the hood

One of the most interesting cultural discoveries I've made is that the village is more than a little gangsta.  The high school boys wear baggy clothes, crooked baseball caps, flashy sneakers, gold chains, I've actually heard teachers in the school hallways saying, "Hey, no gang signs in school," the works.  Wait, one exception--their pants generally ride above their buttocks rather than below; perhaps they're a little behind the times.

Joking aside, I don't know quite what to make of this.  It would seem that similar social and economic phenomena couple with the ever-increasing availability of popular media to cause these kids to identify with the culture and behavior of 'inner city' youth.  In both cases, life shows little promise of exit from a rather bleak and directionless world.  What is there to do?  Where is there to go?  What's the point?  I don't know what the suicide rate is like in our big cities, but in this village of 800 I know there were at least four or five last year.

Visibly, superficially, life here could hardly be more different from life in the city.  From the nation's highest population density to its lowest; from the omnipresent press of humanity in every direction to being able to look beyond the edge of town and see not a single sign of human endeavor in any direction; from the interminable roar of cars, buses, subways, to the distant, echoing whine of snowmobiles.  The lifestyle here would be unimaginably foreign to a kid from the projects.  And yet, deep down, I get the sense that their experience of life must be profoundly similar.