‘Violence Is the Crisis of My Generation’ : Sadly, young people know just what to do when gunfire erupts.

I was milling around outside the Petersen Automotive Museum with friends after attending a music industry party on March 9--the same party that rapper Biggie Smalls attended before being shot to death as he left. The party broke up around 12:30 a.m. when they turned the lights on and everybody started exiting. My friends and I and a few hundred other people stood around in the street greeting people who we had not seen inside, saying goodbye to those who we had when I heard, “Oh [expletive]--they’re shooting!” I screamed and my friends and I instantly grabbed each other and ran for safety.

When telling this story to someone, I casually commented, “We knew the drill.”

She asked, “What drill?”

“You know, what to do when people start shooting.”

“You talk about this like it happens often.”

Well, I wouldn’t say often, but it has happened enough for me to know that the threat of violence is a very real part of my life. I know that it couldn’t have always been like this, but it’s what I grew up with.

Where I grew up, I would hear gunshots and helicopters overhead at least a few times a week. But I thought that was because I lived in the ‘hood of East Oakland. I have since learned that the violence of my era is beyond ‘hood perimeters. I know that anywhere that I choose to hang out, there may be a problem. The Roxbury, UCLA, the Petersen Automotive Museum, Crenshaw Strip, anywhere.

As student body president of my high school, I lobbied the administration to allow us to have a dance. They finally gave in. It was held across the street from a police station and we still had to have rent-a-cops present. The ironic part is that my school peers and I were Catholic school girls; my daddy sent me out of the ghetto to escape the violence. Yet I have many memories that blur together of dancing, then hearing, “They’re shooting outside,” then running to the car and wondering “Are my friends OK?” The shootings became so commonplace that I began planning ahead, “If anything breaks out--let’s meet at the car.” I got so disgusted that I stopped going to parties unless I knew exactly who was throwing it and if there was security. My friends and I were lucky; we were always on the perimeters of the violence and never caught in the crossfire.

When I graduated and went to UCLA, little changed. My sophomore year, a girl was shot in the neck while in line to get into a football game after-party. My ex-boyfriend and his friends had a gun pulled on them at a gas station and were asked “What set are you from?” Another ex-boyfriend began carrying a gun in his car. As an elected [student representative], I lobbied the administration to allow hip hop dances on campus. They gave in, but we had to have one security guard or police officer per every 25 people, metal detectors and frisking at the door.

Although for every example mentioned above, I could tell a dozen peaceful stories, the fact that someone my age, 22, has this many war stories to tell is pathetic. And I consider myself to be relatively removed from the problem. I live in a safe neighborhood; I’m employed; I’m female. By my community’s standards, my life is cozy, comfortable and peaceful--with the exception of a shooting here and there.

Violence is not just a class issue or a people of color problem. In addition to being economic, racial, moral, psychological and everything else--it’s a crisis of my generation. Violence is a public health epidemic that threatens an entire generation.

So when Biggie got shot, I wasn’t shocked at all. I wasn’t panicked or even scared. I knew how to run and where to hide. In elementary school, we had all these earthquake drills that taught us to “duck and cover,” but shooting drills would have been more practical because the faults of this society shake things up more often than the natural faults of the Earth.