Punk-Ass Bitch

An article about youth violence.

It seemed almost like a regular occurrence in elementary school. In fact, it was something of an institution. Someone had been called a ‘dick-weed’ (burn...), or someone’s Pogo-Ball had been busted, and the parties would prepare to settle things WWF-style. A small crowd would gather, some pushing would take place, and then it was go-time. The crowd would get involved, probably chanting something obvious like “Fight! Fight! Fight!”. A few bruises, possible a bloody nose (but not usually), the bell would ring, and recess was over.

Last year in Halifax, a group of teens stood around cheering in a similar way, but they were not witnessing a schoolyard brawl. They were watching as four boys gang-raped one of their classmates. One of the watching girls remarked at the trial that the attack was “no big deal”.

In 1995, Alexis Bonilla, a 17-year-old pimp and member of the ‘Latino Assassins’ gang was ambushed, beaten, and drowned in a creek. Two girls, both aged 14, plead guilty to second-degree murder for the attack.

Just weeks ago in November, in a middle-class neighborhood near Victoria, B.C., rumours and name-calling started a feud between two teenaged girls which ended with 14-year-old Reena Virk being viciously beaten to death at a local waterfront park. When the corpse was discovered downstream more than a week later, it had suffered multiple fractures, a broken neck, and a broken back - torn underwear was all that remained of her clothes.

Somewhere along the line, hair-pulling and headlocks has turned into stabbings and vicious beatings, and society is shaking its collective head in disbelief.

How close to home?

Although the examples above are all recent and Canadian, there is a tendency to distance oneself from these kinds of seemingly unbelievable stories. Even though the now infamous Grade-8 gang turned out to be more beats than rhyme, there is something unsettling about hearing 12 and 13 year-olds talk about threatening each other with knives, and ‘banging bitches’. Events at the recent school dance, ‘3rd Bass’, resulted in one of the front-door windows being smashed and a small fight breaking out on the dance floor.

Even so, experts seem to be divided as to whether there is actually an increasing number of teenaged violent crimes, or if recent heightened public interest on the issue is simply pressuring police to make more arrests.

Blaming the Beats

As in the 50’s, when youth problems were blamed on Rock and Roll (the devil’s music), American Rap music seems to be today’s scapegoat. The media is quick to single out a few Rap acts (NWA, Tupac, The Notorious B.I.G.) whose lyrics, they say, describe gang-life in a glamorous way. On Life After Death, however, Biggie and Puff seem to question the lifestyle they left behind when they became rap stars: “Can I live till my last day, hittin honies that be na-sty, gettin money in a fast way? And I only care halfway, but I still can’t let you pass me”. Just like in the 50’s, society as a whole seems reluctant to take responsibility for the actions of its youth. Surely, rap music alone could not spur kids to violence, or else every issue of HTP would feature a list of punks we are gonna drop.

Stereotypes would dictate that violent youths come from poverty-stricken backgrounds, broken homes, and are abused as children. While this is sometimes the case, an increasing number of crimes are being committed by middle-class suburban teenagers, out for ‘kicks’, or out of deep-seeded insecurities. The impact of music seems to be that it enforces these insecurities, and suburban kids (mis)interpret lyrics to form a crude set of ‘rules’, clumsily mimicking the ‘code of the street’ suggested by the songs. End result? White kid in Square One standing outside Yogen Fruz saying “Yo, bitch, I didn’t ask for no sprinkles.. Prat! Prat! Prat!”.

Taking Responsibility

In the end, there is no way to pinpoint to the cause of teen-violence. Physical or sexual abuse at an early age can usually start the downward spiral. Everyone of us who has ever made someone feel out of place - not ‘one of the crowd’ - feeds the self-consciousness and low self-esteem that is usually the root of teen-violence. Images of violence and the ‘gang-life’ in pop culture fill the void left by these insecurities, and as one former gang-member said, “I desperately wanted to be popular and the way to be popular was to do anything the gang leader wanted ... After a while, you start to believe that you actually are the people in the songs.”