What's Andy Cooking?

Violence in school

Just a little while ago, Mark and I were walking across campus when our conversation was interrupted by loud rap coming from a shiny, olive-green, low-rider El Camino. This brought me to ponder the question: Why hasn't the tension that exists between the students of this campus and the local community ever erupted into violence?

For example: I was riding the bus to work on Saturday, and a large group of UPS students (Freshmen by their appearance) got on at the same stop as me heading downtown. One of them didn't have exact change, so the driver told him to forget it and let him ride the bus without paying. This angered an old lady sitting near me on the bus, who proceeded to tell me about it since I was obviously not a part of their group. In her raspy, cancerous voice, she spent the whole ride repeating things like, "Damn private school brats. If they have parents in high enough social circles to be going to that school, you think they'd have learned their damn manners. They should be ashamed. I hope you're embarassed by that. Like they can't afford five damn quarters."

But I digress. My point is that I've sometimes found a strong sense of resentment from the local population. There's also sometimes a strong disdain for the uneducated 'T-Locs' as we're called here on campus.

So why haven't these two sides broken down and started some brawls? There's opportunity for it: I've been to more than a few parties that local high schoolers have crashed; anytime I go down to E-9 for a drink, I invariably find a near fifty/fifty split of locals and students. Now, I'm not saying that I wish that old lady would have brought the ruckus to those 'punk kids,' old women fights, while quite entertaining, are not necessarily rowdy fights. I mean, real brawls spilling out onto streets or wrecking the shit out of some kids basement. There's the motive and the means, all I want to see is some action so I can choose sides and kick some ass!