On the other hand, I get the feeling that Alex has been doing much the same. Nell never claimed that there weren't outside factors at work. In fact, his initial observation that people are using this event as a platform for assigning blame based on deeply-rooted personal biases seems pretty spot-on.
For the record, this particular situation is personal to me on a couple different levels.
On one hand, a friend of mine was just shot down in his hometown about 2 days ago or so. Thank God he survived and doesn't have any serious / life threatening injuries. But like this, it was a completely random act of violence.
On the other hand, I'm not looking for things to blame other than what's really guilty - the people who pulled the trigger(s) and who participated in this.
It's not the fault of rap records or rap videos. It's not the fault of baggy clothes or sagging jeans or Jordan sneakers. It's not the fault of "thug" pictures, or people liking them on Facebook. It's not the fault of Scarface, The Godfather, Boyz In The Hood, or any other movie that's often associated with the "gangster" lifestyle. It's not the fault of Grand Theft Auto, or Saint's Row, or Call of Duty, or Battlefield, or Doom, or any other video game.
And this aspect of it is particularly personal to me as well. I listen to all the violent rap music, watch all the violent gang movies, play all the violent video games, and dress in the urban / hip hop style baggy clothing and shoes that's associated with the "thug" lifestyle. My criminal record? A couple speeding tickets that got taken off my record cuz I went to driving school. My criminal activity that I didn't get caught for? I smoked pot like, once in high school. Oh my god I'm such a menace.
It bothers me when everytime something like this happens, people automatically pounce on things that have nothing to do with anything, but they are going to blame it anyways because they just simply don't like it to begin with and are looking for any excuse they can to demonize it, validate their preconceived bias, or worse.
It was brought up in the Trayvon Martin case to justify his death, and it bothers me because that same logic could be applied to justify -MY- death, because I wore the wrong clothes, in the wrong neighborhood, while listening to the wrong music, all of course when I have less than angelic pictures of myself on my own social media of partying, smoking, drinking, and doing dumb **** that someone making blind assumptions may associate with a "thug" lifestyle.
Fact of the matter is, outside influences can play a role, but the blame rests solely on those who commit the acts. Not on the parents, not on the music or movies or video games, not on the clothing designers, not on the people who "liked" a picture on Facebook. And I'm tired of people demonizing what amounts to who I am as a person, because they have a soap box to stand on and an ax to grind.
