Momma Says to Knock You Out

Originally Posted Thursday, November 21, 2013

A friend of mine sent me a link to this video in a message called "Black People Having Fun."  You've all seen it by now, a "game" where kids pick some unwitting victim and sucker punch him or her to see if they can knock him out.  It is fairly terrifying, but it is worse than that.  It is worth exploring. 

First, how can my friend call it "Black People Having Fun"?  There's a white kid in the video.  O.K.  He's just talking, and at least she didn't use the "N" word.  But in the news video, all the kids doing the punching are young and black, and all the people taking a dive are old and white.  There isn't much more terrifying to old white people than an image like this.  And it's true.  I mean the video is irrevocable proof that it happened.  Then there are all the black kids laughing and talking about it in a joking way.  It's just a game, they say.  It's just for fun.  Bad ju-ju, my friends.  It takes us back to native uprisings.  People of no morals and all that. 

And it might be true.  But I have to wonder.  I grew up with the worst kind of cracker rednecks in the world.  True.  And they used to target black people for just this sort of random behavior.  So I have to wonder. . . are only black kids doing this?  Is their a bias in the reporting?  Are there enough security cams in the ghetto?  I mean, if there were, would we see this game being played with black victims, too?  And of course, there is Boston.  Know what I'm sayin'? 

Then again, it was L.L Cool J who sang "Momma Says to Knock You Out."  But I think he made all his money off white kids, didn't he? 

I have a friend from the old steroid gym, a guy in his sixties, who got his ass kicked by a gang of fourteen and fifteen year olds in his own fenced in backyard.  I forgot to ask him if they were white or black, but nonetheless, it is terrifying to think.  Now that I am having trouble just getting out of bed or a chair, I feel vulnerable.  It happened so quickly, too.  Two years ago, I would have. . . .  Whatever.  Like everybody else who sees this, I have the natural outrage.  I want something done.  But I am different than most people in that I don't care much for putting people in prison.  The whole idea of prison doesn't make sense to me.  I don't know what holding someone in a prison for three to five years is supposed to do for them.  It doesn't make them better.  We all know that.  And putting these kids in juvie ain't gonna do shit. 

Nope.  I say you either kill them or put them in work camps doing America's Dirtiest Jobs.  We should be making money off their punk asses, not spending it. 

But of course I can't be serious.  These are just kids for God's sake.  Of course we can rehabilitate them.  We have a chance to do something good and right. 

I have these two cartoon characters sitting on opposite shoulders whispering in my ears.  Manichean.  Dichotomous.  Binomial.  X's and O's. 

Dare I say. . . Black and White. 

I'll be talking about this with my Negro Friends today.  I know, I am awful.  But this has made me realize that my black friends aren't really "black," and my white friends aren't really "white."  The more I think about it, my gay friends are really "gay" and my straight friends are really "straight."  Etc.  I live in that cool, middle world.

But Jesus Christ, when Birmingham, Alabama meets North St. Louis, it makes for dangerous living. 

I don't have the answer, of course, but I like to raise the question.  Mostly, I think I am just wondering about this little tidbit of "journalism." 

*     *     *     *     *     

Holy smokes, just after I published this, I remembered the Mike Tyson/Spike Lee thing on HBO.  I fell asleep, as I reported, but I remember early on Mike talking about what a bad kid he was.  He was doing just this very sort of thing.  He told with joking remorse about stabbing a kid with a knife and getting in trouble.  He was a bad kid, he said jovially, and the audience all laughed along with him.  The message seems to be that it really isn't that serious.  I mean, you can go on to rape women, bite people's ears off, and then get your own HBO special.  It does all work out in the end.  Watch the things and see.  I didn't get to the end, so maybe it all turns around and there is remorse in both Mike and the audience.  I'll have to see it through to the end now.  

Oh, yea. . . and the Mayor of Toronto. . . .