So, you want to fix the world.
Start by looking beyond what you think is going on to find what is really going on.
In my neighborhood I am the minority. I am defined as “white”. The majority of my neighbors are defined as “black”. The next largest ethnic group would be “hispanic”.
I have lived in the same place since 1981. I moved in to a racially/ethnically diverse area with little thought about it. I naively believed it did not matter. Fast forward to 2006 – IT MATTERS!
At first glance it is easy to decide that race is the key issue here – but is it really? What has changed in the past two decades can steer the direction from one of race to one of economics. Property values have skyrocketed making it less and less financially feasible for many of us to move upward or out. The large immigration from the bay area folks has sealed our fate. Those of us left/stuck here are not rich. Many owners have rented their homes out via Section 8 to get out. Now the average household is well below the national poverty level. If poverty breeds violence – ding – ding – ding – we have a winner!
Washing my truck out in front of my home can steer the direction back from economics to race. While vacuuming the inside out a young black male for whatever reason needs to walk up stick his head and upper body into my vehicle, glance at the radio, then scan the contents of my vehicle, snicker, glance up and give me a look that can be only described as designed to provoke fear, and then walk away, glancing back at me until he is out of sight. Later only to return with two friends conversing load enough for me to hear choice words: white devils, stereo, alarms, later, and chill nig**.
The outside of my truck is still dirty. The ghetto bird (a police helicopter usually following a suspect) is flying overhead. The speaker of a car that just drove by has knocked another picture off the wall. ..
So, you want to fix the world?
Economics and race seem so intertwined to me. Maybe because the balance on the lower end of the economic scale is so deeply minority-weighted.
While I loathe the behavior you described and would have an angry reaction to it if it happened to me, the intellectual part of me wonders what exactly it is that we need to change in this society to change the attitudes generating that behavior. Behavior which, by the way, is not limited to young black males — I’ve seen some white kids from the suburbs with similar ‘tudes.
I am well aware of the ‘tudes as you call em. ..
I agree that economics play a major part of the problems here. But they do not explain the behavior of the financially well off’s ‘tudes. I am back to ” I just do not get it”.