Antidote for Gangs: Emotional Connections
The future of society depends on our children's achievement today. But some children do not get the opportunities they need in order to achieve success. The film Boyz in the Hood is filled with disturbing images of children growing up in the inner city surrounded by rubble and filth, dysfunctional families, drug addiction, violence and chaos. It's not difficult to see that children who don't feel safe don't make good students. Hearing about the Pilgrims, for example, doesn't have much meaning when you've just seen a dead body and blood flowing in the street, when ordinary conversation is about guns and violent events, and children with crack-addicted mothers raise themselves as best they can. This kind of disorderly environment is not conducive to good citizenship, good health, or emotional balance. Typically, society responds to the problems of youth by constructing some sort of program to meet the individual problem (such as teen pregnancy or gang involvement). Tipps (2006) describes it: "We tend to believe that every possible transgression is best remedied with a program that focuses on the potential pathology" (p. 2
A black man ain't got no place there. He tells Tre, "You're my only son and I'm not gonna lose you to no bullshit. Even when he saw his best friend murdered and desperately wanted to take revenge, he was able to back away because he had been taught well by active, involved parents who valued him and taught him to value himself. Both Ricky and Darrin are dead at the end of the film, victims of gang style murders. They need adults to believe in their potential and not treat them as though their problems were all that is important about them. " He is an active, involved parent and capable of being emotionally supportive, too. In the film Tre was able to resist involvement with a gang because he had two parents who loved him and wanted him. " And he advised his son from his own experience as when he told him, "Don't ever go in the Army, Tre. He taught his son values such as, "Any fool with a dick can make a baby, but only a man can raise his kids. But now, children without emotional bonds to anyone look for "artificial belongings" in gang membership. The result is an epidemic of emotional disorders.
Common topics in this essay:
Hearing Pilgrims,
Karl Menninger,
Ricky Darrin,
Ricky's Darrin,
Boyz Hood,
Army Tre,
,
Edward Hallowell,
Tre You're,
Baker Tre's,
gang membership,
tre's father,
active involved,
brendtro 2005,
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Acceptance Essays
