Once a few years ago I was driving a student home from school, he was suspended and didn't have a ride home. The school was Title 1 and almost 100% of the student body was on free or reduced lunch. Basically a school that had a very high concentration of poverty.
The interesting thing about this neighborhood was that it was surrounded by some of our town's fanciest, priciest restaurants, upper end shops, and gourmet grocery stores. So, as we are driving we pass the backside of one of the fancy shopping centers. There is some graffiti spray painted on one of the brick walls. It was not very noticeable and I am sure I took it in as part of the background not really giving it any thought. The student I had in the car points at it and says,
"You see that? With those letters crossed out? That is why that guy was killed at those apartments last week."
He then went on to explain that a local gang had tagged a "threat" to a rival gang and when a tag is "crossed out" it means someone in that gang is going to get killed. Btw, the boy explaining this to me was only ten years old!
This got me thinking. There is like a strata in society, and I don't mean lower, middle and upper class. I feel like we are all occupying the same space, but in layers, strata, that are parallel to each other, rarely intersecting, except by accident or maybe force. I realized that on those same streets where all the nice BMW's and Mercedes are cruising there is also gang warfare, drugs, and crime operating on those exact streets! Just in a different layer, so to speak.
I wondered what else I was missing about everything that happened around there on a day to day basis. People who don't drive, or who use public transportation also experience that neighborhood in a totally different way than even I did.
Had this student not pointed this out to me, I would have never thought twice about it. Now when I drive around any neighborhood, I often look for clues about other "layers" that co-exist with me. I feel like a sociological detective around here.
4 comments:
This is so cool. I'll have to take a closer look to my surroundings.
Very interesting. I always get pts that have 3 dots as tatoos and I immediately link them to a specific gang. They tell me it means "living la vida loca". Other than that I'm clueless so it's cool when you are able to decode and the kids actually share the info with you!
I am clueless about this, but is always good to know!
So interesting. That is so sad that he has grown up so fast. It breaks my heart what we deal with sometimes.
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