My Attitude Regarding Gangs Growing Up

[LionTheOracle]

It's funny thinking back as a young teenager I always adored the beauty of Los Angeles. Everyday I explored a little more and appreciated the beauty offered by each community. I would venture into the Hoovers, UG's and other gangs indiscriminate to those hoods. Why? Because there was something beautiful about each gang. Remember being hanging out near Vermont and Century along Vermont there were a lot of old black men playing checkers, talking about drinking. It was amazing to just observe my people like that while they ignored us mostly. I never avoided any apartment buildings because I was afraid and in fact looked for more areas to meet new friends. I had an innocent heart and looked for the good everywhere and felt that any bad had to make way for me because I was here to enjoy God's creation. As I got older and joined Washington High's student roll call things became a little more obvious. These kids wanted blood. But even still, it took a long time for me to really "get it". I looked at gangbanging as more of a friendly rivalry. When a gang was a dissed I thought we could just laugh it off and at worse do a little shoving but nothing really hit me as deadly. As I started losing friends to random gang violence I knew the criminal element was real but I honestly simply didn't get it. I loved to do a little fighting but you couldn't convince me a black male growing up in a conscious household to kill a black man over a color, and I couldn't believe anyone else would think that way. To telly you the truth I was never able to adopt this mindset because it simply could not occur to me why I would want to kill a man over direct rivalry or a color. Well I'm older now and it seems that change begin to adopt to a lot of generations right behind my own. I did a lot of unnecessary fighting and proving myself simply because my size, but I never would consider a man an enemy simply because of where he grow up because I can tell you all these black owned neighborhoods were gorgeous to me.