ange wrote:
>the desire for retribution and revenge has no other outlet than that of
>arbitrariness and scapegoating - as the guy disenfranchised and dispossessed
>in The Grapes of Wrath keeps asking, 'who do i kill?'.
i dunno. i keep finding that folks with left leanings have a hard time seeing them as disenfranchised and dispossessed. they lived in one of the most affluent neighborhoods in the Denver area. so any attempt to link this to a class analysis is seen as some sort of apologia for what they did. so, as / dave / felt compelled to do yesterday, you have make clear that you're not making excuses, just utilizing marxist theory to provide some sort of explanation. i find this odd, but not surprising.
and, although the report was anecdotal, the salon piece yesterday seemed to suggest that these kids were brutalized in some really humiliating ways, including (of course) being called fags and queers. the assumption, as usual, was that they were different so obviously gay. i was reading some lit on 'boys at risk' the other day, and the stuff they endured was similar. in a status conscious school like columbine i can only imgaine what went on. and, it makes sense that they scapegoated. their persecutors were apparently jocks. it seems to me that their move here was to flaunt the available insignia of power. it is one way to signal to everyone that they were tough, weren't affected by the taunts, a exude a general "don't tread on me look" in other words, they wanted to communicate some message that said: i subscribe to some pretty scary ways of thinking so fuck off.
in fact, i watched young working class white boys in my old neighborhood do quite the same as they hit teens. whereas prior to that they listened to 'white' music, once they hit their teens they made this incredible turnabout: all of a sudden they were into rap and hip hop fashion, despite the racist things i'd hear them say. had nothing to do with the general popularity because before adolescence they despised rap, etc
it struck me as the oddest thing then, about five years ago. makes perfect sense now. don the signs that tell everyone to fuck off, i'm bad and *voila* you have some protection or at least feel you do, even if that means the jocks would never listen to that music or wear those clothes and so taunt you and further cast you outside the magic circle of popular kids.
very similar thing goes on where i live now, except most everyone is black, latino/a or newly immigrated europeans,low income whites. i play b-ball with the kids and it's quite disheartening to observe the economy of respect get played out: e.g., my respect is purchased by disabusing you of
your respect. it's a zero sum game in which you either have respect or you don't. and since respect is intangible, it must be continually achieved in various ways (no different than class status really where people use their cars etc to signal where they fit on the social class ladder). anyway, these kids are compelled to constantly demonstrate that they *have* respect clothing, style, posture, body language, jewelry and language. well, we've lived here three months and my son's picked it up pretty fast and we have to have long talks about playing the "your mom" game, calling people fags, etc. oh and of course long talks about how we can't by new sneakers every four months.
i'm heading to find someone who can work a magic spell and make him turn 4 again--permanently.
kelley, not generally over protective