I grew up in an urban environment. My parents both worked. We lived in a small apartment and luxuries were non existent. My mother watched every penny spent carefully.
On Saturdays, it was my job to grocery shop..wheeling a cart we owned to the local store. Under no circumstance was I allowed to buy anything that was not on the list. Occasionally, to my annoyance, my Mother would do the tally and find I had been given too much change. No matter my plans, I had to...first...go back and return the extra money. My Mother’s fear was that the cashier would have to make up that amount if the register did not balance. My Mother always made sure I understood why I had to make that second trip.
But more than that, her family pride was in our honesty not in a few extra dollars gained, never in material things. Oddly, because we did not care about material things beyond what we could afford, we never felt “poor.” And we knew our family was considered one of honesty and integrity...so we were very proud of ourselves. We carried that reputation like we were kings and queens.
Many of these Facebook accounts in these cases show a very different set of values today. The only thing that makes anyone admired or “important” is material things, luxury goods, getting money. These accused killers did not have a set of values out of the norm.
Reading across the social media of their friends shows a pressure to attain material things. Honesty comes free, but it’s of little value. These might be wonderful young men and women but they want to impress each other with gang signs, guns, sexual exploits, etc. I find this sad because my background would not be much different from theirs economically, but the value system has sadly no similarity anymore.
