It's not so much that the people like the ones in the OP's story "define" the Black community. It's more so that this radical(but sizable) minority causes the most collateral damage in our communities and end up being a heavy burden to average law abiding, tax paying Black families and residents.
I don't know what the ultimate solution is because there's a lot of factors ranging from broken households, mental health, drug use, lack of resources, etc. that have to be taken into account but we do have a strong element of radicalized street thugs who will damn near murder their own mothers for money, power, and respect. These thugs do not dominate the Black community demographically but they have a very negative impact on the communities that normal Black people with jobs, families, taxes/bills/rent to pay, etc. have to coexist with while hoping for the best possible outcomes. This comes with a lot of dilemmas though due to the fact that gangsters and street thugs these days have no sense of code or protecting the hoods that they rep at all. Crips and Bloods started off as branches of the Black Panthers to agents of chaos in their own hoods.
Back in the day, you could stay away from gang/street/drug stuff and feel like you were totally fine as long as you used street smarts and knew your whereabouts well. Even White gentrifiers had/have that same mindset. But this new batch of street thugs are something else and don't care one bit about harming innocent people and bystanders with no ties to them.
And dudes like the old man are in a long line of victims of these codeless/reactionary/drugged up "new wave" street thugs.
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