As you all have noticed the "CV thug" is increasingly becoming a taxing specter of the CV community in New England. Media outlets, particularly the print ones, focus on this character and pretend that it is an emblematic figure of the CV community. But it is not. A more careful analysis as to what factors and circumstances produce the "CV thug" need to be examined. The reasons given and explained by the culturally incompetent and unperceptive reporters of Boston Globe, Herald, and other New England print media outlets are needless to say not comprehensive.

We, the members of the Cape Verdean community, know our community's elements, the good and the bad, better than any outside reporter. The "cv thug" is not an product of the Cape Verdean community but a product of Boston and by extension and definition the American glamorization of violence and its precarious inner city education system.

Types of "CV thugs"

The "cv thug" youth might come fresh off the boat from the old country, Cabo Verde, or he may have been born in Boston, New Bedford, Providence or anywhere where there are Cape Verdean enclaves. These hypothetical CV youths, especially the foreign born type, is likely not to be in-sink with the latest youth culture, particularly black youth culture's fashion and lingo, so he's often ridiculed for his "un-cool" clothes and broken english by other "home-grown" black and hispanic kids. He hates being ostracized for his foreign manners, so he uncritically yearns to equal and surpass even the coolest (read: 'hardest') kid in the block in manners, action and speech.

Enter the shootings

To a young impressionable CV mind, without strong family support, being "cool" is synonymous with approximating the dressing, speech and mannerisms of inner city black and Hispanic youths who more often than not devalue education and feminize intellectualism - a start contrast with the bona fide culture of CVs. Bona Fide CVs have a strong yearning and respect for education.

The more intelligent CV youths who have strong family support keep their eyes on the prize, that is, they know that their goal is to do well in school, go to college, graduate with honors and make a good living for their families. But nevertheless, as the pressure from the street youth culture is so strong, more often than not, a Cape Verdean youth from Boston is more likely to end up emulating the pathological elements and traits of his environment that glamourize violence, promiscuity and perceive going to jails and prison as a badge of honor and street credibility in the "hood". A case in point would be the ultra baggy and hanging pants' style, a style that emanate straight from prison.

In short, the CV youth becomes a reflection of his blithe poverty-ridden environment. Thus the hard-working ethos of the CV culture which highly values education and hard work becomes less important to the troubled CV youth than the values of the young black and Hispanic culture, otherwise known as Hip-Hop.

the reasons for youth to behave like thugs

1. social pressure from media, tv, radio, cinema...

2.social class, the poors are more likely to be targeted by the "thugs"-violence-media

3. Origins, in america and elsewhere around the atlantic, those who have african origins are more likely to be poors.

4. Teenagers don't know who they are and are very influencable, so they are the main target.

5. Someone wins with this? (who?)

you might all be blind, why do you think that this problem is linked to ethnicity or origins. This debate is irrelevent to capeverdean-ethnicity. The root of this problem is social class and "american bling-bling values".

maica,

you are missing some pieces of the puzzle. It is not just the young cv-americans who are influenced by the black and hispanic under-classes --the hip-hop culture. Almost 100% of the west european working class youths are influenced by the hip-hop culture. In france or in the united kingdom, young blacks, whites or arabs are influenced by hip-hop culture.

If you take into account what is happening in europe, your theories fall apart. This is a global phenomenon more linked to "social classes" than ethnicity. Some young cvs follow the "thug culture" because they are from the working-class and ethnicity is irrelevant in this phenomenon.

I don't like what you tell, especially "the absence of reachable role models". Do you think that whites can't be role models for the other communities. I have a lot of role models who are from a lot of different origins "Bill clinton, will smith,Bill gates, Gandi, Mandela, Zidane or Jordan"

I'm very aware that the Hip Hop cultural influence is global. But for the time being my analysis is about the American context only. Europe just seems so far and irrelavant to me right now.
Now, about your not liking the "reachable role models" comment, that just shows how little your grasp of racial politics is.
You see, Mr. portugues preto, in America, role models who don't resemble the people they wish to impact have very little effect. Their racial and/or cultural otherness more often than not renders them ineffective. That's why black and hispanic role models are extremely important, because they're "reachable".

the american context is the same than the european, the fact is that the main reason for being influenced by the thug culture is "social-class" and not ethnicity.

The young cv who are influenced by the thug culture are influenced because they belong to the "working class", the only link with the origins, is that in america and elsewhere, if you have african origins them you are on at the bottom of the society...the "working class".

I guess that having bill gates as a role model is difficult because he is unreachable for 99% of the americans. I have bill gates has a role model and I have never seen him, meet him or tried to be in touch with him. That's the same for Mandela.
So why don't you want to have role models other than afro-americans and latinos...That's maybe the reason why there is this thug culture...you have to identify with whoever does things right