Wednesday, March 29, 2006
The way of the street
One of the most interesting parts of work at the shelter is when the youth forget I'm around and start talking like they would on the street. This mostly happens at reception, but it's also part of taking names at the door when the youth go into breakfast. Everyone will stand on the porch and have a smoke and forget about the clipboard-wielding staff member two feet away from them.
The other day a girl was talking about her ex-boyfriend. She'd only dumped him a couple of days previously and was telling her friends why. She didn't have to say anything - she just showed everyone the bruises, burns and bite marks all over her.
The general reaction showed some interesting things about street culture. Here are a few of them:
Vigilantism: No-one suggested going to the cops, and the girl would probably never consider it. Street youth do not trust the police, it’s as simple as that. There are various reasons for this: distrust of authority after parents and teachers have abused them or let them down; cynicism after cops have failed to protect them in the past; and hatred of policemen who have stopped them doing things they see as necessary to survive, like taking drugs, sleeping rough or stealing.
So street youth operate their own justice system, where groups of friends look out for each other. They will often wage ‘war’ on other groups when the conflict was initially just between two people. And some illegal acts are seen as more illegal than others.
Values: What acts would they be? It’s okay to do what you need to do to ‘get by’ (see above), although stealing from another street youth often causes trouble. But other things, like wife-beating in the example I used, are unacceptable. If the girl’s friends find her ex-boyfriend, they’ll beat the living daylights out of him. Other heinous crimes include rape and child molestation. One guy I knew had a rumour spread about him that he was a ‘diddler’ (child molester) and as a result a gang of youth were trying to find him to beat him up. Being a ‘diddler’ or ‘goof’ is the worst of the worst, much like it is in prison.
Drama: Pretty much everything that happens on the street is all about the drama. Conflicts escalate like wildfire because bored youth will take sides – so a one-on-one conflict will turn into gang warfare within ten minutes (see ‘vigilantism’). Gossip is rampant – a fight broke out near reception the other day and youth were still talking about it two days later. Even if nothing particularly dramatic is going on, street youth are still in drama mode because that’s all they’ve known in lives full of abuse and pain. So in order to stay in that mode, and keep things constant in their transitory lives, they’ll blow situations out of proportion. It also brings the attention many of them crave.
