Stop Snitchin’ – Part 1
On Sunday, ’60 Minutes’ featured a report on how the hip-hop culture’s ‘Stop Snitchin’ campaign has played a huge role in the amount a unsolved murder cases in the country. One of the interviewees to speak with reporter Anderson Cooper was Cam’ron – who if you don’t remember, was shot at a nightclub in Washington D.C in 2005 and refused to cooperate with the police to find the shooter.
Cam’ron explained his reasoning for not snitchin’ was a violation of his ‘code of ethics’. This would also serve as a reason for others in Hip Hop and the Black community seeing as being a ‘snitch’ makes one look like a sell out, could damage their street cred, or they can possibly become another unsolved murder case.
Part 2
What do you all think about this report and ‘snitching’? Is it morally right to tell if you see a murder, or is it better to just mind your own business and protect yourself these days?
3 Points to Make…
#1. Police offers who work the “hood” are sometimes just as corrupt as the thugs or better yet working with the thugs. Stop snitching didn’t come out of thin air, black people have never trusted the police.
#2. Maybe of Police Officers treated people in the “inner city” with more respect and became partners in the community they could build trust ant get more information. There are many neighborhoods where these police/community policing models have worked, but they take open minds on both sides.
#3. I know hip hop is out of control, but it did not single handely create all the problems in the black community. It’s only 30 years old. Don’t forget the good old days when police officers where hosing children down with water hoses and turning dogs loose on black men and woman!
#4. I’m gonna have to ask the mainstream media to stop using wack ass rappers as the voice of hip hop. This is getting out of hand.
#5. Cameron’s and ass. Hands down, a pink boa wearing ass.
^ *oops 5 points
176. chante said:
first of all this is not a true perception or representation of my people.
>>>>>>> Find another name, that’s not funny.
I actually used to work with an older BLACK man whose son was murdered by Jeffery Domer (I think I spelled it right) years ago. So Cam’s logic about not snitching on a serial killer (or any killer) for that matter is WHACK!!! You cannot tell me if he knew someone that murdered a family member of his that he wouldn’t tell. But I can also see it from the other side. My brother was murdered in 2002. The only reason his killer turned himself in was because he was in fear for his life on the streets. He decided he’d rather be in prison than suffer the “street justice” that he was SO QUICK to deal out. Go figure…..
P.S. He got 20 but I’m sure he’ll serve 10 or less.
It’s strange how no one mentioned how Whites committed many acts of terror (cross burning, fire bombs, lynching, random killings) against Blacks, in Mobs mind you, yet NONE of them snitched on each other! Did anyone from these mobs tell on the others or did they give witness accounts to police? Now how is it that the “Stop/No Snitching” philosophy is the Hip Hop or the Black Community’s fault? History tells me otherwise!
And I want to give my personal story:
I’ve witnessed 3 horrible events. I had no intentions of running to some cops to tell what I witnessed. Why? Because it’s possible that I may be sent to an early grave or my family and close friends may be next just to send me a message. Why doesn’t anyone understand that this is two fold?
And before someone mentions the Witness Protection program, I know 3 people (a mother and her kids) who got killed while in it!
Please don’t forget that the witnesses have much more on their shoulders than you can imagine. In one hand, you want that person off the streets but in the other, you want your life. These are the options you have and I’m pretty sure, you will choose your life over death!
Honestyl, I don’t understand why people still continue to say that snitchin is the right thing to do. I guess people who have no real understanding of how the streets work would have that opinion. Let’s say that you do snitch on somebody that did something criminal towards you and that person gets sentenced.You’re probably thinking that its the end of that story but i promise you its not. Because more than likely the criminal’s friends and family will come after you and everybody you love because they wanna see you hurtin in these streets. It aint no love out here. You basically gotta look out for yo’self and yo family cuz the next person is just waitin on the opportunity to come up in these streets. And no, you dont have to be from harlem to understand that shit. Shit, thats every hood in america that it happens. And as far as closure goes, life goes on, snitchin won’t bring that person back. Hell you liable to wind up dead wit em.
on Wednesday, April 25, 2007 @ 6:42 am
187. allicat87 said:
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Honestyl, I don’t understand why people still continue to say that snitchin is the right thing to do. I guess people who have no real understanding of how the streets work would have that opinion. Let’s say that you do snitch on somebody that did something criminal towards you and that person gets sentenced.You’re probably thinking that its the end of that story but i promise you its not. Because more than likely the criminal’s friends and family will come after you and everybody you love because they wanna see you hurtin in these streets. It aint no love out here. You basically gotta look out for yo’self and yo family cuz the next person is just waitin on the opportunity to come up in these streets. And no, you dont have to be from harlem to understand that shit. Shit, thats every hood in america that it happens. And as far as closure goes, life goes on, snitchin won’t bring that person back. Hell you liable to wind up dead wit em.
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Bill Said:
They don’t understand….
People live in their own little fog, and they think that once they report something to the police, the Police is going to insure their safety…
People are very naive about the police..The Police are just looking to close cases, and make sure the statitics look good on paper, so they will continue to have a job…….
* Crime DOES pay….Law Enforcement & Encarceration (The Prison Industry) is a Billion dollar Industry.
Well, I’ve read a few of the comments. I can understand all of your views. But all I can say is unless you’ve had it happen to you (i.e. a family member murdered), it’s hard to understand and empathize. I don’t understand how helping your fellow man (not the police, but your fellow man….) turned into snitching.
Hopefully some of you see that no one (government, other races, etc.) cares if we govern ourselves and kill each other off. WE have to be the ones to decide that it’s time for change…….
I’m sure the KKK is jumping for joy about this one. I’m sure conversations in the celebration are going like this, “Damn not only do they kill one another for us but they also let the killers stay out on the streets to possibly kill again!”. Why must we as a people with the most dominant gene pool continue to make fools of ourselves?!? The closest thing we have had to a revolution or change (revolution is too loaded a word for some) in our thought process as a community was sparked by a crazy old white man (Imus) with way too much power and way too little intellegence. Why is it that we don’t demand respect proactively (or before people like Imus think it’s cool to degrade women and falsely patronize black people)?!? I have been seeing fools in ATL wearing those “Stop Snitchin” and “Sntiches Get Stitches” T-shirts since 2004 and have yet to make sense of it. Half of the fools that buy into this kinda thing don’t even involve themselves in anything worth snitching on they are just hype men, P.R. agents, and flunkies for ignorance movements that are continually destroying our community from the core!
http://www.harvestinstitute.org
@bill
you’re right, many of us don’t understand. the root thing I don’t understand is all this mention of “the streets” as if it’s some mystical place. you know what – the shytty neighborhood I grew up in has a lot of these “rule” people are talking about. But When you walk over to the next “street” the rules change. I’m not disrepecting the position of the person who keeps his/her mouth shut for fear of the lives or their loved ones but what I am saying is that black people need to realize/ rememeber that the world is bigger than the block you live on. All this don’t snitch stuff isn’t helping us. They don’t even have to try to confine us to the ghetto – we do it. then we kill each other. and not only do we forgo the justice system. we don’t police our own either.
I’m sorry, but White America and those boogie black folks who lived in suburbia all their lives don’t know what it’s like to lose a family member or a friend after they chose to cooperate with the cops, and while they were SUPPOSED to be under witness protectiion. I’m from New Orleans, and a lesson learned EARLY is to see and don’t see. Almost every person who chose to “snitch” was killed. Of course we want to help fight crime, but unless law enforcement comes up with a foolproof way to protect those who wish to help them, no one will come forward to testify in court. I mean, why lose YOUR life over someone who don’t give a damn about you anyway?
I JUST DON’T GET IT! solving murders is now a bad thing??? These “gangstas” need to check their morals, what would Cam’ron say if his family was murdered and someone who had information to put the criminal away decided not to snitch! i’m sure he would be singing a diffrent tune. I do not expect that this will go anywhere. PS. I think it is absolutely hillarious that Tysen Beckford is promoting this because he is a back up dancer who lost his “street credit” A long time ago!
PROMOTE PEACE!
Stop snitchin nigga. 50 cent he a snitch bitch. he aint gangsta these gunit niggaz frontin hard. STOP SNITCHING NIGGA. STOP LYING NIGGA. G G G G G UNOT