Tuesday, October 28, 2008

From Bad to Worse: 1990 Strikes Again

When you start reconnecting with people from your hometown on Facebook there will eventually be a group created around your shared past.

Enter the group "I'm from Fairfield, Biatch!"

Okay, I clearly occupy a position where I think including "Biatch!" in any utterance is meant to be ironic and playful. But imagine my chagrin when I visited the group page and discovered, based on the wall posts, that they were saying it with a straight face.

This video was on the group's page. It is simultaneously laughable, horrifying, and a slice of nostalgia.

I should also say that although this thuggy element was present when I was growing up there, I was relatively insulated from it. Except the one day in Spanish when the kid behind me showed me his gun...and the other time when the Fairfield PD drew their guns on a car full of kids in the school parking lot. At lunch. With half the school flocking to see someone get shot.

But this isn't even why I refuse to join the group. (Okay, it's kind of a big part of it.) My "real" objection is to the part of the group's description that says "you have parents that say 'hella.'" PARENTS.

(btw: I *luv* that there are multiple academic studies on the origins and spread of the term)

Lemme say that at 32, I'm under no illusions that I'm old. I will add to that my complete understanding that there are those who have children at a young age, and that is also perfectly fine by me. But the part where there were enough Facebook-aged people from Fairfield who have parents who say "hella" to form an entire group around it?

That's hella weak.

3 comments:

00badness said...

Wow. I couldn't finish watching the video. Although thinking of Krissygo somewhere in that thugadocious place was somewhat amusing. Perhaps an idea for a later halloween costume.

KrissyGo! said...

re: not finishing -- I know, right?

While I don't want to minimize the gravity of those kids having guns, drugs, etc., I think what makes this laughable is at ~1:09.

Fairfield is not Da Hood by a long shot, and the neighborhood AND UPS TRUCK in the background speaks to this. That moment is probably a more accurate shot of the "real" context of this.

But yes, the rest of the video is horrifying and outweighs any fleeting glimpses of familiar places I might get in the background. (I don't claim FF as home even though I grew up there.)

Jessica said...

I felt the same way about this group - I may or may not be a member, by the way -

They are talking about a FF that I didn't know and was only just beginning when I left. My sister graduated in 96 (she was a freshman when we were seniors) and this is her FF.

Today, they have 7 armed guards on campus every day and on average 7 fights... PER DAY. When we were students it was may 5 a week. Cindy (our old swim coach) told me this this summer with sadness in her eyes.

And FF is a lot hood-ier now. FHS, in particular, is the bad school, like Sam Yeto used to be. In fact its reputation is on par or lower.

Crazy.

I remember watching a fight start between a black girl and a white girl. The black girl (and her posse of friends) was mad because the white girl was dating a black boy. When the fight started I was right there on my way to class and saw and heard everything. Once the hitting and hair pulling started the bell rang, but I stayed put (partly because I couldn't easily leave with the throng of kids pushing from behind, but I was also fascinated by it all). But when the black girl had the white girl by the ponytail and began slamming her head into the concrete I thought, "That's it! I gotta go or I'll be late to class," and I left. It's never even occurred to me, until this moment, that maybe I could have helped that girl, whoever she was.