The Drugs, The Money, The Guns

By: Shaniqua Brown

There are so many youth in the community that’s dying everyday over some non sense. They get killed over something that they weren’t involved in so the end results are death. Everybody has something to say but hold their true feelings in because they figure that if they say anything they might get hurt or they might say something like this “I have to live in this community and they might find out that I said something and then it’s my life on the line.” So why do you think that so many youth are dying over non-sense?

Now in the lives of children/ teens the drugs are the things that start the violence off, and this is because the drug leaders have these teens that have the slitess idea about what is going on and what they are getting themselves into in the streets selling the drugs.

Next the money, because once the money comes up missing or short, then everybody gets hurt, because the child is running around trying to find out how to get the money and winde up getting hurt or killed over money.

Last the guns, this is the one that every teen that’s in a gang has or are afraid of because of what they saw happen with it. The guns are used on these teens once again because they don’t know what they have got themselves into, and they running around hiding from something that’s bound to kill someone that they know because they have got themselves into something that they weren’t ready for. So many people are killed by what you call guns because they look like someone or because they are in the same family as the person they are looking for. Also because they are into the gang life and they are at war with the other gang and by stray bullets flying nameless.

I interviewed some adults and students/ youth that have experienced this in their life.

“Well I think that the youth are being killed because they are family of someone who is related to someone that they are looking for,” said Tiana Miller, an adult in the Austin community. “And also they because they are at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Deandre Stackhouse, actually experienced a personal loss due to gang violence.

“Well I really don’t have too much to say because it makes me very emotional,” said Stackhouse. “I think that it’s unnecessary to have gang violence because I lost my brother to gang violence so I don’t recommend anyone to be in gangs or to use gang violence in something that you can talk out.”

“I think that every youth has something that everybody can use first off,” said Joyce Matthews a freshman student at VOISE Academy. “But at the same time there are people who hate on someone that have something that they don’t have and that’s pentiful because that person may can help you and give you something that can help you out but they’re gone now.”