So. Central Bloomfield Represents
Werd,
So, here is an interesting clip from this morning's Jersey paper....
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/essex/index.ssf?/base/news-5/1095229862141180.xml
"Then the phone calls started coming in because businesses all along Bloomfield Avenue got bullets though their windows," said Bloomfield's police chief John McNiff.
So, two 19 year olds bump into three teenage kids.... and the kids open fire?
For those unfamiliar with Bloomfield geography, this intersection is approx. 700 meters from where I live. Anyone who went on the spring break 03 trip may remember this intersection as being where we stopped to get windshield wipers before heading back to the Parkway. Or, anyone who has visited me via Parkway North may remember Bloomfield Ave. as being the street they cross with the car lots on the corner. Trek up that road less than half a mile and you'll be at the corner of Grove and Bloomfield Ave.
So, what are we, the residents of Bloomfield to make of this bullshit? All of the people involved in the incident were from Bloomfield or Newark. Here's what I think: I have lived in Bloomfield since I was 10 months old. Sure, the school system sucks a little, but it's hardly So. Central. Fuck any sociologist who tries to claim that this growing violence is a result of a lack of opportunities. Bloomfield is boring, but I'm not shooting anyone over it.
If this sounds angry, that's because I'm pissed as hell.
How can you change anything when you are dealing with a youth culture, small though it may be, for whom violence is acceptable?
posted by KPd. @ 8:53 AM
2 Comments:
so how did that youth culture turn to violence? it's biological? cultural? they had shitty parents who just didn't try enough or something? they just felt like it? if that's the case, how can you possibly find hope or optimism, or look for ways to change it?
To tell you the truth, it is pretty damn difficult to feel like there is much room for optimism in this situation. There are resources in place in this town that those kids chose not to access. It's just cool to carry a gun in Newark, and now it's apparently cool to carry one here too. At least to some kids... It's not as if this is a neighborhood that requires one to earn respect by acting in a violent way. One can earn respect by being impressive in the school play for pete's sake! Any violent posturing gun-toting teens find in Bloomfield, they brought.
I mean, they sprayed a fucking intersection with bullets in the middle of the afternoon. They are insanely lucky people didn't die.
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