Skateboarders’
As the title clearly states, the name of the article is ‘Half-Criminals’ or Urban Athletes’ and was written by David Langley. The article focuses on skateboarding in a unique light; a skateboarder’s insight. David Langley is a frustrated skateboarder that tries to explain to the public why the sport exists, its importance and its false image to the public so as to enable them to start a new leaf of embracing the new sport. There are several points that clearly stand out in the article due to how passionately Langley talks of them and shall be illustrated in this essay.
The first thing that clearly stands out is the public image skateboarders holds. Most view it as dangerous and an activity practised by misfits or criminals.…show more content… The writer uses his own experience with a police officer to illustrate how unfair the treatment can get. He uses an example where he questioned a particular police officer on situations that would warrant arrest of skateboarders and was shocked to find out that even though a skateboarder was complying with all the rules, the police officer would probably still arrest him/her.
Upon further elaboration, the writer clearly highlights that although there are laws specifically to guide skateboarder, they are highly restrictive, ambiguous and open to abusive application by police officers (Langley, 150). He goes on to give several examples of this including one where he and his fellow skateboard friends were harassed by a police officer while they were skateboarding on a public holiday (skateboarding on weekends and public holidays are allowed by…show more content… I was not only sympathetic but also outraged by the treatment of skateboarders all over. Aside from this, I also looked at it from the others’ point of view i.e. the police and the community. It is clear that they are afraid of what they do not know. It is a relatively new sport, whose popularity is growing, but the safety of people is still in question. If skateboarders were left to roam around without any form of regulation, would the citizens be safe? New learners do not have as much control as experienced skateboarders, is this something they take in to account? Are accidents more prone to happen (especially in densely populated areas)?
In retrospect, I also understand that change is something that takes time and cannot be forced on people. The article has helped shed some light on skateboarding and has made the readers comprehend the perspective from a skateboarder’s point of view, but change does not happen just by reading the article, it only begins there. For many years, it was believed that earth is flat, only after several years and facts did people slowly start to change their perception and believe that the earth is indeed