I Hope You Like Pain.

I experienced a fight that began to brew in front of my house. My family and I just stepped out the door, heading towards the van, getting ready to head towards Elk Grove to have dinner with some relatives we haven't seen in a while. To our surprise, we encountered two young guys standing in the middle of the street, eyes fixated on one another in a very intense "what you say 'bout ma' momma?" type of stare.

My family and I looked on, trying to ignore the violent screams coming from the two guys' female peers that stood behind them, who appeared to be either their sisters and/or girlfriends. As I assisted my father with lifting the detachable seat and placing it into the family minivan to accommodate for all of us as passengers, I looked up and saw that the fight had begun. The two young men were swinging at each other, but mostly just hugging and punching each other's heads. One of the fellows even got his shirt ripped, while the other simply removed it for the sake of the fight -- probably to give off a tough-guy image, even though this concept of removing clothes to fight never made sense to me. I always thought removing clothes would only remove body padding, and protection from the hard concrete they were standing and fighting on... but I digress.

With neighbors standing and watching from their driveways as my family was, the fight continued on. The two selfishly fought right in the middle of the street -- sometimes even lying and wrestling on it -- causing vehicles trying to pass come to a halt. Meanwhile, the female acquaintances continued to scream, intensifying the situation, and further provoking the two to fight. "C'mon you can take him... beat his ass!" ... "You better watch you, he gon' kill you!" ... etc. Tension only continued to rise, although the actual conflict -- the two young men fighting -- were barely putting on any kind of dangerous-looking fight. It seemed to me it was another one of those fights for attention, trying to prove to the neighborhood they're hard... or.. whatever. Besides, there's nothing more gangster than fighting in the middle of the street and stopping traffic and having your sister yell obscenities for the entire neighborhood to hear.

There came a point when the fight began to move towards my car, which was parked along the sidewalk. One of the guys pushed the other against my car, and I finally decided to step in. Suddenly it was me doing the screaming, demanding the two to "get off my car." Much to my humor, the female acquaintances from both sides began to scream, "Hey, that's his car -- get off his car!" And surely enough, the two dudes got off my car. For safety's sake of my property, I got into my car, right in the battlefield, made a U-turn, which caused the two to move out of the way, and I parked my car safely in my driveway.

Long story short, enough neighbors, including my mother, had called the police to where a cop car actually showed up within a short time and stopped the fight. As we finally drove away, heading towards the family dinner we nearly forgot about, the two young men were sitting on the sidewalk -- right in front of our house -- with police talking to them.



[End scene.]

OK. Real talk.

So yeah, it sucks that there was a fight in front of my house. Yes, of course, it bothered me. Especially when they got close to my car. C'mon dude, don't fight against my car. But what bothered me most was the aftermath discussion. It was so easy to point fingers at these neighbors simply because they were Black. "It's all because that house on the corner is being rented out to people like that." ... "It's that section 8." ... etc. I didn't even know what section 8 meant, but once I found out it was for lower income families, it made me upset how much people automatically associate "lower income" and "Black" with troublemakers. Rather than treating the situation as an individual, single-case situation, they want to blame the problem on the fact that these people were Black and coming from a background of lower income. I've always been aware of this kind of problem and ignorance, but I don't often experience it first-hand... especially in front of my own house.

And if I may bring this into the mix, tell me why that was the fastest I have ever seen police respond to anything. I've had reports of many other incidents in the past, and they always take forever. In the case of two Black males brawling in the street, the po-po arrives hella fast... coincidence?

I don't know. These incidents are just one of those things which upset me initially because of the stupidity of two people to fight over something in the middle of the street, AND have their female acquaintances be the ones provoking the fight in the first place, rather than trying to stop the conflict... and this upsets me also because of the ignorant standpoint and generalized conclusions people make over the situation -- quick to point fingers in generalized class- and race-based analyses and complaining the neighborhood is "turning ghetto" (even though it's a pretty good neighborhood), rather than considering the possibility that maybe... JUUUUST maybe... this just happened because it just happened. I mean, there's a first for everything, right?

I think I'm just blabbering at this point. But these kind of things don't happen every day. I guess there were a lot of things going thru my mind and now I'm just thinking out loud.

Sorry if none of this makes sense. I didn't proofread at all. Hahaha.

FINAL NOTE: My little sister, Leah, ran upstairs during the fight and filmed the brawl through the window. I'll be selling DVDs for $20 each. Just kidding.