DarkCloud wrote: DarkCloud,

I make no apologies for my opinion, just as, I suspect, you make no apologies for yours. If that means I'm a "snotty protect our children white folk" so be it....I won't lose sleep!

Walking the streets where I live I see youth from other countries hanging out. I hear them saying what I have mentioned. Not only that, in my son's old school there were immigrant children with similar tales. Or, as you suggest, a 6 year old is making this up?

If you read my posts you would know I wouldn't post something without going by my experiences, and I'm not influenced by media, so I think your comment is uncalled for.

MyThoughts - an extremely valid and to the point post. The values of family have been eroded and replaced by money to the degree even if someone makes it big and gets the money, they don't know what to do with it.

Going back to Kunjufu's remark on the comment made by Prince Charles, which I believe I've been in denial of but in all honesty see many a truth in it...maybe the average mind simply hasn't the ability to resist the fast life - once the brain has been washed then it's a matter of learning life on the 'rocky' road acepting that not every one will make it through.

As far as morals are concerned all I know is without them we are left with one protocol - kill or be killed - it just seems sad that the immorality appears to be the starting point in defining what morality is as opposed to the other way round.

There are some who would argue these punks on the street have their own morals, well Kill or be killed may well be a way of life but it is not a moral code of conduct. When we find ourselves warping the interpretation of morality then it's true sign that the damage has already been done and is now entering the realms of irreversibilty.

On the foreign influence debate, a big turning point was the influx of 'yardie' gangsters where the UK hoods had to follow suit in callousness to compete. Imagine you are a hard core criminal with no recognised UK identity, in the country illegally on a false passport and here to make drug money - you might as well call it a license to kill!

Kunjufu, I hear you. But i am just not buying it. I have a few friends who have moved over from war-torn countries, and this people for the most part have horror stories to tell, not glorified. Vezz comment said, 'most of this stories involve someone from abroad', and since we most of us are farmiliar with the social dynamics in the UK, you would agree with me that the influnces she alluded to are not from kurds or eastern europeans but Africans, so i make my references to the African.

Vezz,

I really dont expect you to make any apologies, neither do I expect you to lose any sleep. I also speak from experience. I would not call your child a liar. But, I can only imagine the tales being told a 6yr old by another 'well versed' 6yr old with enough diction to turn others into killers in the making

Incognito,

On the foreign influnce bit, I would suspect the group you just mentioned have had more influnces on the youths on a larger scale than asylum seekers from wartorn countries who have not being counselled.

Darkcloud - there is a culmination of things which meet at a pinnacle to cause such destruction. The UK has long been seen as a soft touch with regards to the degree of limited resistance criminals face in plying their trade. A rebel from a war torn country or a drug dealing ghettoite will both see the UK as heaven and they come here with their own interpretation of what normal is. When at a teenager you look back at your short life to see you have lost three/four friends in the space of a few years, that too will soon be seen as normal.

For me, socially I don't think much has changed with regards to the adoption of street culture. Todays ipod is yesterdays walkman which is the day before's ghetto blaster. Growing up 'all' the boys wanted the soveriegns, the medallions, the clothes, the crocodile shoes, the women, the cars, to be a mic magician....if you didn't smoke weed you were a minority and black people were populating UK prisons just like they are today....and the biggest players who could tick most of these boxes were the drug/weed dealers....but don't get me wrong...nobody can compare or compete with white people in their own country when it comes to dealing drugs.

So when you see how far back things are coming from, what has changed is the value system especially with regards to long term thinking. It's no different to when you hear people talk about not knowing their history...likewise you need to know the political history of your host nation to know how things have evolved.

My own long term thinking came as a natural consequence of me wanting to be able to plan and provide for the next generation i.e. my family. If we can ask what morals are then likewise we can ask what is family becaause it sure isn't the commonly interpreted thing it was back then.

Over the years, in the UK, we have had a serious break down of the traditional family which for me looking back has a lot to do with the liberalisation of sex in the 60's - but I guess it's normal now. Also I don't feel ashamed to say it but the Margaret Thatcher years of government caused irreversible damage leading to independant and an individual me, me, me lifestyle.

As far as street evolution is concerned, do not understimate the profitability of crack cocaine. I will still say most of the killings have drugs involved in the equation somewhere along the lines...though some of these school age killings seem to reflect a definite change in general attitude towards settling even very minor disputes.

I grew up with friends who became notorious crack dealers..one just got 12 years after years of 'getting away' with it. Rumour has it he only got away for it for so long because he use to use children as couriers. With this kind of cowardly hustling and the power of the 'I want this now' media, why is a youth waiting for Christmas where hopefully his parents might be able to afford a playstation console. When drugs are as normal part of their social environment as school I'm sure some of these young pups running around doing the dirty work for bigger players see these players as more of a dad than their own dads...and that assumes they even have a dad.

So the extremes may have changed but the lack of collective family values is the key component missing in preventing complete self destruction. Socially our peoples consciousness is as diverse as it ever was. For every teenager carrying a knife or a gun there are teenagers saying it is time to put them down.

Yep.

The destruction of our youth is because of one thing and one thing only: the lack of values.....and that is the parents' responsibilty

Parents can only do so much. Peer pressure can really change a child, too...and that's usually out of the control of a parent.

I remember my mother 'banning' me from seeing one of friends, back in the day. Of course I was pissed cos this guy was really cool; he had the latest games on his Super Nintendo! So I rebelled, stayed at my friend's house till late and when I got home, guess what? The Door was locked. I tell you no lie, I slept (if you call it that) on the cold hard floor until 5am when my mum cracked open the door to go to work.

Well that taught me a lesson.

My point is peer pressure is a strong influence, but it can't make you lose respect for your family, especially if this respect has been ingrained in you from an early age.

People have mentioned parents telling them to stay away from certain friends; peer pressure is indeed a MOFO but what if that friend of bad influence is another family member like a brother, an uncle or a first cousin and there's a divide in family between the parents?

R.I.P

Happiness wrote: "The destruction of our youth is because of one thing and one thing only: the lack of values.....and that is the parents' responsibilty"

I agree.


Vess.....Blaming others is the easy road as other have mentioined and your point is well-taken about the horrors that these children have went through, but that's not the only answer to why these kids are acting in such. This does not hold in other areas of the world, this is not taking place in the US. I can tell you that's not the case here MN nor in Seattle where you have large new communities from Bosnia, Liberia, Somalia, Iraq, and other hot spots.

Pele - indeed there is room to suggest that youths from war torn countries come here for a better life only to get sucked up in to all the hype and madness just like 'any' other vulnerable or impressionable kid.