers–perhaps its because its “too late” at the point.

Because this problem is so new, its hard to say whether or not there are lasting effects throughout the lives of these young people. I can’t honestly say that everything I was told not to do in middle school stuck with me–mainly becuase I don’t remember most of it that seems like A MILLION years ago.

It’s hard for me to stand behind a program and say YES this will work–because we don’t know. However, I will not stand against it. I will not tell schools to ignore it, as it is giving positive outlooks on law enforcement, something I don’t think many adults can say they have.

I’d be interested on what you have to say about this program–read the article linked in this post, it’s short, and let me know what you think. I’ll respond–hopefully :)

I was afraid this blog was starting to take a all too negative all the time type of feel, so I’ve decided to do a positive story for this entry.

I’m always interested in the “happy ending” stories. You know the type–the ones where the gang member is reformed and tries to help out kids by telling them he knows where they’re coming from. One article in particular stuck out in my google reader as something worth talking about. The article titled, “Not a prisoner. Not an addict. Not dead.” by Chris Gaetano.

This piece is interesting in the sense that an ex gang member tells the story of why he joined a gang and the steps that got him there including what he had to do for his initiation. His initiation is one of the many–I’ve heard of kids getting “beat in” which means they get the snot beat out of them as a form of brotherhood. There’s a killing initation where you have to kill a rival gang member. For females, they get “sexed” into the gangs–meaning they sleep with the male gang members–though this practice is dying out with the rise in “all female” gangs.

With that said, Luis J. Rodriguez, is someone gang members can look to for guidance. As much as I am leary to using ex gang members as public speakers (due to the fact that a lot of times unintentionally they glamorize the life of a gang member), Mr. Rodriguez is someone who I beleive can reach the toughest of gang members.

I can’t write the story any better than Mr. Gaetano has in this article linked in this post. I suggest you read it. When gang members have role models like their fellow gang members or Tupac and other rappers involved in gang activity, etc. it’s nice to know that there is someone else out there who’s been there and is willing to take a stand to help others in his shoes.

“Not a prisoner. Not an addict. Not dead.”
By Chris Gaetano
Edison Metuchen Sentinel

I’ve debated how blunt I was going to be in this post. I’m sure you can tell by my title how that went. I did however choose not to use names, just because I’m not writing this to start a feud–though that can be fun at times.

I’m in a graduate education class and we recently had speakers come to our class and talk to us about various subjects. A security officer from GR public schools was one of those speakers. Now, before I continue, I must say a few things. One: The gentleman (who for the purpose of this blog will be named Fred Jones) who came and spoke with us is an amazing public speaker. I’m sure a lot of the things he was saying were truthful and came from his experiences. Two: My information comes directly from someone very well involved in gang prevention and gang news. Some of my information comes from gang members themselves. Some from actual police officers–pretty much my information is from credible sources. Third: I’m not saying I’m all knowing when it comes to everything gang, I’m just stating what I know.

Now that I’ve gone through those “disclaimers”, I can continue with my post.

After “Fred Jones” gave his little shpeal about how he is amazing (he never said this, it was just his attitude) and was a police officer for x amount of years, yadda yadda yadda, he handed out a booklet. The booklet is titled, “KIDS, GUNS, GANGS, AND SCHOOL VIOLENCE: A parents’ guide to gang awareness” And gives GR public schools information along with Fred Jones. I thought, wow, this is nice of him to give this to all of us. I thought, how cool that GR schools (the same school district that likes to deny that they have a gang problem, along with the GR police–but lets not get into that) are giving a guide to parents to help them with their “problem youth.” I thought all of this until I opened it to the fourth page (the first couple of pages were pictures and a “this is what this booklet is for” type of introduction).

The title for the first page had me thinking immediately, “ooh, this is going to be good…” In italicized print are the words, “Behaviors associated with joining a gang” and followed is a list of “warning signs” that parents should be looking for in their kids. Now, I’m not going to regurgitate this list here, as it’s not really necessary, but I am going to kind of “rip on it.” Disclaimer: I know that this list is not the end all be all of gang members, and I know that’s its use is for guideline purposes. With that said, I, according to that list, am a gang member. There are 12 “warning signs/things to look for” on this list and I fit 6 of them. Granted, that’s taking them at complete face value, but out of the 12 I (a female with no criminal history) fit SIX of those. Let that sink in a minute. 50%, does that mean I’m half a gang member? According to his list my parents should seek professional intervention if I exhibit 2 or more–I’m screwed.

I would have to say my favorite part of the entire booklet is this section in red at the bottom of page 8. I don’t know about you, but my parents weren’t really well versed in the “latest fashions” when I was in high school. The section reads:

“Remember it is important not to confuse what is simply a fashion or cultural trend with identified gang clothing and activity.”

What does that even mean? That’s like saying, “forget everything we’re saying, because who knows what is actually going to count and what isn’t”–okay, maybe it’s not that drastic, but it is kind of a cop-out. To me that statement almost says, “We don’t really know what we’re talking about….”

Maybe I’m looking at this too critically, but I have a problem believing a guy who says one thing and does another. “Fred Jones” runs security at GR public (as if that didn’t just give him away), and says one thing but does another. In his talk he preached that school has to be an equal ground–which I totally agree with, you can’t have gang members trying to claim the school as their turf. The school I work at does not allow gang representation; many of the gang members have told us that they like the fact that we don’t allow representation, it allows them to think of other things (like school) than who’s in what gang and their affiliation. BUT the major problem with this is that “Fred Jones” allows gang representation in GR public, and says that he does this so that he knows who the gang members are. If he doesn’t know, how can he make a booklet stating what to look for?

Overall is the booklet horrible? No, the back cover has a lot of helpful phone numbers. Is it something I would willingly hand to parents. No. Is it a nice reference and starting point. Maybe. “Fred Jones” knows the gang population in GR, no doubt. The way he presents his information, and the way he says one thing and does another makes him less credible. The contacts I have in terms of links to gang populations, law enforcement, and school officials have all told me “Fred Jones” doesn’t know what he’s talking about….I’m more inclined to believe them–and this booklet doens’t really help his case.

Okay, before I start this post, I must be honest. I can’t stand Myspace, facebook, etc., and I feel they have no value what-so-ever except as a place to blow an hour of my life “stalking” people I went to high school with. I know, I know, there are several of you out there who love MySpace for its social networking, but I just feel they are more problems because of these networking places than what are needed. Yeah, yeah, I know you can place the blame somewhat on the parents, as I have found several websites doing so, but at the same time, how much can parents do? I’m not going to turn this into one of “those” posts though, as I know I will just anger people and start a feud I really don’t feel like having. I just wanted to let everyone who reads this know my stance on the issue of MySpace and others, just to show my lean on this subject.

Now, before I dive into the article I read and not look back, I must also state that I do not have a MySpace, and good luck finding me on facebook. My privacy settings are so strict that I don’t even bother telling people I’m on facebook because they will never find me. You don’t believe me? Go ahead, try.

Anyway, Bebo. Yet another MySpace/Facebook wanna be right? As my title states, no. The very first time I heard about Bebo was when I was asked to make a “fake account” for a high school administrator (who will remain nameless and is also very well educated in gang relations/activities) trying to get information about a gang related incident. I turned to them, and said, “Why Bebo?” And they told me, “Because that’s the ‘MySpace’ for gangs.” I had never heard of Bebo before this. I remember this incident vividly as this was around the time that Bemis and East Ave.(Two well known gangs in Grand Rapids) were “beefing” over the shooting that occurred in the skating rink in Kentwood where Kenneth Dear was shot and killed. I questioned the administrator about what they meant by their comment, and they told me that anything from recruiting to bragging about a given gang is on Bebo. Like a kid with a new toy, the administrator, school counselor, and myself huddled around a computer searching for information. What I found was shocking. These kids weren’t hiding anything. I have never seen so much promotion of any gang anywhere else. And we thought graffiti was bad. There are pictures of teens holding guns pointed at the viewer, flashing signs, promoting colors, and this wasn’t hard to find. Type in Bemis in the search query and in minutes you are directed to several pages both Bemis boys and East Ave. either talking good or bad about a given gang. “RIP Kenneth Dear” was everywhere. On others, there were death threats of retaliation. Where am I going with this? I came across this article and wasn’t really shocked at what I found. I know that the Wyoming Public Library (WPL) in Wyoming, Michigan was having the same problems that this article talks about. Police officers were called to the WPL not because kids were reading too loud or loitering or anything as simple as that. They were called to the WPL because gang members were using the public computers to email either fellow gang members or rival gang members; they updated their Bebo accounts; worst of all, they started tagging inside the library.I’m not writing this post for any other reason than information. I don’t want future educators out there to be as surprised as I was to hear that there was an outlet for gang members that isn’t MySpace/Facebook. I didn’t know, but now I did, and perhaps through this blog I informed one of you reading this out there. I know quite a bit about computers, and am the go-to person in the building I work for computer problems, but sometimes these students inform me on something I didn’t know about. I think a student in the article said it best,

I’ve read several articles about gangs that sound like a little old lady who never leaves her house wrote them. I don’t mean anything negative by that, I’m just saying, the naivete in a majority of articles written today is a little ridiculous. To think that gangs just started is ludicrous to say the least. To also assume that illegal immigration is the main reason gang activity on the rise is also insane, as well as offensive, as I myself am from Hispanic descent.  

It wasn’t until I read this article that I thought, “Finally, someone who finally understands what’s going on in the gang community. Finally, someone who doesn’t think this is brand new, and realizes that this is an ongoing problem that was ignored for such a long time and is only now getting media attention.” I could go into a lovely rant about how it’s only “sounding” new because of all the media outlets now available and how back when the Gangster Disciples were going strong, Internet was not what it is today. Although, that’s a whole other blog and whole other topic.

Graffiti seems to be the giant neon sign that screams, “Hey, I think we may have a gang problem.” It isn’t until authorities take a look at taggings and their locations that they begin to connect the dots of the rise in crime in that area. This article, by the title alone, “Graffiti marks path to violence,” stands to argue that graffiti could be the first sign that something big is on the rise. Maybe that’s true, when you’re involved in something, you have to write it over and over again, just like when you get a new boyfriend/girlfriend and you scribble their name all over your notebook. You do this almost as if trying to show the world what you have, or in terms of the gangs, that you finally belong.

When looking at the students I work with who affliate with gangs, I asked myself, why? Why would anyone consider joining something that could ruin their future. Then I take a glimpse into their home lives:

• Two students are second generation gang members. Their parents were in the gang, so they were born into it.
• One student’s dad is in prison, he doesn’t have a father-figure to guide him in the right direction.
• A few student’s parents don’t really care where their kids are. All they care about is their next score.

It sounds like a plot for Friday’s movie, sadly its actual situations that some of the students I see everyday go through. It stems to that whole idea of if you don’t know any better, why would you try something else? If you don’t have anyone to guide you on the right path, how are you to when the wrong one looks so good from the outside?

What I have to say I like the most about this article is that not only did they say, “Hello people of Kentucky, we have gangs, always have,” but they give details about each gang in Kentucky and their colors. (Scroll to the bottom of the article for this information.)

People are genuinely afraid of gangs, and perhaps that’s why we as a nation like to pretend they don’t exist in our home cities. Though just like many unknowns, a little education can go a long way. Perhaps if local authorities on State and Federal levels would take the time to education more students and young adults could be saved through that information.

One quote taken directly from this article sums up everything I have inadvertently tried to make this blog about:

“The gangs are dealing with each other; not so much anyone else,” Shirley said. “But they’re here. There’s no denying they’re here.”

Article provided by:
Kentucky.com
by Delano R. Massey