Final Research Paper

Cory Malolepszy

Comp 106

11-17-09

Violence in Straight Edge?

It seems like everywhere you look in today’s world, you see some form of violence. Violence is in movies, videos games, television, and in your everyday life just walking down the street. In the United States especially, violence seems to be almost everywhere. This violence even finds its way into groups or cultures that seem to be preaching a good and positive lifestyle. An example of this is violence involved with the “straight edge” lifestyle or culture in America. People would seem to think that people involved with straight edge would be calm, laid back, and not being hostile. But this belief is now quickly becoming irrelevant with straight edge in our country today.

If you are not aware of what straight edge exactly is, here is a synopsis of what it is and what people involved in it stand for. Straight edge is lifestyle that started in the hardcore punk rock scene in which they do not drink alcohol, use any type of tobacco product, or take any recreational drugs. The actual term “straight edge” spawned from the 1980s hardcore punk rock band “Minor Threat” and their song “Straight Edge”. (straightedge.com) In a time where almost every band around preached sex, drugs, and rock and roll, Minor Threat went against the social norm and sang about what they believed in. They point-blank called out the people who were singing about sex and drugs and told them they were wasting their lives away.

Since the 1980s straight edge has been evolving and ever-changing rather quickly. It has been classified into three eras of “edge”. The so-called “old school” era, which started on the east coast of the U.S., consisted of straight edge punk bands playing local shows along with non straight edge punk bands. The symbol of X representing straight edge came from these local shows that punk bands were playing. Before you could enter the venue, you had to get your hands marked with X’s to show that you were not old enough to drink there. This eventually evolved to be the worldwide symbol of straight edge and to show you are proud to be “edge”. In the mid 1980s the two “scenes” of edge and non edge separated, leading to them playing completely separate shows. A movement of straight edge began when the edge bands started playing alone. This movement was called the “Youth Crew” stemming from the band “Youth of Today” which associated vegetarianism with it. This band sang about the protection of animals and promotion of the straight edge movement. In the 1990s the era of straight edge deeply involved the “militant” edge type of person. This type of straight edge person is very dedicated and outspoken for what they believe in. They are also very narrow-minded, judgmental, and sometimes even violent against non straight edge people. During this time, some television programs did documentaries about how this militant straight edge was a type of gang and showed the violent acts that they committed nationwide. This was definitely a low time for people involved in the straight edge scene. (straightedgelifestyle.moonfruit.com)

After the reports of militant or so-called gang straight edge were being shown on television, there was a substantial decrease in acts of violence by straight edge gangs. It did not completely go away though. Violence in straight edge is still rather evident today in the form of something called a “crew”. A crew is an organization of people who are involved with straight edge creating a sort of brotherin towards each other. Some people think that a crew is a gang involving mischievous acts and violence. After interviewing a member of a straight edge crew, they do not like to be called a gang and think of themselves highly. Usually crews form from a bunch of friends who are straight edge and decide they want to form a crew to make them stronger as a person. Another reason for the formation of crews is if somebody is lonely or needs some support in their life.

In the downriver area of Michigan where I live I have been hearing recently about crews and the violence that they cause. Some stories that I have heard involve two straight edge bands meeting behind a concert venue to fight each other, vandalism to another crew’s house, and two rival crews brawling in the streets. These incidents are just a small portion of violence in straight edge just in the downriver area. When I heard of these events I was very shocked. I did not know that the straight edge youth were doing these types of things. My belief was that edge kids were very calm and just went about their way, but these events made me think of why they would do these things and what was the root of all this violence in straight edge?

I thought that the perfect way to find the root of all of this violence was to spend a night with a local straight edge crew using interviews, conversation, and observation to find what I am looking for. So, the next step that I took was to talk to my sister Michelle and see if she could set talk to her friends in a local crew and set up a time when I could hang out with them. She got back to me saying that I could on Friday of the upcoming weekend. I did not have very much time to prepare for this which made me very nervous for the upcoming gathering. But as the time came, I became prepared and readied myself for my night with a straight edge crew.

When the night came, we decided to meet at a crew member’s house in Trenton, Michigan. My first impression of these straight edge kids was that they were pretty engaging, nice, and overall cool people. The name of their crew is very secretive, but I still found out that it was called “Family Comes First” or FCF. This meaning comes from the idea that all of them in the crew are “family” and they will all stick together no matter what. I thought this was a very interesting name that they chose. It is rather extreme to me, but I still respect what they stand for. When I asked what they had planned for the night, they said “nothing much”. I was sort of bummed, but I knew we wouldn’t be just sitting there in the house the whole night.

After awhile of talking and getting to know each other, we then went to the local Denny’s to grab a bite to eat. They did not hold anything back while conversing with each other even with me being there. A couple of the bigger kids seemed to be more hostile, talking about how they didn’t like certain people and that they were going to have a talk with them. I was not used to this type of talk which made me a little uncomfortable. This group of kids mentioned a rival crew a couple of times. They talked about prior confrontations with them and how they went down. These kids seemed to disagree with how their rival crew ran things and they were not true “edge” kids. I thought this was very interesting because I thought all straight edge kids were the same. This was definitely not true which made me wonder who actually the “true” straight edge crew was. After Denny’s, we went to a show at the Modern Exchange in Southgate. This was the smallest show I’ve been to with a total of maybe 40 people. After being there for only one band, we left and went back to the house. I asked them some general questions about straight edge and what they thought about it. What I found was that they wanted to be the best crew there is, with nobody competing with them for supremacy. I left their house at around 1 o’clock in the morning and back home. On the way home I realized how much I learned from this straight edge crew.

What I concluded from my night with the FCF straight edge crew was that it was a matter of ego and dislike for other crews that fueled this violence. I thought before that they were all the same, but apparently some run things differently and some others might not agree with that. This violence within straight edge that I have been curious about has overall been sparked by competition, dislike, and ego.

Works Cited

Web. 17 Nov. 2009.

Straight Edge Lifestyle. Web. 17 Nov. 2009.

"Straightedge: What Every Parent (and everyone else) Should Know —." Idaho Falls Today! Web. 17 Nov. 2009. .

"Exploring the two sides of the 'straight edge' movement - The Boston Globe." Boston.com. Web. 17Nov. 2009..

"Straight Edge FAQ." Toefur straight edge. Web. 17 Nov. 2009. .
Posted by coryjbd at 1:08 PM

Survey Results and Reflection

After looking at the results of my survey, I found a couple of interesting parts of it. I was really surprised at the perecentage of people who actually know what straight edge is. I did not think that people would know about it. Another thing I saw was the amount of people who said that they knew people that used drugs. I did not think that they would even answer that particular question, but the findings did help me out.

Survey link

Click Here to take survey

Interview Photos

Jessica Walters, on a porch in Wyandotte outside of the coffee shop.

As she is thinking of what to reply, Jessica looks out on the city.

This is a photo of Downtown Wyandotte, Michigan. Wyandotte is one of the downriver centers for straight edge.

Second Life

The name "Second Life" gives people the ability to do things that they sometimes cannot do in real life. People that have a really busy and sort of "boring" life can log into Second Life and be able to do basically whatever they want. They can also talk to anybody on there and be free to say what they please. I think this gives some people a release from their normal lives,

Reflection of Summary Revison

After reading and reviewing my academic article summaries for that last time, I made some minor revisions. Looking at each sentence I noticed that some of the words that I used did not make sense in that context. While I was writing these article summaries, the words seemed to make sense and go along well but after reviewing them they do not fit in well in some spots. I tried to go through and look at better ways I could phrase some things and I did change some sentences. The problem that I have with writing papers is that while I am writing them everything sounds good, but then I look at what I wrote and it does not look right. If I do not go through my own writing thouroghly, my paper will be subpar. Sometimes what I think in my mind does not come out how I want on paper. Some other changes, or additions I made to my paper were in-text citations where there was a quote or paraphrase from a certain article. I also added the MLA works cited at the bottom to professionally cite what articles I used. These revisions should overall help my paper.

Academic Article Summaries
In the past year of my life I have felt the need to change my major from pre-business to psychology. After a year of two business classes, I am feeling that pre-business is not the major for me. Even though I have not gotten around to changing my major yet, my plan is to change my major to psychology during the semester break in December. The reason I am changing my major to psychology is that it is more of an interesting and not as straightforward in the aspect of having to do the same type of thing every day as in business. So instead of summarizing articles on business, I will summarize three articles on psychology. These articles will look at if students can reengage themselves in school, the subject of false memories, and emotional intelligence and the effect of mental disorders on it.
The first article that I found interesting is about vocational education and if it can help disengaged students in their schooling. The author’s suggests that maybe the use of vocational education can help students who do not want to be in school or are having a hard time in school. They say that it can give students in high school a “clean slate”, or giving them a fresh start in school with a new outlook for their own futures. To find out if this hypothesis is true, the authors used propensity score models in their experiments which make sure of an unbiased result. In their experiments they looked at eighth to twelfth graders and how vocational education affected their effort, participation, interest, sense of belonging, and career aspirations. In prior studies of vocational education and its effect have shown that it has risen the levels of interest, concentration, and effort in students. After a longitudinal test, which monitors students over time from the eighth grade to the twelfth grade, it has shown that vocational education reduces students’ ability to expand their academic abilities by it limiting their use of tougher academic courses to help them pursue a successful career. It also says that investment in vocational courses decreases overall expectations and aspirations. They conclude that vocational education starts the trend of a “downward spiral” of school engagement.
After that surprising conclusion to the prior article, I found an article on “false memories” and why our memory system can fail to remember some events or why we sometimes remember something that did not even occur. This article is aiming to explain why our memory system can fail us, sometimes in a rather dramatic way. One aspect that the authors touch on is that our memory runs on inferences such as biases, stereotypes, and expectations that shape our memory system. But with our memory system using these as a blueprint, they say that our memory is bound to fail occasionally. As in the title of this article, they ask “What the hell are false memories for?” Their belief is that false memories have no functionality but they are a product of a very flexible memory system that can lead us to believe something that never really happened. The authors of this article come to see that our memories are for the most part very accurate and serve us well, but sometimes they can fail and can serve us with a sort of fantasy based on inferences which sometimes can be good or bad.
The final article that seemed very interesting to be is about emotional intelligence and how it is affected by mental disorders. Emotional intelligence describes the ability, capacity, or skill to identify and manage one’s emotions. The hypothesis of this experiment was that emotional intelligence would be hindered and not well-developed of somebody that had a mental disorder such as major depressive disorder, substance abuse disorder, and borderline personality disorder. The experiment that they conducted used patients that had these prior disorders and a control group that were classified perfectly normal with no mental disorders. The people with the disorders were broken down into three groups which were depression disorders, personality disorders, and substance abuse disorders. Each group then were administered a test which were a combination of surveys and tests involving emotions with pictures, designs, and landscapes. After comparing all of the results of the experiment, they found that all the subjects with a type of disorder scored lower on their overall emotional intelligence score. They also came to the conclusion that their ability to understand emotional information was impaired.
I believe that I learned great amount after reading these three academic articles. The results of these experiments were rather surprising to me. If I want to succeed in the field of psychology, these studies are something that I will probably have to participate in. Reading these articles and accessing them has made me more interested and helps confirm my switch from pre-business to psychology as my major.