I must confess there are a few reasons I stay away from blogging in English. The news doesn't help. Two weeks ago I was traumatized when reading some news in the Los Angeles Times. Three young women had been attacked for no reason, beaten up, the assailants used skateboards to better hit the women.
It was Halloween evening, these ladies were walking towards a house they could already see. The neighborhood was a nice one, white as were the young ladies, ages 19 to 21. As they started walking towards the house they passed by a few male African-American youths, who cat-called the ladies and called them names. A few steps towards the house, they were savagedly attacked by nine girls, ages 12 to 17. Hadn't it been for the kindness of an African-American motorist, these three ladies would've been dead, likely so.
The girls who attacked the young women are good students, one was about to be admitted to USC. Frankly, I was shocked beyond belief. The reason the news broke late in the process was the hate crime element. Once a hate crime is pinned to the perps, all is more complicated. This crime was considered a hate crime, second in quite a while. The other one still haunts us, here in Greater Los Angeles. It's the attack on white truck driver Reginald Dennis on the day all hell broke loose when the cops who beat Rodney King were found not guilty.
However crazy the reasoning, there is some logic to the attack Reginald Dennis suffered. Why would teen girls attack young women when these girls had a future awaiting them?
Kurt Cobain wrote, "In the darkness we're less dangerous." It seems darkness, anonymity, group behavior, all of these trigger animalesque gestures in humans. I would have never thought I would live to see "Clockwork Orange" live. I do and it's 45 minutes away from my neighborhood.
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