Karma.

"You think you're so gangsta!"
"Oh my dayz, no waaaay. Seriously, you've gotta understand, der's gangstaz and der's people dat say der gangsta. People dat say der gangsta are like rappers and film stars but it's not true cos real gangstaz spend most of der time in prison. I haven't spent any time in prison and I'm already eleven, so how could I be a gangsta?"

This erudite analysis came from J, a podgy son of a Congolese immigrant who is in my Enterprise class. (I teach one class of Enterprise for four lessons a week. It's a skills-based subject, mainly ICT and group-work, which is fun to do since preparation required for it is minimal and the class of Year 7s are lovely.) If only all the kids took such a mature and sensible approach to "being a gangsta". Despite his analysis, J was wearing his New Era hat backwards, a new hoodie and trying hard to look really hard and menacing towards people who caught his eye as he waited for the bus home, me included, until he recognised me and broke into an involuntary grin and awkwardly started playing with his hat. Then his self-possession returned and he cooly informed his mate while jerking his thumb over his shoulder in my direction, that I was his Enterprise teacher and I was "safe". Sweet. Dat gangsta'z got my back den....

There was a lot of furore recently (it still resurfaces in the British press every now and again) about "hoodies". Playing on our fears of Deatheaters, Old Father Time, highwaymen and ewoks we are told to beware of these hooded yobs who are there to terrorise us and make life a misery. I'm sure that there's an element of truth in a lot of the stuff that's been spouted about young people in the course of the 'hoodies'-debate (if you can call it that), but it doesn't interest me. What I do find interesting is how much the media furore then bounces back to affect the very kids that it's talking about. Commentators try to extrapolate some sort of truth about young people. Their truth is filtered and distilled by the media to form headlines and soundbites; it is picked up on by politicians and TV presenters, generalised until it's meaningless and then fed back to those same young people through daytime television and stories in the Metro. The very same young people then start to think that they really are "hooded menaces" - they have been given an identity, albeit a negative one, and revel in a sort of 'everybody hates us, we don't care' mentality. Exactly the same problem has arisen with the extensive coverage of knife crime among young people. Someone gets stabbed, the media springs into overdrive, young people watch TV and start to think that every other young person out there is carrying a weapon and therefore make sure to go and arm themselves. It reminds me of that bit in the Matrix when Neo met the Oracle:

Oracle: I'd ask you to sit down, but, you're not going to anyway. And don't worry about the vase.
Neo: What vase?
[Neo turns to look for a vase, and as he does, he knocks over a vase of flowers, which shatters on the floor]
Oracle: That vase.
Neo: I'm sorry...
Oracle: I said don't worry about it. I'll get one of my kids to fix it.
Neo: How did you know?
Oracle: Ohh, what's really going to bake your noodle later on is, would you still have broken it if I hadn't said anything?