This was originally written on:
Sunday, August 26, 2007


I want to tell you a story that was relayed to me last week.  This is a story of a something that happened to the daughter of a woman I work with.  The mother is a Black woman in her forties who has worked hard all her life for any little thing she has.  Despite this she still thinks that I am being corrupted because I listen to Public Enemy and the words of Malcolm X.  She also thinks Nelly is the best thing ever… and I am not sure what to say about that in itself.  Her daughter is 15 or 16, not sure about her grades in school but I do know that she is on the high school volley ball team.  

Now on to the story; her mother gave her a few hundred dollars to buy some school clothes before the new school year started.  While at the mall she either ran into some friends or happened to be talking to some people she knew when the whole group was arrested.  Shoplifting was the charge.  Now everything she had in her bags, she also had receipts for those items.  So she was charged with conspiracy in assisting the others that were shoplifting.  

This creates a number of problems.  First off was not conspiracy laws made to bring down organized crime syndicates that could not be caught through direct actions?  Why is conspiracy laws needed against a teenage girl who is shopping for clothes to start off the new school year?  Now I have got this story from her mother.  I have not had the chance to talk to her and her mother blames her for the problem.  Why is she responsible for the actions of people who are her friend or who she runs into?  Who is to honestly know if she knew these people were shoplifting?  Was she even with them in the store in question that was being shoplifted?  Or was she snagged later just because she was also Black and talking to them!  How much do you want to bet if this was a group of White teens that the only ones who would have been charged would have been those with stolen goods on their person.

Is this a racist issue?  In part, however it is more of a class issue.  If it is racist, it is because Blacks have a disproportionate number of lower class people due to the environment they are raised in.  Some is racism, but mostly it is just money.  The real problem is why have the powers that be switched from concepts of civic responsibility to punishing people who do not inform on the people they know are up to no good?  In NYC they have a massive program that works off the call in tip program.  You can get five thousand dollars if your tip helps to convict someone who shoots a cop.  We also see efforts to promise anonymity and monetary reward to people that will inform on criminals.  Why are these efforts being done?  To divide and conquer the poor?  In part, however fifty years ago and more that was not needed.  So there must be more to the story.

People no longer see that they have any civic responsibility.  Sometimes they do not talk to their neighbors anymore, in the case of suburbia.  However in the inner cities many neighborhoods are very close.  It is just that they see the government as just as evil as criminals that do their own people no good.  The line is not blurred between right and wrong, it is nonexistent!  So the powers that be have tried bribery with only limited success.  In frustration they have attempted to make it a crime to not inform on people during a criminal act.  This also has had limited success.  Despite the fact that this girl’s mother blames her for getting into trouble and the situation has called untold amounts of drama for her to deal with at home.  Is this going to help make her a good citizen?  Or will it just foster more mistrust between her and the system that oppresses all of us?

I said that even this has not worked.  This is why all over the place you see cameras going up.  Go to google, you can tap into traffic cameras in various parts of the country.  How far is that from the 1984 world Orwell saw of the two way televisions?  How long would it be before they would want to attach a weapon to these many cameras, just so they can be used to fire at someone that is up to no good?  When the government and the system serve and protect the smallest minority with wealth and power, why do the majority protect them when it is NOT in their best interest?  

Just a few random thoughts I had when I found out about a teenage girl being picked on by the pigs and the sad fact that her mother blamed her for the problems, forgetting what it is like to be a Black teen in america.


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