Learning words in a correctional facility....

The last few days have encompassed nothing, but working with entertaining youth. Although I am sure the youth are not at all entertained in their anger and delinquency, but I am quite amused by their langauge and shenanigins (how do you spell that?). For instance, the other day one African American called two other African American's "Thoroughbred ass niggers." How perplexing, first I thought about locking up the kid who had numerous problems that day, and second I wondered who the kid was truly insulting. Thoroughbreds are suppose to be the top horses, and as far as slang goes he is insulting his own race, so while they are thoroughbred ass niggers, that would leave him as a simple nigger, in his words......?!?!??! Hmmmmm..... awe well. Needless to say, I asked that he not use the word nigger, as I detest that word no matter who is using it, and second he had to deal with lots of blabbing in his ear about his words and actions that day.

This leads to another question.... who is being racist, the Mexican, White, or Black? Myself, a Mexican resident, and the same Black resident were discussing racism. The Black resident (also a paranoid schizophrenic) stated that Whites were holding power and it had not change since slave days, it was just that Whites were losing power and it was to their advantage to change the ways to maintain control (A conspiracy!!! in his words). Also judges were racist, the nations leaders were racist, and we just put Blacks in prison for no reason. OKAY then! The Mexican then stated that all people are selfish and any majority tries to use any common trait to loop together and prey upon the minority gaining an advantage because all people are inherently selfish. Okay............ hmmmm....... Both the Black and the Mexican then said when the population shifted and Blacks and Hispanics were the majority, the Whites were in for it because of their mistreatment of them. I went on to ask if this was addressing racism in any way shape or form, or possibly promoting it further through the lines of the conversation. The answer was a simple, White's deserve it and it is the natural course of things amongst people's selfish reasoning. Yikes!!!!!! I really hope not everyone sees it that way! I explained that the way they were speaking against racism was actually promoting it, and that there were better ways to address the issue by speaking out, etc. The Black stated that this would not work, as Abraham Lincoln was assisinated, along with Melcom X, and Martin Luther King.... hmmmm....?!!? They both stated there disagreements with my appropriate suggestions to deal with racism stating it would always be a factor in life, and sticking to their theories. I then explained that their thoeries promoted racism, and if they persisted I would lock them up, hence forth the conversation ended.