Pro-life video of the day: Chicago gangs’ “death-culture mindset”
by LauraLoo
Iconic journalist Walter Jacobson recently sat down with Chicago gangbangers to understand their mindset of having no conscience when it comes to hurting or killing innocent members of society. Their honest (and morally bankrupt answers) are tragic.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hksQIDg3c10[/youtube]
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[HT: 89 WLS Chicago]



How ironic. They’re trying to “survive”…by making sure someone else DOESN’T?
One said “We didn’t grow up in Beverly Hills. We didn’t get stuff handed to us”.
REALITY CHECK: The majority of Americans didn’t grow up in Beverly Hills. Is that really what he thinks? That everybody but THEM grew up RICH?
People get jobs to survive. I know jobs are hard to come by in that area, but they should get whatever jobs they can, or GET AN EDUCATION. There’s trade school if not college. I’ve worked as a janitor, day-care provider, and a dish-washer to “survive”.
I didn’t KILL anyone to take what THEY EARNED. No, these gang members don’t get stuff handed to them, they’re perfectly ok with taking things out of someone else’s hands, though.
If you’re “in the way” of getting what they want, they eliminate the “obstacle”…YOU.
This is just a SAD, SCARY, and HOPELESS way to live.
great response,
but it does not provide an answer to: What needs to change?. Answer: perspective/attitude
Maybe we need to see all life as a privilege. Everyone is convinced that a human has to be …….. (fill in the blank) born?; with rights?; rich?; successful?; comfortable?; wanted? beautiful?; funny? … etc. Try being poor AND privileged. To have Down’s Syndrome is being privileged, well isn’t it?
oops, maybe I’ve stepped in some do-do? Oh, oh: to continue: Is someone called a troll not a privilege to you? are DemocRats also a privilege? Is someone ‘smart’ privileged, but a dummie is …… well, you know!
Hearts need to change, attitudes need to change, John. But when you live in poverty, with no hope…how do you make that happen?
I didn’t answer the question, because I don’t KNOW the answer.
The elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about. FATHERLESSNESS, PREMARITAL SEX, OUT OF WEDLOCK BIRTHS, COHABITATION, DIVORCE, EXTRA-MARITAL AFFAIRS, POVERTY AND RAMPANT STDs are all symptoms of sinful, immoral, undisciplined lifestyles. Read Star Parker’s “Pimps, Whores and Welfare Brats”, “Uncle Sam’s Plantation” and “White Ghetto”. She gives her testimony of her conversion from a self described “welfare queen”. She warns in “White Ghetto” that the same inner city decay is taking over white suburbia and “coming to a place near you”. We now have a over 41% out of wedlock birth rate in this nation (over 70% out of wedlock birth rate in the A. A community) and it’s climbing especially among our 20 and 30 somethings. Read excellent books by Glenn T. Stanton “The Ring Makes All The Difference” and “Why Marriage Matters”. Children in intact, stable marriages with their own biological mother and father (who don’t shack up first) are usually happier, physically and mentally healthier, safer, live longer, less chronic disease, less physical, emotional, verbal and sexual abuse, less accidents, less violent deaths, less incarceration, less depression and suicides and their parents benefit in exactly the same way. Not PC but the truth. No other configuration of man-made so-called ”families” have these benefits for men, women and most importantly CHILDREN.
They said they didn’t grow up in Beverly Hills and didn’t get what they need handed to them. The real problem here is they didn’t get the chance to earn what they need handed to them.
Nothing succeeds like success, and nothing fails like failure. The only way to stop this scurge is to give these kids jobs and keep them too busy earning their way in the world to have time for gang banging.
I would also recommend that anyone seeking to understand day-to-day life in a culture of poverty read Random Family by Adrian LeBlanc.
hi Pamela,
ANY and ALL put-downs are ‘learned’ … most-often when only weeks old ….. long before school. A basic-change like this one …. ie. “I AM NOT A TARGET. I AM A CREATED PRIVILEGE!” comes from a decades-old walk in our Abba’s garden in Jesus (my Teacher)!
I saw a bunch of adults who were able to communicate, establish in-depth organizations, have ambitions, have mentoring programs… but instead of enriching the lives of others, everyone else is an instrument to their desires. Much like abortion, but more so an illustration of how simply throwing free stuff at people never teaches them the value of recognizing value in others, and how when you lose basic moral values, no solution presents itself other than the tried and true of both inculcating life-affirming values in people or protecting the rest of society from them. They hate the cops because they think they are mad that they can’t catch them, they don’t even care to look at how they perpetuate the same misery they all claim they want to escape.
What I meant to say is, I don’t know the answer to “How do you make someone ‘man up’ and take some personal responsibility?” These boys (for the most part) have no male role models in their lives, and their mothers don’t seem to mind being “baby mamas” instead of WIVES.
Morals begin at home, and too many parents don’t bother to model them, because they weren’t taught morals themselves.
It’s a vicious cycle.
Interestingly, a lot of men interviewed for books, articles, or studies that I’ve read on this subject “come around” after taking courses and doing workshops once they’re in prison. These men are typically in on drug or manslaughter charges – ie, they will get out some day, and even doing basic drug addiction workshops or classes – to say nothing of actual emotion-based therapeutic exercises – can make them regret their past actions and long for a chance to do things “right.”
I would be very interested in using government funding for a concerted effort at imparting those lessons YOUNG rather than spending the money to teach it in prison after the fact. Because the reality is, we’re going to be spending that money regardless, either to teach these men or to confine them.
The reality is, poverty is not just being poor. Poverty is a culture, with rules created specifically to function in a broken society, and these rules in turn MAINTAIN the brokenness of that society. Money will not solve poverty. Resources – WIC, medical clinics, etc – will help care for people living in poverty, but only education can solve poverty. Not academic education but emotional, cultural education. It’s a real shame that the best access so many of these young men and women have to that kind of education will occur within the walls of a prison.
Pamela, you are correct but we have only touched the surface of the Pandora’s box we have opened by the “baby momma” and baby daddy” culture that we have embraced in this country, and this problem is just not a “black urban” phenomemon anymore, it is going viral in white and Hispanic America. Even young people raised “in church” have been influenced by this mindset. There have always been some unwed pregnancies inside the church but not usually church kids “shacking up” before marriage and choosing to have babies before even getting married. Ask some of the counselors at local CPCs how many abortion minded ‘church going” young adults they see who decide they would rather abort their unborn babies that carry the baby to term and give the child to a loving adoptive family (even if offered an open adoption). “They say things like” I know God will forgive me for aborting this baby but I don’t want my family or church to find out that I was pregnant.” It is more important to save face than to save their baby’s life.
Great points Alexandra.
Honestly, catch them young as possible. If you don’t learn empathy for others and guilt for wrongdoing young it is pretty hard to learn as an adult. I didn’t feel even remotely sorry for any terrible thing I did as a teenager until I went through rehab. I don’t think people understand, stuff like responsibility, caring for others, etc… If they aren’t taught to you when they should be, they are as esoteric and difficult to learn as advanced calculus, if not more.
YES, Jack – it’s a different topic, sort of, but just today I was explaining to someone that some skills MUST be learned young or they are unlikely to get learned at all. It was re: PBS kids’ shows (of course – eyeroll) and the person was like “that’s why we pay for public schooling, kids will learn about colors eventually” but when it comes to basic linguistic and emotional development you really NEED to get in there at the right developmental stage or you basically spend decades of resources (even via rehab and prison) playing catch-up.
There was a great quote in the documentary Mad Hot Ballroom, I believe, about this. The documentary centers on the ballroom dancing classes/competition that the NYC public school system holds for fifth-graders. One of the principals of the lower-income, disadvantaged schools says something to the effect of, this is your last chance to get these kids, this is when they are still young enough and open enough that you can really change their lives. It seems stupid – a few weeks of ballroom dancing lessons? – but you’re teaching kids to understand and express their emotions in some way, you’re teaching them to follow rules, you’re teaching them good partnership and sportsmanship. Even a year later, some of those kids will be in gangs.
You need to reach them young and show them not just how to dream but how to work. Because contrary to what people believe, drug dealing is work – and they will learn how to do it. Stealing is work. Life is work. These kids know that – they probably learn it earlier than most do. They are willing to work. They just get hired at age 12 by the local dealer, because no one else is putting food on their table. You need to show them that “good” work, legitimate work, will actually WORK.
As long as you middle class folks simply see this as poverty, where a little money and education is the answer, and vote for us to provide that, we liberal elites will stay in power for a long time. We are very happy to have such an obvious victim class that is behaving just like we want. They bought the us-versus-them just like we sold it to them. And when you bring up the elephant in the living room, the lack of family, discipline, and morals, we will laugh at you, make fun of you, and label you the bad guy in all of this for being such a backward uneducated ‘family values’ stingey racist Bible thumper.
And we will laugh all the way to the bank! And get re-elected! HA HA HA HA!!!
The Last Democrat, you have it exactly right. It is like putting a band-aid on a cancer to think throwing more money, education and social programs at the real problem is going to reverse this mess. Thanks for getting the real point.