Walter Tore
New member
Today I ended up breaking up a fight between 2 black teenagers at the high school I work at. The school I work at is extremely impoverished and this fight was a real deal dangerous one. Unfortunately I was the only adult in the area for a good 3 minutes. I did what I could to seperate them but one boy was hell bent on death. My martial art training came in very handy. Much like my blues mentorships with the greats come back on me in new ways, so did my instructors lessong come back to me today. Realizing neither were going to stop without serious physical intervention, I backed off and let them fight until more staff showed up. If I put the aggressor down, I would have had to hurt him. He was so high on adrenialen that is all that is would have stopped him. That would land me in a mess of trouble and to be honest, I just didn't want to risk getting hurt myself. Backing off is something that is not my first reaction in these scenes and my macho was seriously challenged. My instructor of 25 years training really came through. That movie crap where you go in and macho them down with physical power is not what the arts are really about. I have broken up too many fights over the years and this was a first for me. Up to now I have macho man physically taken them down and to be honest, felt real good about it. Today I started to do this and felt shame and backed off. There were about 50 other black girls and boys watching, screaming, and it was on the verge of going full tilt riot and my gut told me taking one down seriously hard could set off a whole lot more hurt. Instead I spent my energy descalating/dispersing the crowd until help arrived. It was hard for me to ignore the fight because the one boy had enough and the other was a kid that has spent most of his life in jail had that primative, kill, attack mode going. Luckily no one got seriously hurt. the sadness of the whole thing overwhelmed me. These boys pains were right out front and center. The hopelessness of their lives permiated me as we locked eyes during the confrontation. The one is in jail, the other suspended, and the whole thing summarized the hopelessness of poverty. I immediately went in my studio and recorded this song about it. I feel better but still am very sad. Working in poverty everyday wears on you, especially when this comes up. Walter
here is the song
02 Track 2.mp3 - 12.85MB
here is the song
02 Track 2.mp3 - 12.85MB