Violence: Teenage Violence Within The Black Community

Teenage Violence Within The Black Community

We live in a world where African Americans are killing each other because of the violence within our community. Some types of such violence is rape, domestic abuse, self-hatred, and often gang related. There once was an old saying “It takes a village to raise a child.” Times have changed and in the world we live in today, people are afraid to speak up to other’s children because it may start an altercation. Not only could the parent become offended but in this generation, the child would also try to speak on their behalf.
Violence has become widespread and very much uncontrollable in most communities and I believe its because people have become selfish and careless. The fact that most crimes…show more content…
With all of the name brand shoes, clothes, and jewelry this world has to offer, its often hard not to want everything that is seen. Teens are killing each other over things as simple as shoes. Not realizing that lives can not be replaced like the materialistic things can but because violence is often publicized for fun, teens often forget that its wrong. Fights are often started and recorded just to be posted on youtube. Teens are on the news for gang related street brawls and taking guns to school because they are being harassed but when they do positive things, it doesn’t get as much recognition. A troubled teen only wants the attention they are not receiving at home. So if being negative and doing negative thing gets attention, that’s what they are going to do. The question, “how can we help prevent the crime rate within our neighborhood?” is often asked. I believe we should try to become more involved and active within our community. We are losing kids to the streets everyday and we need to become mentors so that the children have somewhere to turn when they do not have anywhere else to go. We have to help them and try to lead them in the right direction. We have to provide activities for those children who don’t participate in school related activities. Sometimes when children don’t have anything to look forward to or want to participate in, they often turn to streets and that makes the crime rate rise. We also have to…show more content…
Not every issue of violence is the same from one neighborhood to the next. Once this objective has been met, an aggressive program focusing on conflict resolution and self-esteem building must be instituted. This program ideally needs to be initiated in the young, elementary student. Most scientists agree that cognitive and behavioral patterns become very well defined by the adolescent years. This is not disregarding the teenager, but an effective violence prevention strategy should work like the "public health model" and address the primary issue of prevention before the problem has been identified. More aggressive strategies of conflict resolution and self-esteem building should be instituted at the adolescent level. This approach must include mentoring programs so that fatherless young men can have role models that are supportive and exemplify African-American adult survivors. Many would agree with the teachings of Martin Luther King Jr., who reminded us that those who have been constantly abused and humiliated can still hold the moral high ground. We can either choose the path of acting out, and respond to violence with violence… which will then likely lead to more violence, what Dr King referred to as the path of mutual destruction. We can devise plans to change this problem. But, we can’t do it alone. In conclusion, we have to learn to embrace our children and stop telling them what they won’t or can’t do. We have to instead, encourage them on what