WTF, Abercrombie & Fitch???Follow

People don't commit crimes because they're black or hispanic.

Because usually people that "glorify" what they see on tv about the "hood", do not live that lifestyle and have no understanding about how it is to live like that. So they think oh thats cool, lemme act like that.

You could have just quoted me and left it at that. Instead you made it clear you can't or won't read for context. Bravo.




Where have you been? There're kids attending the junior high down the street from my place that carry semi-automatic weapons. They live in the suburbs. I'd agree there's something internally flawed with some of those kids, but some of them are just following along with what they see as acceptable, still a character flaw, but not quite on par with sociopathy.

When I was in third grade I saw my first Hustler magazine; anyone know where I left that thing?



Now that we've decided the media is evil, can we get back on topic?




Edited, Mon Apr 17 19:59:48 2006 by Barkingturtle

Yes. And I would further posit that another portion will be more inclined to turn to said life of crime if said life of crime is made to appear glamorous and/or otherwise acceptable. To do otherwise would be to deny the twin powers of marketing and peer pressure, and this, sir, I will not do.

I'm surprised to see this from you. You, like me, live in the middle of Suburbia. Who do you see wearing these stupid A&F shirts more often; white kids, or minorities? And somehow, now that this is affecting somebody other than the whities, it's a hot issue.

I'm not saying that blacks and hispanics aren't affected by this, but I seriously doubt that high priced clothes from A&F are as common among low-income families that might be more prone to gang violence and drugs than upper-middle class white families.

Looking back, I do see that I misread the article to say that these shirts were A&F ones. Regardless, I doubt the images in the shirts are intended to represent Billy Jones that lives by the Lake in his parent's high-priced condo. They're more of a cartoon substitution of Ray-J or Ernesto.

Can't it be both?

You arguments keep falling apart because you act as if everything is one or the other. It's quite possible to tell people that drugs and gangs are wrong and feel as if your message is being undercut (deliberately sometimes) by a culture that glorifies those elements. It's quite possible to dedicate your life to creating young adults who have an education and opportunity and feel that it would be better for them if their environment wasn't so hostile and try to take steps to counteract that.

Marketing and peer pressue do affect children who are in the 4th grade. If you honestly want to say "if they're not intelligent enough to make the decisions as ten year olds to avoid trouble and peer pressure then fu[Aqua][/Aqua]ck 'em for being stupid" then... well, I guess it's a free country and all that. I'm just going to stop taking you seriously.

There's plenty of music and videos that are intentionally glorifying the lifestyle and saying "check out how cool I am, hanging here with my boyz before we go get in a fight with some other guys, and buy some crack."Or do both! Just like our teacher in the story is doing. She'll be proud to know you approve of her. One could argue that taking a stand against the shirts is helping teach her students the critical difference that cute cartoons done up as gangbangers don't represent what gangs are all about.No it's not. This isn't a "rights" issue, it's simple market forces at work. The store in question decided that carrying the shirts wasn't worth the negative press being drummed up and the potential loss in sales when parents told their kids they're allowed to go shopping there or whatever. Trademark issues aside, the store had every bit as much ability to continue the sales as they did to end them -- it's not as though the teacher had jackbooted government thugs tearing them down off the racks.

Edited, Tue Apr 18 09:56:09 2006 by Jophiel

If the teacher does this then I feel she needs to go into music stores and theaters and complain about how they also glorify this type of behaviour as well. In fact I think music and movies would have more of a negative impact on children than a tshirt.

This isn't an issue of market forces at work, it's an issue of trademark infrigement. You can't reliably separate that from the problem without changing it significantly. If the trademark issue weren't there (somehow, for the sake of argument) would the store owner still be selling the shirts? Well, the article quotes him as saying they were his best selling products, so I'd have to say yeah, he would be. Go take a look at www.tshirthell.com (note, not work safe) This site has been around for several years at least.

There's obviously an ample market of people mature enough to have a chuckle at the humorous juxtaposition of children's TV characters and automatic weapons without running out and joining a gang themselves. As long as they don't infringe on someone's trademarked property, and nobody comes along to create a media campaign blaming them for society's problems, they can do just fine in the marketplace.

Samira, you'll note that nowhere in any of my posts did I say it wasn't within the school's or the parent's rights to stop the kids from wearing the shirts. The issue was with the segment I quoted in my original response, saying "This is why kids can't concentrate in school. This is why the incarceration budget is higher than the education budget." From the context I assumed "this" referred to violent media in general, and these t-shirts in particular. I'm saying it's not accurate to lay these problems at the feet of the media. I came to this conclusion in the following way.

First I'm operating off a couple of assumptions. Maybe they're wrong. Feel free to point out where, if so.

Assumption 1.
The violent crime rate and rate of participation in criminal gangs is significantly higher among poor, urban youth than among middle to upper class suburban youth.

Assumption 2.
Both groups are, on average, exposed to more or less the same media. (violent or otherwise)

Now, if both these things are true then we can conclude that violent media is not directly a cause of criminal behavior. If so, we could expect the crime rates to be the same among both groups since they are exposed to the same media. Obviously though, there are some additional factors in the poor urban group not present in the middle class suburban group that must contribute to their higher crime rate. The media is constant across both groups, so this doesn't explain the disparity in crime rates.

This contradicts what the woman in the article said, that "This [violent media] is why our incarceration budget is higher than our education budget" If we took the media out of the picture, I'm pretty sure that kids who grow up in poor, crime-ridden neighborhoods would still be more likely to commit crimes than kids who grow up in affluent, safe neighborhoods.

I dunno, those T-shirts reminded me of nothing more than those gross out stickers we had when we were kids about things like Tide, which in the sticker would be something like Slide, wherein the picture was dirt coming out of the spout or something.

Stuff like this.

Big deal. By next season they'll all be dumped in the trash or sold at GoodWill.

Totem

They're in child sizes because those anorexics can't fit into adult underwear anymore, dontcha know?

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