Quote:
Originally Posted by upsscott
Curious, do you know anything about the dead kids backstory? Was this kid a “Thug” as you say? I mean Texas is most definitely an open carry state so him possessing a gun is literally encouraged there. I’m not condoning pulling a gun on somebody, not in the least, but I’ve had people partially open their door or move over a bit when I split lanes. It provokes a serious amount of anger. Would I pull a gun out personally? Hell no. This kid may have been a hot head with an anger problem and for that he died. Does that make him a gang banger or a thug? It’s hard to say. If he were white would he still be a thug? Honest questions.
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Pure speculation on my part, meant to engender discussion. I guess many would prefer to stick to the very simplistic "road rage" explanation, and celebrate the "good guy's" so-called "victory" over him. I'm simply trying to dig deeper than that, down to
why this young man made that fateful decision. What influenced him in such a way that he felt this was the answer to what just happened to him.
To me, this does not represent a single, isolated tragic incident. Not when I look at the statistics that demonstrate that young men of his race are
six times more likely to die a violent death than any other race. I think we do them all a disservice if we don't take opportunities like this, as tragic as they are, to dig deeper, to do a "root cause analysis".
And, yes, Texas is an "open carry" state, but I believe one must be 21 years of age. He was 19, so I believe he was not lawfully armed. That in and of itself demonstrates a willingness to violate a fairly serious law. Does that in and of itself definitively identify him as a "gang banger"? Personally, I don't think so, but it is a pretty strong indication.
And would a white kid still be a "thug"? Underaged and armed, behaving in that manner, I would say "yes". And I would be asking what led to his choice to live the "thug life". Broken home? No father? Poor choice in role models? All of the same questions, for the most part, but with one important difference: black pop culture seems to celebrate this "thug life", where other races' pop cultures do not. I think they are valid questions regardless of race.
But, again, we get back to the notion that the black kid is
six times more likely to wind up like this than the white kid. If we ever want to have an honest discussion as to just why that is, guys like you need to get a lot more comfortable with discussing this in a dispassionate manner. Right now, discussing any sort of a racial component as a contributing factor appears to just freak you out, to the point where you abandon any efforts at rational discussion. We'll never get anywhere like that.