Not buying that one malthumb, not in this case. Like I said, I was once 17 & 18 & so were all my friends. I coached little league ages 10/12 & 13/15yrs old. I was a youth advocate & I have mentored many young brothas, just in the neighborhood. Over the past 25yrs, I have dealt with many impressionable young brothas & the 17 & 18 yr old brothas that I've dealt with, would have blew his brains out. Naw, these cats were already walking that gay tight rope. The hunter knows who to hunt.
We were all 17 or 18 at some point. And if we remember back ACCURATELY, we'll recognize that all teens are not cut from the same cloth. Go to any high school and you'll see kids ranging from the brash self assured know all I need to know type to the ones that are so impressionable that they'll believe you if you told them Viet Nam was a suburb of Chicago (witnessed that one firsthand
). And let's not play the "brothas from the hood ain't impressionable" card. There are so many 17- 18 year old brothas from the hood growing up in families with no strong and/or positive male examples in their lives that it's no wonder many of them are impressionable and accepting of attention from perceived positive male examples.
To your point, some of them may have been "walking that gay tightrope". I'm just suggesting to you why they may have been walking it.
I am not saying that Bishop Long did it or didn't do it. Until all the facts come out, only he, God, and his accusers know the truth. I am, however, not ruling it out. I also don't consider the similarity of the complaints to be a reason to reject the complaints. A prosecutor would argue that they are similar because the accused has an established pattern that has been successful and is therefore repeated.
I could argue on the side of "did it" or "didn't do it" all day long. In each case, it's the absence of facts that strengthen the argument. Until the facts truly are divulged, we can never say with certainty that we know what did or didn't happen. We can only state what we want the truth to be.
