Someone Tell Me How This Makes Sense?

This has nothing to do with my being an Atlanta Falcons fan or the owner of a Michael Vick jersey and everything to do with how mangled the justice system of the United States of America - and the ridiculous acceptance levels of the general public - have become.

On the left, of course, is Michael Vick, the former NFL superstar who was recently released from United States Penitentiary- Leavenworth after serving 18 months for operating a dog fighting ring on his property in Virginia.

On the right is Donte Stallworth, a wide receiver with the Cleveland Browns. Just a few days ago, Stallworth was sentenced to 30 days in jail, 8 years probation and 2 years of house arrest for DUI Manslaughter in the death of Mario Reyes.

Let me give you those numbers again: Vick served 18 months in the prison that one held "Machine Gun" Kelly and is the current home of King Tone, the leader of the Latin Kings gang, while Stallworth will serve 30 days in a South Beach jail.

How is this right?


Now, Stallworth took ownership of the situation right away, while Vick denied everything until he was cornered and that counts for something. But could it really count for that much?

Yes, what Michael Vick did was a heinous act of cruelty and certainly deserved to be punished. That being said - and as much as Cool Hand Luke is one of my best friends in the entire world - he killed dogs. Dogs, not people.

Stallworth, on the other hand, struck a pedestrian between the hours of 7:00 and 8:00 AM with a blood alcohol level of 0.12. While admitting to officers that you had been drinking the night before and being cooperative should count for something, if you blow 0.12 in the morning, you were either drinking fairly recently or were still pretty damn drunk when you decided to cruise down a busy street.

Again, allow me to repeat: Stallworth was drunk behind the wheel sometime before 8:00 AM and hit another human being with his car.

I don't care that the deceased was running outside of the crosswalk; he was trying to catch a bus after a long night at work. The fact that Stallworth flicked his lights only goes to show me that he knew the situation could potentially be dangerous.

What makes all this worse, in my eyes, is how quick some members of the media and society in general have been willing to accept the punishment handed out to Donte Stallworth. Many of these same people were aghast when the revelations about Michael Vick's dogfighting ring came to light, yet news of Stallworth's 30 day sentence and sundry other penalties has been met with a feeling of "that's fair" and "if everyone agreed to it, it's okay by me."

Neither action - Vick's dogfighting or Stallworth's DUI - are acceptable, but let me be brutally honest: how do we place stiffer punishments on a man who was responsible for the murder of a family pet greater than a man who killed a father and husband?

Have we become so desensitized to the murder - and make no mistake, that is true crime committed by Stallworth, regardless of what the charges laid against him read - that we offer up no resistance when a human life is exchanged for 30 days in a county jail, yet seek the harshest penalties imaginable when animals are hurt and killed?

Donte Stallworth knew he was intoxicated when he got behind the wheel of his Bentley and took another man's life. If you or I were in the same position, we would be facing an extended stay in prison.

There is absolutely nothing anyone can tell me - factual or stipulated - that will make this right for me.

Sadly, this is the world we live in; a world where the life of a dog is placed at a higher value than that of a father and husband.

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The Anger Has Subsided, But The Sadness Remains

This is a follow-up to my earlier post "I'm Sick of These Little Wannabe Thug Bastards"

A couple days have passed since I came home and pounded on the keys to release the frustration I was feeling about the plight of a segment of today's youth. The rage has gone, but now, a honest and genuine sadness lingers.

I've gotten a couple comments on the piece courtesy of my fellow Bugs Patrick Smith and David Chalk and I feel the need to maybe elaborate a little further on the actual core of this issue that troubles me, since their comments lead me to believe that I am being somewhat misunderstood.

This is not a case of me nearing 30 and falling out of touch with Pop Culture. For starters, I still look like I'm 25, 21 when I shave the sad excuse of a beard that I grow over a two week period of not shaving. More importantly, there are aspects of Pop Culture that I am still insanely fond of and ridiculously in touch with. These are not the ramblings of a guy who doesn't understand why kids these days don't know Grand Funk Railroad...

Here is my problem, hopefully, more eloquently than before:

There doesn't seem to be the prevelance of people - parents, family & friends, educators, the artists and media themselves - that make sure that the people who are taking in all the media that is available these days are getting the right message. By no means do I think that Biggie, Scarface and Pulp Fiction should be collected and burned in the center of the town. What I do think is that someone needs to be on the other end, explaining the negative consequences of the actions and lifestyles displayed and discussed in these works.

I have to disagree with Patrick Smith, in that I don't see the people putting out today's bullshit hip hop getting marginalized. They are cashing in. Artists drop one hot song and style like they've been doin' this for years. Then they disappear of the face of the Earth but the message that you can get rich quick by (fill in generic pre-hip hop career) is all that is left for the unintelligent masses.

In his comment, David Chalk expanded on what 2Pac's THUG LIFE tattoo across his abdomen stood for: The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everyone. While the message is noble, it is also one that is not readily available to those who do not seek out the meaning and instead is construed as and plead of allegence to the streets and advocacy of the hustler lifestyle, and therein lies the problem.

While I strongly agree with Chalk that it is more about opening minds, I also think what "na" says is accurate as well - some form of censoring isn't a bad thing. He and I sound like we came from similar upbringings and I'd like to think I turned out alright. Hip Hop still permiated my soul, but I also was conscious enough and educated enough to see the shiny beats and empty lyrics as that while taking in message laden albums like Things Fall Apart.

A friend of mine back home is a teacher and has expressed similar sentiments to me. She did it on Facebook of course because adding to the discussions here appears to be a totally foreign concept for some. Anyway, she sees the numbers growing within her school and her classrooms and agrees that it is a troubling trend.

There is far more media for these kids to take in today and the weight of the content has ramped up exponentially over the last ten years:

• 2 Live Crew was censored for singing Me So Horny, but now we have 4000 G-Unit songs about selling drugs and violent crime. Sure artists and labels are forced to put out Radio Friendly versions sans cussing, but the message that is relayed is far worse than hearing someone say fuck.


• I used to shoot little cartoonish bad guys or an attacking alien race on my Atari. Go grab Manhunt 2 for your system of choice and try to tell me their isn't anything disturbing about the violence and imagery in that game


• And don't get me started on the bullshit ideals and ideas that shows like The Hills and Laguana Beach and the tabloid rags spread to young girls.

I'm not saying that we need to revert back to the days of Little House on the Prairie and Road to Avonlea, but since everything else is being excelerated, so too should the education that we're providing for these kids about what they are seeing, hearing, watching and doing. And that education doesn't come only from a classroom.

You know what else could really help? Sitting all these kids down to watch the Dave Chappelle sketch of "When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong"...

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I'm Sick of These Little Wannabe Thug Bastards!

Someone needs to grab all these little punks by the back of the neck, take them to a maximum security facility and let them talk with the people who have actually committed all the serious, hardcore crimes they idolize and watch them piss their pants!

Maybe then they will realize that the life they're leading right now, is one that ends in jail, dead or as a dredge of civilization.

This venom towards a segment of today's youth comes from two incidents today while I was at work. The first was the little bastard decked in a New Era Cardinals cap - cocked sideways of course - and PNB Nation hoodie that took off like a bat outta hell after stealing a couple movies. The second was the the tilted brim, neck tattoo sporting douchebag who came to the counter and asked "D'you got Menace II Society, yo?" and then was all pumped to go home and watch O-Dogg bust some caps with no idea what the actual message of a film as powerful as Menace truly is. Same goes for Boyz in the Hood...

Seriously, how the fuck did we let our children turn out like this? What the fuck happened?

I'll tell you what happened...

50 Cent happened. Grand Theft Auto happened. Glorification and desensitization of violence, drugs and sex has rotted away the brains of a segment of today's youth and it's goddamn scary. They idolize hip hop artists who glorify "money, cash, hoes" as Jay-Z once rhymed. They think Al Pacino's Scarface is a suitable idol, despite his demise at the end of the film. They think stealing and hustling and being little stick-up kids is a viable occupation, totally oblivious to the damage they do to society, themselves and the people around them. And it sounds corny as hell, but if they're stealing a movie today, next week it's a car and on and on and on until they wind up either dead or in jail. Then it becomes "such a sin what happened to little Johnny..."

Bullshit. The sin is letting it get to this stage in the first place.

Now listen: I'm not going to be another in the long list of people to blame hip hop for all of society's ills. That's too easy and not fair to the incredible artists who have nothing do with this problem - Common, The Roots, Dead Prez and Talib Kweli didn't have nothing to do with this right here...

First and foremost, this is a family issue. Someone along the way that was supposed to steer these kids in the right direction dropped the ball, for whatever reason. Educators too. But after that, a big portion of the blame falls on mass media, some of it's stars and the people that power the machine.

D'you know how hard 50 Cent is now? He's so gully that he lives in Connecticut! That's gangsta!

It's a goddamn shame, but living the Thug Life didn't work out so well for Biggie & Tupac did it?

And all the record executives that want to harp on about freedom of speech can kiss my ass. I'm not saying these bullshit artists poppin' off at the mouth about slinging drugs and bangin' bitches can't say whatever the fuck they please, but that doesn't mean record labels have to put that shit out. No publisher would put out a book of racist poetry would they? Or an instruction manual on how to build bombs? They couldn't do that and then claim freedom of speech without facing the wrath of thousands, so why is this any different?

Unfortunately, the almighty dollar reigns supreme and because such a growing portion of the youth market is drawn to this bullshit - all of it, the music, the image, the bullshit posturing - the cycle just keeps on churning and more and more crap flows into the world. And it's not just music either.

How does a parent let their 7 year old kid play a game like Grand Theft Auto? My old man - for all his shortcomings - would have beat my ass if he caught me playing a game where I could score some drugs, bang hookers in my stolen car and gained points for killing people. When did running around as a little Italian plumber stop being enough?

My solution? I'm taking action - positive action - and getting involved. I'm going to become a Big Brother and perhaps down the road, you know, once this writing thing takes off, do some speaking about topics just like this. If I can help one kid, then I have made a difference. If each of us helps one kid, think of the difference that would make...

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