Dan Savage on gay black teens forming gangs in D.C. to strike back at bullies:
They’re bashing back. Good for them… so long as they’re just bashing bashers.
Nothing can be worse for these teens future than being a party to gang violence with deadly weapons. (and damn the list of weapons that doesn’t include guns. I would bet that for the 20 or 50 in this gang, straw sale guns are not out of the question).
They are still young, they are still people of color and they are still black and still mostly male. They can and will be tried as adults (and once DCPD get’s wind of this, they will have a higher chance of being tried as adults).
A Political reason to reject this nonsense is that the US Congress can make laws for D.C. and the Republican controlled house bolstered by “law and order” Democrats can make targeted no tolerance, anti-gang laws that would turn more of these kids into prison residents. I am sure the Tea Party/Republican party would love to get a 2fer: create a zero tolerance policy that penalizes young black gays.
Also, these bullies may not be the captain of the football team at Bayside High. The people bullying them may not be so easy to beat and even if they can be beaten, they may be able to call in some “go gets”: as in going to get their own crew, get their relatives to strike back or “go get” their firearm.
Should they come together? yes. Should they protect themselves? Absolutely.Will violence stop at “just the bashers”, I highly doubt it, therefore this is just something that is unsupportable.
The caveat “good for them….so long as they’re just bashing bashers” is completely invalid. It’s like declaring war on Afghanistan and thinking our “smart bombs” will only kill terrorists. Violence doesn’t work that way, once you scale it up it’s hard to scale down.
It’s final, extremely personal and the coldness and depressing rage that drives violence isn’t discrete or discerning.