Cameras first captured pockets of scattering teenagers in the streets of downtown Phoenix around 5 p.m. Within 30 minutes, news helicopters streamed in live pictures of Phoenix police officers using pepper spray to control the unruly crowds. Soon after, network stations replayed disturbing video images of black youth fighting amongst each other.
This is not what Martin Luther King Jr. envisioned.
Outbursts of violent activity between quarreling adolescents marred Monday's Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration in Margaret T. Hance Park near Central Avenue and McDowell Road. What was supposed to be a symbolic day of remembrance for the greatest civil rights leader of all time turned into a disgraceful display of confounded youth.
The parking lot of an Osco Drug store flooded with young men and women hastily departing. Verbal conflicts quickly evolved into physical confrontation as the crowd started waging destruction.
One video clip shows six teens running down the street after one unlucky young man in a white T-shirt. The fleeing boy doesn't run fast enough to distance himself from the pack, and he is tackled to the pavement, his head striking the concrete. For unknown reasons, he is promptly introduced to the hard soles of six pairs of Nike and Adidas basketball shoes. Luckily, the victim escapes the chaos without serious injury.
Maybe it's because they aren't yet men that the attackers didn't have the courage to fight like men. Yet men weren't the only ones who lost their cool on Monday. Cameras also captured young women embattled with flailing fists and fingernail claws. Several of the girls attacked one another without hesitation. One image displays a girl no older than 18 dragging another woman down the sidewalk by her hair.
These images of misguided youth blur King's dream of a unified society. Many of these youth lost their way in the midst of the chaos. Many had already lost it through the glorification of amoral rap stars who use violence as a mechanism of appeal.
But it's not just the rappers -- it's the overpaid athletes doped up on steroids, the lack of socially unifying leaders and the system of government that continues to alienate the youth.
It's not particularly anything, but it's everything.
"This happens every time people get together," said Bobby Kitchen, 18, in an interview with The Arizona Republic. "It makes me sad sometimes, but it happens every year so we just get used to it."
The problem is that we are used to it. The issues like the display of sophomoric behavior at Margaret T. Hance Park aren't only the physical violence, they are also that the fighters don't suffer remorse for their actions and innocent bystanders are complacent to see it happen again and again.
The problem is some of us have forgotten how to act respectfully. Through King's teachings, we can remember how to behave with respect and open our minds.
The problem may be, though, that we've forgotten how to remember King.
Ty Thompson is a journalism sophomore. Reach him at tyler.w.thompson@asu.edu.
