Two Days After-Part Two; Darrent Williams: A Study of American Gang Culture

Two days after Darrent Williams death, a Denver Bronco, an American football player, was shot and killed, Denver Radio talk show hosts bombarded the airways, trying to figure out what happened. Two individual in particular stuck out: Peter Boyles of Denver 630 KHOW and Steve Seidenfeld of Colorado 850 KOA. These two gentlemen tried to bring perspectives other than the speculative what happened New Years Eve night.

Peter Boyles claims that his “sources” know who killed Darrent Williams, and the police were trying to connect the dots. He also, through the follow weeks, actually the very next day began to be critical of the politicos: city and state of their silent voices in regards to the killing. And then later, speculated the reason for this was the possibility of the upcoming announcement of the Democratic Party National Convention for the 2008 presidential race. It was the Tale of Two Cities: New York and Denver both vying for the privilege of hosting the convention (Denver won).

Boyles further speculated on the deviant behavior of gang-banger hip-hop culture. How this culture’s music, attitudes, socioeconomics, and unlawfulness recapitulated the violence against citizenry. He moreover stated the Denver Police was performing poorly due to the fact of the city politico’s silence, of the neighborhood tolerance, and the decried minority leaders that lack the nerve to speak out. And, by implication their silence was due to the fact that, gangs intimidated city official and witnesses.

He, Boyles, at times, addressed the fact of how the gang-banger hip-hop culture sees those who talk to the police, “tattlers,” or “snitches.” He had plenty of empirical data to make his case. For example, three witnesses ready to testify were killed on the eve of their testimonies just this past year. In fact, in the last year, the number of police officers, witnesses deaths has been on the rise, at the least since 2001. Denver Police lack of protection of witnesses can be attributed to the failure of their oversight, and failure to anticipate, or even take seriously the death threats of the gang-bangers.

This lack of foresight has made the city a dangerous place for witnesses. Public, very public drive bys-yet “no proof” or witnesses are invisible. The crips, the bloods, the ms13, to some extent, have quietly ruled the roost of Denver Metropolitan streets. However, let me not leave you with the impression that Denver is amok in lawlessness—far from it. There are certain spots “these gang-bangers” claim as their own—club and neighborhoods. The city is far from strife.

Arguments were made by Boyles that the intimidation by the gangs was keeping silent the witnesses, he also asserts that “music” of gang-banger hip-hop was some how encouraging children, minority children, to embrace the violence. In essence, the music instills the disrespect, the “villainizing” of authority, and the emboldening of cultural power through violence. In that, the only way to gain respect is through one’s violent acts—to gain “props.” Essentially, to prove one’s manhood is to either withstand perpetrated acts against oneself, or to perpetrated an act themselves. But there is darker side, a greater illusion, is that, gang culture believes that, through fear and intimidation that they can usurp authority. The second illusion gang culture tries to foster is a sense of family. The gang will take care of you. We will be the parent, the disciplinarian, the trust your own parent/s never gave you. As Boyles puts it, “don’t bet on it…”

Peter Boyles probing statement throughout the cadre of shows,” It is what, what it is”; or his other profound statement, “What does this mean?” Well, those are certainly statement and inquiries. He later parlays this tragedy into debate regarding illegal immigration. This is certainly an interesting perspective.

(End part two).

Photo credits of Darrent Williams is from his Myspace.com page and image of the limousine is from AP photo from a written article by Foxnews.

Darrent Williams: A Study of American Gang Culture—Part One

Let me begin this way, by way of an admission, when I first heard about Darrent Williams, a Denver Bronco, an American footbal player, being shot, the farthest thought from my mind was that, his death was gang involved. In fact, I chastised a fellow blogger for bringing it up; and, for the record, I still would. I chastised them for it, because speculations were made before the facts were in.

Their “speculations” as they put it was “based” on athlete related violence. Maybe. Maybe not. My attitude was a wait and see. Let’s find out first what happened, then opine on what the state of athletics, and the culture that surrounds it. To recapitulate the obvious, the clichéd, hinders us, and ties us to unsubstantiated facts, and once out there can never be redacted out of existence. Their assumption, of this blogger, only indicated their own bias.

Admittedly, however, the end result of their “speculation” turned out correct, but it was not based on the normative idea, but on the multicultural assumptions, not raw data or presented facts, their assumptions were based on clichés and stereotypes—not facts. Furthermore, their “speculation” did not count or include the man, the type of man, Darrent William was, and yet to be ascertain the worthiness of praise or ridicule.

What is apparent is that Darrent Williams (dwill) was playing a dangerous game. He was trying to balance his popularity (locally) with his teammates, his fans, his coach, his old neighborhood, and his family with an outside the “normative” popular culture extreme known as “violent hip-hop.” Some call it gang-bang hip-hop; some refer to it as “keeping it real.”

Darrent Williams, ever the one trying to please everybody, with those from his own neighborhood, or former socioeconomic grouping, he was trying to remain with those in the hood. Unfortunately, for Darrent Williams, you can’t please all the people al l the time. Young male egos (whether white, yellow, black, or red) are hypersensitive—trying to prove their own value; and, often these egos become easily bruised. They are often emboldened, especially within groups, trying to prove their manhood, their machismo, their worth.

It’s not because they feel “inferior,” or “less than,” the individuals who they feel that have slighted are consider “beneath,” thus it is the attitude of superiority that belies their anger toward the person. The thought is this, “How dare you? Don’t you know who I am?” Or what I can do to you?” Their confidence is in their numbers, the group, and their family of brothers or sisters.

No Darrent Williams walked, no ran, into the piety of self-righteousness, arrogance of an attitude that believes that they are untouchable. And now, he is dead, because of a mistake by him. His own inability to say “no,” his youth, lead to his death—and always to wanting to please other had him cultivating a culture he should have walked away from. Nonetheless, I will not demonize him for it… (end part one).

photo credit by AP