Violence

The news can be depressing 100% of the time, that’s why I flip from it at 5pm. The same old sad story about the economic recession, AGI and Chris Brown’s brutal beating to Rihanna. It’s not like I don’t care. I care about what goes on in the world, but what are we as humans doing to change these things beside gossip about them. All of this same coverage is all over Facebook. Usually when I log on, I click the x button at the top of these news feeders and bye-bye they are gone. However when I logged on this morning, something caught my eye. There was a group called: R.I.P Greg Robinson. I looked over at the picture of Greg Robinson in his blue cap and gown. He looked like he was at least 13 years old. My curiosity immediately began to devour me. I clicked on the link to his group and read his story. Greg Robinson was a freshman at Simeon Career Academy (my high school). He was riding home in the car with his cousins Brittany Orange and Brandon Orange from a basketball game at Simeon during the timeframe of 10pm to 11pm. Brittany’s ten month old son Antonio Porterfield and her four year old goddaughter Sinyiia Bennett were also in the car. On their way home from the basketball game, they were ambushed by bullets fired off at the Chevy Malibu. Brandon was protecting his sister Brittany. Greg was protecting Antonio and Sinyiia. Brandon turned around to the backseat to see his cousin Greg unconscious. It was later determined that Greg was shot in the back and was pronounced dead at 11:35pm that evening. Later on his cousin, Brandon Orange said “I didn’t think it was real. Not Greg. He never said or did anything to anybody.” No one else was deemed hurt in the vehicle. Brandon protected Brittany. Greg protected the children. But my God, who was protecting Greg' When that bullet ripped into his flesh, who was protecting him' The media deems him as a hero and I wouldn’t call it any other way. The unselfishness of this courageous boy brought tears to my eyes and it brings them now as I type. He was fourteen years old and he didn’t deserve it! His loved ones describe his character as “playful” and “goofy”. He came from a loving family and it’s quite obvious in his final actions. He was athletic, smart and popular. How does a boy like him end up dying his first year of high school' How does a car of cousins and children end up being ensnared by 30 bullets' Who the hell would be firing at a car with a 10 month old and 4 year old in it' I sure as hell want to know. One thing I know from certain is that gun violence was a key component in his untimely demise. Where does the gun violence come from' Is it the gun totting Confederates determined to cleanse the earth of “niggers” or is it from the gangs trying to get rep while rocking rap music' It will never be justified in my eyesight! It doesn’t matter what race the person holding the gun is! All that matters it that gun violence is getting out of control. Along with little Greg Robinson are more stories of other teenagers dying of bullets from assault rifles. He is the 28th Chicago Public School student to die of gun violence! The trajectories of these bullets are taking the life of our youth. Violence among youth is being glorified making them insensitive. It seems as though shooting someone is a contest similar to getting the prettiest girl in high school. Instead of crying after blowing someone’s brains out, the perpetrators’ are bragging about it to anyone that will listen. You are suddenly cool if you load a box of bullets into someone. The way the media glorifies violence just helps youth become insensitive. Just to test my theory, I typed in violence and found millions of hits on it. People watching fights and commenting derogative remarks such as “That bitch got her ass whooped and you should sliced her face up.”(That was the nicest comment on there!)I’m still wondering how pictures of Rihanna’s battered face ended up all over the web. When asked what a teenager thought of Chris Brown attacking Rihanna, he said “If a bitch burned me, I would’ve done worst.” I don’t think it can get any worse than what Chris Brown did, but if we hear a story about a guy killing his girl over an STD, then we know I was wrong. Gang Violence is another contributing factor to this rise of violence. When I say gang violence, I don’t just mean guys in blue and black crip-walking. I mean people daring persons and egging these persons on to commit a malicious act. Hazing in my eye-site is considered gang violence to an extreme extent. You have a party of people telling another person “If you want to join our clique, then you have to do this.” Anytime I can tell a person to shoot random women that are shopping to join my clique and they do it, I have participated in gang violence. 100% of huge cities with more than 250, 000 population reported gang violence. On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Keblod walked into Columbine High School and shot their peers. They belonged to the trench coat mafia. There were also two gang members that shot and killed a Simeon High School student two years prior to Greg. So why did I chose this story' I wanted to tell Greg’s story. I wanted to tell a story that would prevent this from happening to another youth. When I read the story on Facebook, my eyes watered with tears as I read the story of 14 year old boy‘s story that was ended at the hands of a gun violence and gang violence added together. -------------------------------------------- [ 2 ]. http://www.violencepreventioninstitute.org/gangs.html