<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">How long before we learn that a young pro, an NBA or NFL player, a kid suddenly being paid millions, has been the sustained victim of a gang shakedown, that's he's paying "tribute," extortion money, "life insurance" or "family life insurance" to his neighborhood's hoods? It's likely already happening simply because it has to be. America's mean streets have never been meaner. And those neighborhoods are among the nation's leaders in producing superior athletes. Do the street math. Consider that in just one day this week, the Knicks signed Qyntel Woods, a 24-year-old pro from mean-streets Memphis with an arrest record for everything from drugs to animal abuse, and lost Quentin Richardson, who returned to mean-streets Chicago to mourn his brother, a murder victim, the second brother Richardson lost to a shooting. And these kinds of stories have become so commonplace, we've become inured to them. Just another drive-by day. Last year NBA star Carmelo Anthony, at age 20, showed up in a "grass roots" DVD entitled, "Stop Snitching." It featured gangsta rappers threatening death to those who would finger neighborhood criminals to the police, a pre-emptive warning to those called to testify before grand juries. Some have explained the video as a form of cultural "art," a mere dramatization of modern street life. Others say that the message is inescapably clear ? and real. While Anthony, from the Baltimore area, makes no threats in the West Baltimore-shot video, he appears in it for more than five minutes. He and his agent dismissed all suggestions that Anthony had any sinister connection. Said agent Calvin Andrews: "Carmelo has never denied the fact that he comes from a tough neighborhood." Exactly. "I'm just on there [the video]," Anthony told the Baltimore Sun. "I understand that everybody is on there talking about killing and doing this and that, but it's not like I'm on there with guns. I was back on my block, chillin'. I was going back to show love to everybody, thinking it was just going to be on the little DVD, that it was just one of my homeboy's recording." Exactly. Yeah, it's just art, a dramatization. As if the gangsta culture is all play-acting, as if it doesn't daily produce mayhem, blood and murder. And as things grow worse ? and as the media, sports and entertainment industries keep promoting the gang culture for every nickel it's worth ? nothing better can come from it. Better doesn't happen by itself. Worse makes worse. How long before we learn that a sports agent is hooked up with a street gang? How long before we learn that 20 percent of a player's paycheck is being kicked back to the head of a gang's regional chapter? How long before we learn that, like with any crime family, you just don't decide to walk away, especially when you're suddenly making huge dough? Just a matter of time. </div> Source
This is perhaps a little of topic but the best way for the USA to put a halt on the number of gun-caused deaths is to make firearms illegal to the general public who don't have a real reason for owning them.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting j-mac31:</div><div class="quote_post">This is perhaps a little of topic but the best way for the USA to put a halt on the number of gun-caused deaths is to make firearms illegal to the general public who don't have a real reason for owning them.</div> Dude, right to bear arms.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting JWohl:</div><div class="quote_post">Dude, right to bear arms.</div> I don't understand that right though. Why do you need a gun?
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting shapecity:</div><div class="quote_post">They just need to stop making bullets.</div> Agreed. Or they can put a ridiculous tax on bullets.
haha like chris rock said "they should make bullets worth a thousand dollars. that way, people think about it before they pull the trigger"
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Lakerland:</div><div class="quote_post">haha like chris rock said "they should make bullets worth a thousand dollars. that way, people think about it before they pull the trigger"</div> Haha, that was great wasn't it? I love the part where he adds, "So if you see someone with 10 bullets in their chest, you know they really did something wrong."
