My yf has really been feeling his oats as a 14 year old. He made a few Christian sounding statements when I first met him about a year ago, but since then he's become anti-religious, at least on his myspace information page. He listens to 'screamo' metal music with lots of blood and skulls in the lyrics and art. Recently he decided to back a friend up in a pre-arranged fight where both groups of teens involved, though mostly non-black, were taking sides as either "Bloods" or "Crips." They were insulting each other in fluent Los Angeles gangsta-ese even though we live over a day's drive from the closest plausible inner city. As far as I know, we don't have real Bloods or Crips here.

He's a sweet kid and I could see him trying to do some peacemaking as this brawl was being arranged. Luckily one of his black friends told him he wasn't really a gangsta and that seemed to have some effect. After he and his friend were knocked around and robbed by the other guys, he eventually decided not to go for a revenge match and made peace, though at first he was gung ho to fight on.

I am not very parental with my YF but I gave him lots of counsel through this series of events til he finally asked me to stop talking about it. When he made peace, though, he seemed happy to hear me say I was proud of him.

Is anyone else involved with a kid who's struggling in the midst of all these negative cultural forces? What are you doing about it?