Violence The new fashion?

With America’s rising rate of youth violence, how do we allow industries to fill the stockings with money made at the expense of our children’s future?
Industries that produce Rap videos full of inappropriate language, images, and illegal drug use. But, we seem to justify its existence in our home and in our society by calling it a passing fad. The danger is that we seem to misuse this word “fashion” on a regular basis. Rap is no longer a fad for many of our young people. Rap music has been around for over 20 years and the new Hardcore Rap, also known as “Under Ground Hip Hop”, has been going strong for the past 16 years. Now Hip Hop has become a culture in our cities and a gold mine for the music industry. An industry that has practically no responsibility for what it produces, supports and distributes.

Lawsuits have recently been brought against arms manufacturers for their responsibility for the manufacture of weapons that have been used to injure or cause death. It is puzzling that no one has studied the effects that Hardcore Rap and Rap videos have had in perpetuating violence among young people and violent acts in which young people are involved.
The music alone without the video is proactive enough to incite strong emotions and, like all art, these lyrics are often an exaggeration of the truth, known to most as Drama. However, when the lyrics are linked to the visual representation of the song, it acquires a cultural interpretation of its own. The fantasy of it being a fad is that it doesn’t matter, rather a Rap video is seen by a black teenager on the urban setting or a white teenager on the suburban setting, a teenager in Europe, or a teenager in Asia. , all relate to the visual stimuli that are intertwined in the five-minute collection of animals. The message is the same, they can see another person do all the things that their parents tell them not to do. Because, it’s just a fad.

Well this fad has now grown arms and legs and crept into schools, religious institutions, and is now shaping the moral and ethical standards of our youth. Violence seems to become a culture of its own. Urban violence seems to have become a status symbol among young people. Quite the opposite of what we all work hard to try to prevent. In America today, violence is such a major problem among our youth that we seem to devote more resources to youth violence prevention than education. Our youth are well versed in lingo, the latest dance, and tough acting. But on the other hand, on the life skills side, they have been robbed of their ability to be critical thinkers, to become ambassadors for scholarship and social development. There are many reasons why we all agree, but the one that resonates the most is the question of time management. The amount of time young people spend playing Game Cube, Game Boy and X-Box versus time they spend reading Mice and Men or Catcher on the Rye. The amount of time they spend hypnotizing themselves by listening to R&B, Rap, and all the other kinds of musical verses they study about their environment and ways to improve it. The amount of time they spend writing emails is compared to the amount of time they spend writing literary works that would prepare them for their competitive future in tomorrow’s global economy.

So the question remains, with the rising rate of violence among youth in America, how do we allow industries to fill their stocks with money made at the expense of our children’s future? Maybe it’s the “foot-in-the-door technique” that manufacturers feel we’ve already allowed their product to establish in our house, so now all they have to do is improve their product and we’ll just have to replace that Play Station. with the new one. Play Station II. They didn’t have to convince us to buy another one, we just switched to a better one; we think so. And as they update the console, they update the games, and often that updated game is mixed with more or new forms of violence. A game where the Spiderman action figure says the “-A-word”. Unfortunately, it was after our six-year-old listened to it while his 16-year-old brother was playing. Oh! But maybe this is just a passing fad; we will call it a fashion game.

Like the Hip Hop Culture movement, video games appear to have embarked on a journey in those same steps. The result will continue to have the same disastrous outcome. Violence among young people will increase. In the past, violence in video games seemed abstract for the most part. However, with the recent creation and release of the new 25 To Life video game, manufacturing has transformed Barney into our home to Godzilla. Is manufacturing trying to impress the conscience of our youth and our parenting skills? This certainly goes beyond the stand-in-the-door approach. And it’s completely out of sequence with the upgrade concept. It’s more like an attempt to raise the stakes. And with youth becoming one of the fastest growing groups now entering the criminal justice system, the stakes are high for the future of our youth.

What does it take to end a fad that promotes violence and desensitizes young people to the idea of ​​being a murderer, while listening to Hip Hop, Rap or whatever? Will it take a 25 To Life student to kill a police officer through the simulated and mental training received while playing this trendy video game? Will a billion dollar lawsuit filed against the making of the game by the surviving spouse be needed to end the importation and sale of such a demonic and socially psychotic game? We know these games are addictive, some youngsters skip school just to play them all day. Some stay up and play all night for hours on end. In fact, a recent study shows that the vast majority of adults who played video games found them just as addictive as young people. If this new 25 To Life creation is deemed by this manufacturer to be a form of recreation, as soon as the first law enforcement officer is injured by someone who has played this game or even seen it play, the manufacturing must be charged. of the game. with conspiracy for the crime committed against the officer.

However, the probability of that happening will not occur. But what we can do as parents, guardians, educators, citizens and mentors is not to buy the game. We must use the same standards when dealing with this game that we would use to allow 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 earn our or your daughter a college scholarship. This game will not give our young people the skills to work 40 hours a week. This game will not give our children anything. However, if we let our guard down and allow him to walk through the door, we could also trade our children’s college fund for a retention fee for a good defense attorney, because anyone who takes the life of an officer will get 25 to Life for every day, every day.