Slavery, institutionalised racism and entrenched poverty, added to that the emergence of criminal culture as social currency. Its nothing new for depressed communities to have high levels of drug use, it happens all over the world, what doesn't tend to happen around the world is the amount of murder associated with drug dealing in the US. Its incredibly sad that poor people instead of engaging in solidarity with other poor people to improve their lives chase the capitalist lie of material wealth and egotistical status through violent crime.
I ****ing hate that here in Australia we've been making TV shows about our gang wars (nothing like the US, were talking about maybe 30 murders in 25 years) but what ***** me is that it celebrates these bastards and their violence. We're having a significant issue here with African youth crime, stealing cars, being involved in violent robberies and home invasions, for the most part it is performative violence and a lot of it is streamed online to their friends. A huge part of it is the adoption by this cohort of American rap culture and these kids wanting to belong to a sub culture that makes them feel empowered. Now these kids are disadvantaged by local standards but poverty does not exist in this country like it does in the US, but they feel empowered by referring to their neighbourhoods as the "ghetto". These public housing enclaves sit side by side with some of the most expensive real estate in the world, its hardly a ghetto if you have travelled outside of Australia and seen real poverty. The tragedy of it is that these children are committing very adult crimes and the community is rightly intolerant of it but it also plays into the hands of far right politicians who happily exploit it. Again American politics in our country.
