eSDee

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2...t&lid=tab2pos1

Check the link for the story but it's good, prompted by the recent murder of Darrent William on New Years night. A senseless killing of an unarmed innocent man. This article talks about the bigger issue, which is the glorification of violence in the media and society. A short but to-the-point read which opens up the discussion: does the media glorify violence?

__________________
~~~~~~~~~~~~
3 days ~ Willie Nelson

3 days I dread to see arrive
3 days I hate to be alive
3 days filled with tears and sorrow
yesterday today and tomorrow

johnnymk

I guess when there is no hope all around you, then your angry self and your angry friends keep getting angrier and angrier. All it takes is some drugs, a relationship turning bad , a lost job, etc. and you're over the edge.

Napoleon54

I guess I don't understand the point of this comment, as I do too. They don't say that he was breaking any laws or had committed any violent acts with these weapons. I think it speaks to the extremely ignorant belief that weapons = violence.
If you look at the demographics of the NFL you'd see that there are an awful lot of black men playing in the NFL. In fact I would guess that they're the majority, anyone know the statistics? So I guess this "unavoidable commonality" isn't that suprising. One could also say that the majority of black men playing in the NFL were not involved in any acts of violence. So who cares? Maybe I'm naive, or maybe I really just don't have a shred of racism in my nature, but I would not have thought to say to myself "hey, all of these violent acts were committed by only black men".

The whole rest of this article goes on and on about this supposed correlation between violence and race. I think this logic is BS- a penchant for violence is not determined by race. The color of one's skin does not predispose someone to commit violent acts. I think a much more valid and insightful correlation could be made between the environment one was raised in and violence. Blacks, whites, hispanics, asians, etc... I think race is moot if you were to look at something more like socioeconomic status. I'd venture to guess that there's a strong correlation between violent acts and a poor inner-city upbringing that transcends any racial distinctions. Or how about a correlation between violent acts and the amount of drug use found in the place where someone grew up? I think those would be much more meaningful questions to ask. I see it almost entirely as being a factor of the environment where someone spent their formative years.
So I guess what I'm saying is that I agree with this entirely, just didn't say it as concisely.

__________________
There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal. - Friedrich Hayek

eSDee

I don't think that's the point of the article at all. What I got from it was that there is a glorification of violence in our society, and African-American men are the group most affected by it. It's not saying they are prone towards that type of lifestyle, but rather more likely to be influenced by it.

MikeD

I got the same from the article. (Nice link btw SD, I read it earlier in the week). The problem is that the cycle is perpetuated by blacks towards blacks (see hip hop, Bill Cosby for more info).

__________________