Its hard yes it's very hard to take someone out of their negative situation once they've become accustomed to it, but if not for you why not for your children? Personally I look to the youth. I could care less about an older person because they already stuck in their ways and its useless trying to break that, but the youth can still be saved. First we must get outta this mindset of all we good for is slangin drugs or slangin a ball. Black folks damn near created everything we use today so Chile I know black folks got talents other then entertaining white folk. How long we gone continue to hold onto generations of trauma before we heal? It all starts with self at the end of the day. You don't value yourself as a black person your not going to value another black life. To some that might sound "corny" but it's real. Heal thy self and then you heal the people.
Fully agree, this is a situation where you need to invest in the youth first and foremost that way they don’t make the decision to join a gang in the first place. While trying to increase the peace amongst the adults and teens, figure out exactly what is needed in order to present a better option to them outside of hustlin and bangin.
As you asked, how long people gon hold on to trauma. The truth is they’ll hold on to it until they 1. Get a real outlet to let go, and 2. Are safe and secure enough to let it go. You gotta think of it this way, in the case of LA these were people that were kids growing up in the neighborhood, some have generations of gangbangers in the family (hence the Baby, Lil, Infant, Newborn nicknames) and these neighborhoods have been in a perpetual state of war where real people are killed. Some people can’t get over friends and family being killed and have lost all hope for life. This is very serious and brutal mental traumas that our people go through. For all the talk about returning troops suffering from PTSD, the same is true for gang members and even the innocent people living in those neighborhoods.
We gotta give those people the right outlets to heal themselves breh. It’s not as easy as deciding to do better. What’s their incentive? They’ll look and say “Well, Nip could rap so he was special and did all that stuff, who am I?” We as a people gotta figure out how to properly answer those kinds of questions so they don’t feel like positive things happen if they ballin or rappin. That’s why I brought up David Gross, someone from Inglewood that left, became successful in something other than sports or music, and came home to help the community. More of that is needed to show the people on the ground that positive outcomes are in many forms.
