The lack of gay male role models and consistent bullying has brought young gays together in a not-so-great way... A gay gang:
To hear the leader of Check It tell it, there may be some truth to both.
“I just got tired of people beating on me and calling me faggie,” Tayron Bennett, 21, told me recently. He’d helped to organize Check It while a student at Hine Junior High School. Other gay youths from his Trinidad neighborhood in Northeast soon joined, followed by gay youths from throughout the city.
D.C. police estimate that Check It has a core membership of about 20 and counts between 50 and 100 others as “associates.”I really hope someone reach out to them fast. The bullying and abuse has pushed these youths to take matters into their own hands and that could be dangerous. I don't want this gay gang notion to cost them their lives.
“At first, I tried fighting bullies one-on-one, but they don’t fight fair; they fight two and three on one,” Bennett said. So the youths got together and “started carrying mace, knives, brass knuckles and stun guns, and if somebody messed with one of us then all of us would gang up on them.”
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2 comments:
I live in Washington, D.C. Trinidad is one of the roughest neighborhoods in D.C. The drug dealing and crime was so bad a few years ago police set up a roadblock and would only let residents in an out.
I don't condone violence but these kids feel they have to protect themselves. I wish the authorities -- and more importantly parents -- kept their kids in control.
But that is not the reality we are living with. These kids are doing the best they can with what they have and know.
Yeah, I know it's not pretty. And by retaliating with violence they could escalate the situation.
Still, I understand where they are coming from.
You got to do what you got to do.
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