Foolish

My brother let his 12 year old son hang out with some of my brother's friends from his high school days. Those friends thought that it would be funny to take this 12 year old into a very bad neighborhood and take a picture of my nephew standing under a street sign in the center of this area. My brother thought the picture was funny, and posted it to Facebook. His friends all had a great time joking about it.

This neighborhood has had 11 unsolved shootings in the last week. The last one was a 17 year old kid who was shot while waiting for a bus. I told my brother that this is not wise, but he doesn't see the harm in it, and told me that I am being racist. He responded by saying that "I didn't see any shootings on the news, the neighborhood can;t be any worse than it was when I was in high school, they had to get a haircut and there is a barber shop there, and besides, it was the middle of the day."

I will let you judge for yourself. As for me, I carry a gun and I won't set foot in that neighborhood. The cops don't even go in there alone. That neighborhood used to be my first due area when I was with the fire department, and I saw more killings and attacks in that neighborhood than I care to remember. In fact, there was an episode of a cop show filmed in that neighborhood in the early 90s, and in one episode, an undercover cop was smashed in the face with a brick. The place has gotten much worse since then.