There is a need, now more than ever, for a movement to reign in youth violence now that we have a socio-political infrastructure that should be on board with providing alternative economic opportunities outside of street activities. The types of street which offer no future benefit to youths, the community at large, or society in general. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/us/july-dec09/violence_10-09.html
However, we did not get to this point over night, and there is nothing new about youth violence. Unfortunately this phenomenon is intergenerational and goes beyond race, and to a limited degree, class. If there was an easy way to explain this phenomena the problem would have been solved long ago.
While it may be impossible to eradicate these occurrences, coordinated efforts can be waged to greatly reduce them and thus, perhaps set our youth on a more positive and productive path. Because of the history of youth violence in this society, the United States of America, in particular, we do have a wealth of cases to study, in order to create necessary solutions. This country has a history of events which we can even begin to trace to back to just the last century.
One hundred years ago in cities like New York and Chicago, for example, urban poverty among immigrant groups like central European Jews, Germans, the Dutch, the Irish, and Italians turned cities into battle grounds which claimed many lives, mostly the young. These groups fought over control of underground economies for each of their intra-socio ethnic economic survivals.
The bottom line for this construct of violence has always been about acquiring sums of money. The greatest tool that gangs have always used to obtain dollars has been, and still is, guns. Guns have always evolved in terms of their potency. The advent of the Tommy gun gave gangsters a tool to not only wipe out their enemies, but to keep the out gunned police bay. The fear of this weapon allowed gangsters to frighten citizens into turning money over to the thugs, which has been well chronicled in films like Angels with Dirty Faces, and The Roaring Twenties.
The lifestyle of the gangsters of that early 20th century period was fostered and facilitated by agencies like the print media. The sexy articles written about those thugs glorified the gangster their criminal lifestyles thereby hampering law enforcement attempts to gain the upper hand in maintaining “law and order.” Hollywood played its role in presenting the argument that the gangster was a product of a society which kept the majority of its citizens so poor that crime was the only way up and out of poverty.
In New York the city colleges provided free education (mostly to just white immigrants http://www.pbs.org/arguing/reviews_amspec.html).
The benefit of this in some way helped perpetuate the crime problem. Educated college graduates would then often start businesses with money loaned to them by gangsters. This would include law firms. Many lawyers would then go on to become politicians who were easily corrupted by the manner in which their careers began. Many police officers were corrupted by the family and ethnic ties many cops shared with gangsters.
During the early 20th century the typical gangster was of European decent. However in the African American communities of Harlem, for example, gangsterism was also taking root. The Marcus Garvey saw a great deal of immigration to Harlem of folks coming in from not only Jamaica, but Haiti, Trinidad, and Cuba. Some within these groups started the greatest racket known to the streets, The Numbers game.
Phyllis R. Klotman illustrates the media role in influencing the role of the gangster in black society in her book, African Americans in Cinema. http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/uip0252028929.html
What the black gangster did not have on their side was a partner in crime at the authority level, as the white counterparts had had. Thus control of the numbers rackets was wrestled away and taken over by various white gangster outfits. With this came an escalation of violence that began to bring us to the crisis stages which peaked in the 1980’s.
While white gangsters were steering their children towards productive lives by using their ill-gotten to put their families through higher education, black gangsters have not been able to stem the tide of reducing the criminal activities within their communities with equal success. Italian, Jewish, and Irish gangsters were able to corrupt legitimate industries by creating pipelines for members of their communities to become gainfully employed in various legitimate industries.
The fire department, police department, sanitation, construction, and the board of education are a few examples of how nepotism was a tool in hiring discrimination which left many young blacks with little hope of legitimate job opportunities. Many laws, during the 20th century, were constructed to ensure economic failures and disadvantages for ambitious black youths.
These unfortunate circumstances were in conjunction with the rise in drug addiction which plagued the entire nation. While the demand for narcotics crosses all social strata, the competition for acquiring the profits associated with the drug trade attracted the most vulnerable members of society, the poor. Poor blacks and whites have been fueling this economic engine for far too long. The growth of poor Hispanic immigrants gave poor blacks a partner in crime that they lacked with the white gangsters who previously controlled the drug trade.
States took over the numbers rackets, thus drugs became the new underground trade. Many Hispanic immigrants came from countries like Honduras and Columbia where products like cocaine had a cheap sales price which translated to lucrative street opportunities. Shows like American Gangster on Centric TV illustrate this in fuller detail.
While community activist like Hakeem Akbar and Rev. Al Sharpton have pointed out how effective the Million Man March in Washington D.C. played vital role in stemming the violence in black communities, they, and other activists understand that the problem of youth violence is still too high. http://photo2.si.edu/mmm/mmm.html
Economics play a role in the problem since the unemployment problems in the black community are vastly higher than in white communities. However it remains to be seen if the advent of an African American president, Barack Obama, will be a positive enough influence for young African Americans. Pres. Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize could inspire youth to see a value in peace. Of course Pres. Obama is presiding over two wars, but I digress.
Ultimately, not only do young people have to want to have a will to avoid violence, but successful adults have to help provide them with opportunities to have meaningful lives as an alternative to the types of lifestyles which have been fueling their rage up until now. The experiences of the 20th century must provide lessons for the social scientists of the 21st century to enable society to reverse the calamity of youth violence in the years going forward.
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