Violence The New Fad?
March, 2006
By Executive Director Shafiq R.F. Abdussabur
NEW HAVEN With the growing rate of violence among the Youth in America, how do we allow industries to stuff their stockings with monies made at the cost of our children’s futures? The industries that produce Rap videos that are crammed with inappropriate languages, pictures and illegal drug use. But, we seem to justify its existence in our home and in our society by calling it a fad. The danger is that we seem to misuse this word “fad” on a regular basis. Rap is no longer a fad for many of our youth. Rap music has been around now for over 20 years and the new Hardcore Rap aka “Under Ground Hip Hop” has been going on strong for that last 16 years. Now Hip Hop has become a culture in our cities and a gold mine for the music industry. An industry that virtually has no accountability for what is produces, endorses and distributes.
Recently there have been lawsuits filed against gun manufactures for their liability for the making of guns that have been used to injure and or cause deaths. It is puzzling that no one has studied the effects that Hardcore Rap and Rap videos have played in perpetuating violence amongst youth and violent acts in which youth get involved in.
The music alone without the video is proactive enough to incite strong emotion, and like all art, these lyrics are often an exaggeration of the truth- known to most as Drama. However, when the lyrics are married to the visual depiction of the song, it takes on a cultural interpretation of its own. The fantasy of it being a fad is that it does not matter rather a Rap video is watched by a teenage Black male in the Urban set or a teenage White male in the suburban set, a teenage male in Europe, or a teenage male in Asia, they all relate to the visual stimuli that is laced into the five minute menagerie. The message is the same, they get to watch someone else do all of the things that their parents tell them not to do. Why, because, it is just a fad.
Well this fad has now grown arms and legs and crawled into schools, religious institutions, and is now into shaping our youth’s moral and ethical standards. Violence has seemed to become a culture of its own. Urban violence seems to have become a status symbol among youth. The opposite of what we all work hard to try and prevent. In present day America, violence is such a big issue among our youth that we seem to devote more resources to youth violence prevention than for education. Our youth are well versed in slang, the latest dance and acting hard. But on the other side, the life skill side, they have been robbed of their ability to be critical thinkers, to become ambassadors of scholarship and social development. There are many reasons for this we can all agree, but the one that rings out the most is the issue of time management. The amount of time youth are spending playing Game Cube, Game Boy, and X-Box verses the time they are spending reading Mice and Men or Catcher on the Rye. The amount of time they spend hypnotizing their self listening to R&B, Rap, and all other types of music verses studying about their environment and ways to make it better. The amount of time spent writing emails verses the amount of time spent writing literary works that would prepare them for their competitive future in tomorrow’s global economy.
So the question still remains, with the growing rate of violence among the Youth in America, how do we allow industries to stuff their stocking with monies made at the cost of our children’s futures? Maybe it’s the “foot in the door technique” manufactures feel that we have already allowed their product to take residency in our home so now all they have to do is up grade their product and we will only have to replace that Play Station with the new Play Station II. They did not have to convince us to buy another one, we just upgraded to a better one; so we think. And as they upgrade the console, they upgrade the games and often that upgraded game is laced with more or new forms of violence. A game where the Spiderman actions figure that says the “-A-word.” Unfortunately it was after our six year old had over heard it while his 16 year old brother was playing. Oh! But maybe this is just a fad; we’ll call it a game fad.
Like that of the movement of the Hip Hop Culture, it appears that video games have embarked upon a journey in those same foot steps. The result will still bare the same disastrous result. Violence among the youth will increase. In the past, the violence in video games has appeared abstract for the most part. However, with the recent creation and release of the new video game 25 To Life, the manufacture has transformed Barney in our home to Godzilla. Is the manufacture trying to shock the conscious of our youth and our parenting skills? This certainly goes beyond the foot in the door approach. And it is completely out of sequence with the concept of upgrade. It is more like an attempt to up the stakes. And with youth becoming one of the fastest growing groups who are now entering into the criminal justice system, the stakes for the future of our youth are high.
What will it take to end a fad that promotes violence and desensitizes youth to the idea of being a killer, while listening to Hip Hop, Rap Music or what ever? Will it take a student of 25 To Life to kill a Police Officer through mental and simulated training received by playing this fad video game? Will it take a billion dollar lawsuit filed against the game manufacture by the surviving spouse to end the importing and selling of such a demonic and socially psychotic game? We know that these games are addictive, some youth skip school just to play them all day. Some stay up and play all night for hours on end. In fact, a recent studied show that a vast majority of adults who played video games found them just as addictive as did the youth. If this manufacture considers this new creation 25 To Life to be a form of recreation, as soon as the first Law Enforcement Officer is injured by anyone who has ever played this game or even watched it being played, the manufacture of the game should be charged with conspiracy to the crime committed against the officer.
However, the likelihood of that happening will not take place. But what we can do as parents, guardians, educators, citizens, and mentors, is to not buy the game. We should use the same standards in dealing with this game as we would use for allowing our children to drink alcohol, use illegal drugs, or carry a dangerous weapon, and commit suicide. This game as well as many more to follow will do nothing to build positive character in our youth. This game will not get our son or daughter a scholarship at the University. This game will not give our youth the skills needed to work a 40 hours a week job. This game will not give our children anything. However, if we let our guard down and allow this one through the door, we might as well trade in our children’s college fund for a retainers fee for a good Defense Attorney, because any one who takes the life of an Officer will get 25 To Life for- every day -all day.
