May 25, 2009

Dear Sir,

Why are we surprised at the recent events? When we glorify gang culture in movies and music, it is going to become part of our society.

Back in the Pleistocene Period, when I was a child, there were dire warnings that Superman movies would make all children leap off roofs. It was believed that this would be the effect of a movie seen maybe once or twice a year. Most kids didn't. Maybe one or two who got high off sniffing glue did, but the majority knew it was fantasy.

Now when it is pounded into our children's heads from our car speakers, when almost every movie sends this message of almost the celebration of violence and that all problems van be resolved if you just go out and shoot someone dead, with as much blood and screaming as possible, when you can buy video "games" that let you can actually do the shooting yourself, is it any surprise that it becomes acceptable?

Throw drugs into the mix, and you have a pot just about ready to boil over.

I don't pretend to know how to stop this. I am not sure that there is any solution. However, as parents, it is the choices you make that your children will, for the most part, copy. So if you think smoking a spliff while driving your kids to school is OK, if you think watching violent movies with your children is OK, if you think dressing them up like little gang members is OK (bling, expensive sneakers, tattoos), don't complain when they become what they have been taught.

My heart goes out to those parents who do try to bring up their kids in a responsible manner, but those kids still get sucked in by peer pressure to become something they may not even want to be.

ST. GEORGE'S