well from my perspective and experience, i have seen a few things:
number one, within low income/bad area circles-black, white, and hispanic-you get more respect for being a knucklehead then to be productive. jail earns "keepin it real" points and schoolk earns "ner" points.
case in point? i was pretty smart kid; the y had me in special programs and all that, i was reading before i even got into school i LOVED boooks and read everything i could. i didnt get into trouble i was just a good kid who had a bad environment. well my punk ass older cousins made it their mission to make my life miserable cause they would rather be hellions and cause trouble, one in particular ran with gangs and was a punk most of his life- last i heard he was in prison for a rather long GTA and credit card theft spree. so they would pick on me slap me around, and we'd fight alot. everytime i had my nose in a book, they had their mouths running, which would caus emy mouth to run, which would cause fists and objects to go flying both directions.
I got more to write but not the time so I'll get more in depth later. At the end of the day, this isnt even about money or gangs or the conditions creating them. This is every day life issues, and if you don’t agree with that statement, then just look around. Girls like the bad boy, don’t they? they are attracted to it for some reason. the "cool" "popular" kids in school tend to also be trouble makers. kids love the image; they like the image, otherwise they would not go to so many lengths to emulate it. the "gangsta" image boils down to the "survival of the fittest" theory of darwinism..... (who got his theory from a dude named Enaxemander, dont know how to spell that) people have a need to always be on top, they feel they have to be the best, the strongest, the biggest, the baddest, etc, far and away from any gang lifestyle this mentality still pervades, does it not? this goes far deeper then just the record labels trying to make money, because they are simply giving the people what they want. sorry, the problem AND the solution lie in the hands of the people.
