Ben's issues aside, your upbringing and losses should tell you this is a race issue. I grew up in LO, which was 99.9% white at the time, and nobody I know was ever "lost" to a gang related incident. That's because gangs are all about racism. To imply otherwise is silly. I am old enough to remember before there were any gang shootings in Oregon. The Californian migrations during real estate booms there brought us the Crips and the Bloods and suddenly drive-by shootings were all the rage in NE Portland. Then the illegal alien amnesty in the 80's was enacted and suddenly Mexican gangs seemed to suddenly invade SE Portland and Hillsboro. Then the Aryan Nation read the headlines and found sympathetic listeners for their brand of racism, and established "chapters" in the SE suburbs. Gangs are glorified in the media and always have been. Could there possibly be a more vile and cowardly collection of human excrement than the Mafia? And yet they are protrayed in our culture as noble, tough guys living by a code and other ridiculous hyperbole. Gang members are the lowest of the low, the most cowardly bullies on earth, and they have no excuse. If you're in a gang you're a racist, and I have no sympathy for you nor will I excuse you for your decision to be in a gang. I'd vote for a law that said you always get the max sentence on any charge if you're in a gang.
Nice post, but I think gangs are more of a social/economic situation, not racism. Maybe in prison it becomes a racial problem. I lost 4 very close friends in shootings in the late 80's and they were african americans shot by other african americans. Thanks for the educated, mature response. That is sometimes a tough thing to come by around here. About L.O., I always wondered what it would be like to grow up with everybody around you the same. I'm not cracking on it, just wondering. Did you feel like you missed out on getting to know other peoples cultures or were you content.
Can we all agree on this at least: The word "fams" should never be spoken, typed, or signed....just can't take anyone seriously when I read or hear it.
Epic post bro. You've used almost every cliche racists use when they get called out. And all in a single post. The only one you left out is the one where you tell I'm actually the racist.
Out of curiosity, what is it you believe in that you're standing up for when you yell at a homeless person? Not being poor? Not being homeless?
Call him drunken HCP He won't answer anymore Not the whiskey drinkin' Polexican Nor the Marine that went to war Gather round me people there's a story I would tell About a brave young Meixcan you should remember well From the land of the NE Pole A proud and noble band Who farmed the Willamette valley in Warsaw land Down the ditches for a thousand years The water grew THE's peoples' crops 'Till the white man stole the water rights And the sparklin' water stopped Now THE's folks were hungry And their land grew crops of weeds When war came, THE volunteered And forgot the white man's greed CHORUS: Call him drunken HCP He won't answer anymore Not the whiskey drinkin' Polexican Nor the Marine that went to war There they battled up Pill-Hill's hill, Two hundred and fifty men But only twenty-seven lived to walk back down again And when the fight was over And when Old Glory raised Among the men who held it high Was the Polexican, THE HCP! CHORUS: Call him drunken HCP He won't answer anymore Not the whiskey drinkin' Polexican Nor the Marine that went to war HCP returned a hero Celebrated through the land He was wined and speeched and honored; Everybody shook his hand But he was just a North Portlander No water, no home, no chance At home nobody cared what THE'd done And when did the Polexicans dance CHORUS: Call him drunken HCP He won't answer anymore Not the whiskey drinkin' Polexican Nor the Marine that went to war Then THE started drinkin' hard; Jail was often his home They'd let him raise the flag and lower it like you'd throw a dog a bone! He died drunk early one mornin' Alone in the land he fought to save Two inches of water in a lonely ditch Was a grave for HCP CHORUS: Call him drunken HCP He won't answer anymore Not the whiskey drinkin' Polexican Nor the Marine that went to war Yeah, call him drunken HCP But his land is just as dry And his ghost is lyin' thirsty In the ditch where THE cried
Neither. My parents always encouraged us to seek out diversity and instilled in us a hunger for learning about other peoples, lands and cultures. As a youngster I spent the bulk of my summer days fishing for crappie by the Dairy Maid with the 20 or so negro (what they called themselves back then) gentlemen who bussed in from Portland to fish the only spot on the lake open to non-land owners. Mostly oldtimers, they regaled me with tales of earlier times, the war, the depression, the civil rights movement... They also introduced me to the blues, which I am grateful for. Although I've been an aethiest since my early teens, I still attended bible study for years for the debating opportunities with our pastor. I also went to my friends's churches with them to get an understanding of where other people were coming from. When we did our annual school clothes shopping trip to Portland, my mom took us on the old Rose City bus line so we could rub elbows with other cultures a bit, since few white folks rode the bus back then. We travelled and camped quite a bit and I spent time with Indian kids on the reservations and knew some Hispanic folks who worked on our friend's farm in Salem. As for growing up in LO, everyone around me was hardly the same. Nearly all were pale-skinned, but there were many Jews and Catholics and Baptists and Protestants, there were the uber-wealthy and the poor folks just scraping by (yes, poor people in LO), there were the educated and the ignorant, the bullies and the peacemakers, the law-abiding and the criminals... I never saw skin color as being definitive or even indicative of a person's identity and character, but it seems gang members most definitely do. Have you ever known a multi-cultural gang? I agree social and economic structure/barriers give birth to gangs, but I believe those structures/barriers arise from racism.
I spent the first 10 years of my life growing up in the south side of Chicago. It was at a time when there was a great migration of black folk from the southern states and many settled on the south side. There was a great flight of white people from the south side to the north side and suburbs. Some people never gave the new people a chance. These white people fled from a wonderful place. Frank Lloyd Wright architecture, the lake front, the museums, and other landmarks. They took their wealth with them and left the newcomers to their own devices. When I was 5 years old, a black boy asked me if he could ride my bike. Sure, I said, and then I watched him ride away on it, never to return. The cops found the bike a few weeks later and returned it. What struck me was that the kid had tricked it out, and I pretty much regretted that he didn't get to keep it. He sure seemed to care about it a lot more than I did. We had a german shepherd, a wonderful dog. There were two times my father came to pick me up from school with that dog and a gun, both in 1968. One was during the riots at the democratic national convention, the other was the day Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered. There were a couple of times I was outright robbed on the street by black boys much bigger and older than I was. I think that was the reason my father decided to move the family away from the south side. But damned if he didn't give it every opportunity for us to stay. I played organized baseball for 14 years, t-ball through varsity and babe ruth league and all that. I discovered basketball as a sport to play in the offseason, and became an addict. I played basketball every day. When I had a free hour in school, I was in the gym with a few other guys playing pickup games. When school was out, I jammed a basketball in the tubing of my bike and rode to the playgrounds near DePaul University to play against college guys. I remember a few times breaking or dislocating fingers and having a black medical student jerk them back into place so I could keep playing. When I wanted a change of scenery, I'd ride down to the Mayor Daley's Youth Foundation and Fire Deptartment Gym. This was a huge building, much like an airplane hanger (probably was at some point) with 14 full basketball courts and a boxing ring, and it was right on Navy Pier. When I played there, I was one of the shortest guys there and many times the only white guy there. When it came time to pick teams, they honored me by asking me to play for their team, often the first guy picked when choosing sides. None of them gave me any reason to fear them. The bottom line is that if you give people, who might seem different on the surface, a chance, you might find they're human beings just like you - they put their pants on one leg at a time (or in barfo's case, who knows how he puts on his pants). This is true for white people who don't know black people, or don't know hispanic people, or don't know gay people... My observations are that Maris is right (for once) about it being about racism. The white people fled because of race and fears about people they didn't even know. To make things worse, the city planned based on racism. They built "projects" that were shiney new apartment buildings all packed together on some vacant land. They invited the "poor black people" to move in and subsidized their rent. Then they built freeways around the places to keep the black people in and made it difficult for anyone to create any enterprise there. Then they let the buildings decay to the point where (lead) paint peels off the walls, the elevators don't work so mothers have to carry bags of groceries up 12 flights of stairs, there'd be no heat in the winter, etc. This kind of bullshit is still going on by the govt. there. Black men are targeted for arrest and then taken into back rooms and beaten with rubber hoses and burned on radiators and that sort of thing. How much has the city of Chicago paid out to victims of police torture? The cities also located toxic waste dumps in minority neighborhoods. These socio-economic conditions, as well as numerous others, clearly have a negative effect on family and opportunity for those discriminated against. In the absence of these things, gangs are seen as a valid support mechanism as a sort of replacement. It's unfortunate that the gangs don't ultimately do more to promote legal enterprise, IMO. All this is my roundabout way of getting to ignorance. As I wrote, if you don't give people a chance, you are only contributing to your own ignorance. Ignorance is prevalent in a number of posts in this thread, and some people need to get a grip on reality about these things. HCP is a perfect example that what I say is true. In my book, he's such a good natured and friendly fellow who's succeeded against odds white people never face, and you wouldn't know it if you didn't give yourself the chance to get to know him.
My story is pretty much the same as Denny's, except that I grew up in a small town with no black people and I didn't play any basketball. As for pants, I haven't worn pants in 37 years. I was an organizer of the "Pants-Free in '73" movement. barfo
A few things stuck out in my mind in your story. The 5 year old kid losing his bike, and the rest I agreed with (giving chances, we're not much different than each other, etc)...but the last thing struck me odd. There is no doubt in my mind that there are some people who face things based on their skin hue. No doubt whatsoever. But there are "white" people who have faced similar odds that HCP did (his Polexican self), and there are blacks who never faced those kinds of odds. I'm sure some of us here grew up in NE Portland, or a more "non white" area, who are white, and faced many hardships. Of course, there is (and it'd be hard to convince me otherwise) institutionalized racism in our cities. "White Flight" is not an unknown phenomena in Portland. I believe there was a time when certain groups were avoided in housing markets. I don't remember the exact terminology, but I want to say it was the "red zone" or something, where groups were either herded to certain areas, or not allowed to live/purchase houses in certain areas in Portland. Does that sound familiar to anyone else?
Well written post right there my man. I wish more people were as open minded as you to things that are different in this world. I might have to start liking you now. Nice stuff!
My high school was VERY diverse, and filled with Hmong, Black, and Muslim gangs. Most fights between gangs were between races. Rarely was it "black on black" or "muslim on muslim" crime. If their was a such fight, it wasn't a gang fight, it was just a fight between two dudes (typically over a girl). White people were a minority, but no race had anything against whites at all. I mean their were individual conflicts, but not gang related or as a whole. Other races hated each other. Muslims hated blacks, blacks hated asians. I saw some pretty epic fights involving dozens of people, even the counselor got taken out once so they could keep fighting. We had parents come and get into fights with each other, 10 cop cars at every football game.. it was a fun place to go to school. These gangs of different races didn't sway my opinion of any race at all. I've never once heard that their was a shooting and automatically assume it was any race. Sure I've made jokes, like all of us do. I make fun of HCP for being half mexican, and he rips on me for being a whitey who lives in Fargo. It's all in good fun though. Even the kids who were treated unfairly at my school because they weren't white made jokes. It's wrong to assume or be shocked that any crime or anything at all is done by a certain race. I don't care if you grew up in the worst neighborhood in Baltimore or if you grew up in the rich area's of Connecticut or the farm lands of North Dakota. I can understand why people feel sometimes the way they feel, but that doesn't make it right. I appreciate what bodyman said. I know in the past he has said some stuff that has pissed me off, but he was honest. He said why he thought the way the thought, he said he knew it was wrong, but that its difficult to change how you grew up or how you were raised. At least he fesses up to it and understands that its not right. Eventually one day maybe he will be more comfortable with two lesbians holding hands. I hope so. With that said, no one should assume anything about anyones pasts on here. We aren't just a name and a avatar. I'm not just "dpc", ABM is more then a name, Eric is more then 1353253 names that he has been known as. We are actual people. It's easy to forget that. "THE" is just a online name that a few nerds know him by. To call him out on his life is bull crap because known of us know anything about him, thats exactly why BenDavis kept calling him an "assistant camera man". That's all he knows about him. I see everyday on facebook stuff about "THE". I know that that guy loves his family more then anyone I've ever known, and he is damn proud of where he grew up and came from. To have to impress some jackass on this site because he did time is retarded. No one is impressed that you did time. No one cares. No one thinks you are tougher or more badass then anyone else on this site because you did stupid shit and got caught. No one is impressed that you can tough talk people over the internet and insult them. You look like a huge jackass. You have your opinions because of your experiences and thats totally cool and respectable, but don't assume and/or bash other peoples views just because they didn't live the same life you do. You aren't smarter or tougher or more educated then anyone else here is. No one is on this forum. We are all equal. I'm a student, "THE" works for the Blazers, KS is an actor, Mixum does radio. None of that makes any of us more knowledgeable or better then anyone else, and no one tries to act like they are better then anyone else on here. Jackass Fams
Obviously that's his goal. The more we like him, the more $$ he makes! It's all a scam!!! Don't fall for it, HCP!
