When you’re a Jet
Over the last two days the T&G has been covering the non-event of the summer, a minor scuffle after a Telegram & Gazette Summer Basketball League game. I’m having a real hard time parsing what exactly happened which could help explain the response; either something isn’t being reported or a huge deal is being made of nothing. From the articles it sounds like the two teams involved, Doherty and South High, broke into a pushing match after a game Wed night. But the key quote from the director of the league, Khrys King “King said no one got hurt and police weren’t called” seems to conflict with the title of the first story “Games suspended after brawl”. It’s like Worcesters view of gang violence has been shaped by the kind of gang that snaps their fingers in unison and sings show-tunes, is this really what we’re scared of as a society? I don’t mean to play down the potential of escalating violence. I, like many people in Worcester have lost friends to stupidity. But at some point we have to acknowledge the ineffectiveness of ‘zero tolerance’ policies where determining actual, from perceived, threats is concerned.
I’ve been out of HS for some 13 or so years now and the last real memory from my Doherty experience is of 15 good friends getting their asses handed to them by what was essentially every other student at the school. Now that was a brawl. Most of my buddies eyes were swollen shut for weeks from the pummeling. That was 1994, atop Newton Hill at a keg party. No cops came, I don’t even think we woke up the neighbors that night. And there were not many lasting grudges from the fight, because that’s what testosterone fueled adolescent males do best; beat the snot out of each other and quickly get over it. Although that particular night stands out, an entire school population trying to bludgeon you will leave a mark, fights like that were a weekly occurrence. We used to travel to other communities to raid parties and settle petty scores originating from football games, girlfriends or terrible taste in music. It’s what we did for fun. So it’s not like it is new phenomenon, then or now. Is it possible for anyone over 30 who went to HS in Worcester to not remember the interscholastic riots that used to occur after nearly ever football game at Folly Stadium? Like clockwork, cats used to stream down to the old Iandoli Supermarket parking lot on Chandler street where all on field beefs were settled. And who can forget weekend nights at Tatnuck Sq? After barrels at Logan field or Airport hill, that McDonalds parking lot used to be a war zone. Cars would get trashed, fights were a constant, kegs were polished off in the open; good times. But there was an obvious difference between the shit we used to pull and what’s being written off as gang violence today; we were all upper middle class white kids whose parents were cops, firefighters and educators. Good Irish Catholic boys and girls who could be lighting kittens a blaze on the weekends and still do no wrong in the eyes of our parents who were the grease in the city cogs.
It would be a gross oversimplification to say these kids are catching the hammer because of race, but I challenge anyone to argue parts of Worcesters provincial class structure dont allow for some to be categorized as criminals as their peers get labeled future leaders; while both are essentially following an identical path. It always seems like the obvious and reasonable fix to handle problems with a heavy hand in the name of law and order. But if the playing field isn’t level, all that’s really happening is the creation of a criminal class. Worcester doesn’t need that. And if the response to this little brush up is any indication, we certainly are not prepared handle it.
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I picked up th epaperr that day fully expecting to read about a melee that would make Ron Artest proud, only to end up re-reading just to figure out exactly what didn’t happen.
Now I’m starting suspect that the supposed 60 kid brawl at Burncoat last year was probably involved only 4 kids with 56 raucus ruberneckers egging them on.
Speaking of which, shit like what you described happened at at Burncoat back then too, including lots of fights in the school itself (to this day, some of the worst I’ve ever seen), the GBV Posse of marauding junior high kids (I almost fell victim to ‘em at a bus stop) not to mention a student who was actually stabbed to death at South in 89′ which started the whole no jacket/bags policy and expulsions for weapons posessions, etc. but with what seemd like an appropraite level of concern, or lack thereof.
But aside from racism, I’ll add that it could also be post-Columbine hysteria reagrding violence, fear of litigation, or that or more of the same my kid-does-no-wrong attitude you described that’s to blame. Everything I’ve read about gen y-er- or whatever the fuck they’re being called- describes them as the most coddled, precious generation ever, so it wouldn’t surprise me if a skirmish like this would be so overblown.
You know who’s really to blame? Tom Bergeron. That bastard sold out and left Rap Around to host America’s Funniest Home Videos, and now the kids just don’t have the same guidance and understanding that we received.
Fuck you, Tom Bergeron.