Thug Culture

I'm watching with some interest the case of Christopher Lane, murdered by three thugs in Oklahoma.  One of the thugs, James Edwards is a case study in absolute dysfunction.  We've already met his mom, who is in the Oklahoma State Pen.  His sister was recently interviewed and she had some enlightening things to say about her brother.

Padilla admitted that her brother had been in trouble for fighting in the past, but maintained that he’s “never been a vicious person”

Okay, he's not vicious, but he gets into fights.

She said as far as she knew, he was not associated with any gangs, but she did say he “hung around older people that were affiliated with gangs.” 

He's not associated with any gangs, but he hangs-out with people in gangs.

I knew he had a Facebook page, but I never looked at it. And it’s hard to believe that he will be–that he would even put things on there like that. 

So, he's got a Facebook page and he likes to threaten people's lives in social media.  Quite the brother you've got there.  He likes to fight, but he's not vicious, he's not in a gang, but he hangs out with gangs, and you don't believe that he threatens people when the evidence is placed before you.  So we know that Mom's in prison, and the sister doesn't have a clue, and we're left to wonder where Daddy might be.  Nothing I've seen indicates anything about dear old Dad, so I assume he's been as absent from his son's life as he's been from the controversy surrounding this horrific incident.

 But, we learn of one father who did the right thing, the father that turned in the three thugs to the police.

James Johnson, 52, called the police to tell them that the accused killers were hiding in the car park of the Immauel Baptist Church car park at about 5pm, two hours after they allegedly shot Lane.
“My son called me and said, “They’re saying they’re coming to kill me,” so I called the police and they got here within about three minutes,” Johnson told the Herald Sun.
Mr Johnson claimed that Edwards Jr had threatened the life of his own 17-year-old son Christopher on Facebook. His son was at home with his mother and sisters near the church when he received the death threat.
“They threatened to kill my son because they are in a gang, the Crips, and were trying to get my son in it and I wouldn’t let him do it.

 That one Dad made a difference.  His son is safe and three killers are behind bars, and he's probably grateful that his son kept him informed.

Allen West is right when he says that the Gang Culture is the real race conversation we should be having.

“It is a gangster culture out there. It is a culture that is being permeated throughout the media, and throughout the entertainment industry, that we need to start speaking out about. And furthermore, when you think about the fact that 72% of black babies are being born out of wedlock, this is the…second and third order effects that we have seen in the inner city, in the black community, and in other communities where it’s spilling over. So that is the real conversation that we need to start having,” West said. He noted that “when I was 15, when I was 16, my parents ensured that I was not bored.”

Idle hands are the devil's workshop, and it's Dad's responsibility to make sure that the teenagers don't get bored.  Where is Dad in this whole scenario?  That's another conversation that we should be having.  I notice that the Reverends Jackson and Sharpton haven't yet weighed in on the matter.  No money to be made talking about the thug culture.