Indie Artist Music Hustle

From Schoolyard Threats To Community Action

• Host and Creator: Blonde Intelligence (Ms. Roni) • Season 4 • Episode 75

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Hello, welcome this week's Blonde Intelligence. I am your host, Ms. Roni, and I always seek to give you exquisite cranial repertoire. A mother fresh out of the hospital for a sickle cell crisis is jumped by a group of kids in Chicago while walking her children home from school. That single moment forces a hard look at what happens when schools miss warning signs, families face instability, and communities struggle to balance empathy with accountability. We examine bullying, what meaningful follow-through should look like, and how prevention beats reaction when leadership uses clear protocols and data-informed tools to identify student risks before harm escalates.

We also unpack the contradictions that make this story so unsettling. Poverty and housing insecurity can amplify stress and impulsivity, yet one alleged participant is a high-achieving eighth grader with involved parents. That tension challenges easy explanations and points to the power of peers, status, and group dynamics. We talk through discipline with dignity—how to set firm boundaries without public shaming—and why consistent, proportionate consequences help kids internalize responsibility. Empathy training, restorative practices, and mentorships matter, but they must sit alongside clear rules that protect the vulnerable.

Zooming out, we share practical steps for parents, educators, and neighbors: document and escalate bullying reports, push for campus safety audits, adopt student success assessments that flag barriers early, and build community supports that keep kids engaged after school. Accountability is not the enemy of compassion; it’s the structure that allows compassion to work. If you care about school safety, youth mental health, and real solutions to bullying and group violence, this conversation offers both context and concrete actions you can take today.

If this resonates, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review with your take on what needs to change first—home, school, or policy. Your voice can help push this conversation toward solutions.

#ProtectStudentsNow #PreventBullyingWithCare #CommunityAccountability

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SPEAKER_01:

Learn about the indie artist from the indie artists.

SPEAKER_04:

I'm Shannon Key. I'm an artist. My name is Lauren, as you already said. I am a singer-songwriter. So I'm all femmes. I originally come from the Caribbean, St. Vincent, the Grenadines.

SPEAKER_03:

My name is Brian Duce. I'm an East Coast Canadian rocker.

SPEAKER_01:

And then I found myself in Las Vegas, where I'm at currently, dancing for Circuit Du Soleil with my own solos.

SPEAKER_04:

I'm a music producer. I've been producing professionally for about 14 years. I have uh worked with a couple people in the industry. Uh Gregmy nominated, Trev Rich, Isha from 702.

SPEAKER_03:

After I got my deal with Universal Music, after the Alicia Keys and Gunner Record, and many other that I've done, and then Alicia Keys was the number one adult RB song of the year.

SPEAKER_01:

I asked the question.

SPEAKER_03:

That's a great question.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's a good question.

SPEAKER_02:

Ooh, uh, that is a good question. Wow. I love all these questions. These are great. Like most of the questions that I get are like, you know, tell me about Justin Bieber.

SPEAKER_01:

Indie Artist Music Hustle is for the indie artists, their fans, industry professionals, and the music lover. Subscribe on YouTube, Facebook, or the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, or Blonde Intelligence Facebook page. Don't forget to add me to your playlist. Bye. It's been really funny, especially hoping someone across the pond. Let's go. Welcome to this week's Blonde Intelligence. I'm your host, Miss Ronnie, and I always seek to give you exquisite cranial repertoire. This week I saw a story about a lady that was walking her two children home from school, and she was attacked by a group of kids ages, I want to say eight to I would say 14 because they were like in the eighth grade. And it was so many different facets to the story. But I saw the story, and then of course, you know why I searched it on YouTube, and I looked at Lovely T and she had like a a a breakdown of things. Of course, I still had questions. But first of all, the lady had just got out the hospital because she had sick of cell anemia and she had had a crisis. So um for one thing she was disabled. I'm just gonna say that because my favorite cousin died of sick of cell, and I knew that she was in pain every day, and that she would get ulcers on her ankles, and that sometimes she would be really weak, and um she would have to go into the hospital, and it wasn't just a couple of days if she had to go into the hospital. So I can just imagine this lady just now getting out of the hospital and she's going to pick her, going to walk her kids home from school. And I'm gonna say this was in Chicago, and that she felt that she had to protect her kids by even going to the school to walk her kids home because she had reported for two years that her son was being bullied at school, and she made repeated reports, and then come to find out that there were other um another f another there was another family that was also making reports that these same group of kids were bullying. And I've said before, I used to work in child abuse and neglect, and I have a master's in counseling, and I have seen many situations, not the actual acting out where a group of kids think that it's okay to go and swing on an adult. I've seen that, but to actually stomp this lady down, this lady hadn't did anything to you, and she having to go and protect her kids, and she was like, I would never hit uh a child, I would never hit a child, you know, and I just think that it's just so many facets to it because then you find out that one of the group of kids which may answer to the fact that um there was a wider range of of of ages ranging from I would say fourth grade to eighth grade. Okay, so these had to be siblings because apparently from some of the other reports that have been reported, the mother has five children. She's 30 years old, she has five children. They were living with the grandma some kind of way, the apartment caught on fire, and the I guess the housing complex that they were living in caught on fire, and she was evicted, and that can happen because I've seen that happen before too. And so the mother is squatting illegally with the five kids, which probably explains that more than just them are squatting because the aunt came on in her own I know this is so confusing, in her own, I guess Instagram, Instagram live or whatever, first she was saying that Yeah, that was my niece, so what? Somebody got cracked or something like that, she said. And then it ended up being she don't condone violence, so she was minding her own business, but uh, cause she's not her mother when it takes a village to raise a child. But the peculiar thing that stood out in her video was that she had a coat and a hat on in the house, which could probably explain the squatting. And that she probably was living in that illegal space too, which was why they don't have any lights or heat or whatever in there in the house with coats on. I don't know what coat the little girl had on, but then you move on to another little girl that was a part of it, and I think that she was the one who threw the first leak. This little girl is in the eighth grade and is like captain of the children's squad. It was something like that that her because her mom made her put a post on Facebook. And I f I feel like that the mom was not taking accountability. She was like, She comes from a good home, she has parents who love her, and um she made the little girl say she was sorry, and the little girl was crying. And I think where the mom may have lost the audience was she said, You need to remember that this is a child. But this child was part of a group of kids that beat up a disabled mother that just got out of the hospital and her child. Okay, so let's move on. So then there was another lady who had an adult son that had autism, and they interviewed him also, and the same group of kids jumped him. And I I don't understand it. He had the same, you know, he was like, I might have some issues. He was like, but I'm a grown man, I'm not trying to fight some little kids. So I kind of feel like that if this is the case, and allegedly that these people are squatting and that these kids may be hungry, that they're possibly acting out in some kind of way. Okay, so I get that. But what I don't get is why is the captain of the cheerleading squad who has parents who take time with her, who love her, who do things with her, is acting out in the same manner. Now, I do have a master's in counseling, and I'm not saying that I know everything because one of the first rules is you never practice beyond your scope of expertise. That is for one. And when I say that I don't know everything, I don't know everything, I am not a licensed therapist. I just have a master's in counseling, and I have worked in social work, and I have ran many different programs, and I have worked with children on many different levels, and I have seen different levels of poverty, and I have seen different levels of socioeconomic statuses, and I do have an undergrad in sociology where I have studied people, but I am still going to say that I do not every know everything, and I will not practice beyond my scope of expertise. So then some of the parents came to the school to kind of like protest because they're saying that they're not gonna let their neighborhood be this, they're not gonna let their neighborhood. And I commend those parents because kids should be able to go to school in a safe environment and should be able to go and thrive and learn. And I know that a lot of decisions are made from uh test scores, uh summative, formative assessments, report cards, um those national scores or whatever. And they look at that, excuse me. But I always, and I I am not sponsored or anything by this, but ETS Student Success Navigator is an assessment that high schools can give to students before they go to college, and it identifies barriers that the student might have to achievement, and it identifies to advisors and counselors the type of enrichments that that child may need to have, or accommodations or anything, and then it has like on the school level the things that what your strengths are and what your weaknesses are, and I think that it's a really good tool, and it's really affordable, but I have seen that a lot of schools don't do it, but if they did, the college and career readiness would be great. And if you don't know, I I've worked on my PhD in leadership for higher education, and you cannot work on leadership for higher education if you do not understand secondary education and the post-secondary education and the different levels all the way up to the PhD. So I'm just looking at all of that from even just the professional standpoint of the training that I have had and the experiences that I have had to know that some things are inevitable. You know, you have to look at the the product of the environment, but then the peer pressure, and I think that in this instance here, I've said earlier, uh it takes a village to raise a child, not children. I mean, so you know, if it take a village to raise a child, what do you think that it needs to for a community? So I think this was a very sad situation. I saw the different ways that the parents handled it because then there was another parent. I, you know, one of the things that I used to work for a program for I'm gonna just say a research institution, and I led a program for the southeast region of Arkansas. And Arkansas has a high rate of child abuse and neglect. And I had 18 counties in that area, and one of the things that we taught in the program, because I'm gonna name the program, the program was called the Nurturing Parenting Program, is that you need to discipline with dignity. And discipline with dignity does not always mean that you embarrass your child. Sometimes you can talk to them, it's the depending on the child, how you do it. Some people, some parents, I think, get kind of ignorant in the way that they discipline their children. And I heard a lot of people say belt to ass. And well, belt to ass is not always needed. And I know these kids committed a violent crime because that's what it was. It was a violent crime, it was an attack on a disabled person, and that is a crime. I don't know how it's gonna be handled, but that is a crime. I will say that. But um, you discipline with dignity, and I saw that one of the parents um got on the live and was like, you know they looking for you, you know they looking for you. And the child got right back on the live and said, Well, mama, they looking for your ass too. What? So even with my own little grandbaby, she does things that you might think is cute when they first do it, but when they continue to do it, like, hey, look, let me tell you something. That is not good behavior. And good beh bad behavior has consequences. And one of the parents, I don't know if it was a parent or yeah, it was a parent because she was saying what she would do if it was her child. She's like, she's not gonna be lenient like that if it was one of hers. And I I understand that too, you know, people have different emotions about it. But she was saying that she was saying that these kids have been getting away with things and hadn't been having any consequences for it. And that's just the same thing anywhere. If there's bad behavior, there has to be consequences for bad behavior. And I don't know about in Chicago and how things are ran there, but in Arkansas, bullying is against the law. You don't bully in school, you don't cyberbully, you don't do any of that. And I think that the problem is there need to be consequences for the actions. And like I said, I don't know how I feel sorry for that that that mother with just getting out of the hospital and having sick a cell and sick a cell being so close to me. With sick or cell being so close to me, it it just I just cannot fathom these children doing it. And I know that with most of them being African American, there should be somebody in their family that they can relate to. So I know that they say that adolescents share many of the same traits as a psychopath, but the difference is the level of empathy. So I think we need to start with teaching more empathy to our children and having consequences for bad behavior and their choices. You have choices, and then there's consequences, and that's all that I have for you this week. But I really would like for you to share your thoughts on it, and I'll see you next week. Bye.

SPEAKER_00:

Hey girl, let me tell you about this podcast. Girl, everybody has a podcast these days. But this one interviews new and interesting indie artists. It's called Indie Artist Music Hustle with Blunt Intelligence. Really? Where can I find it? It's on all podcasting platforms, streams live on social media and on rptradio.com. What'd you say it was called again? It's called Indie Artist Music Hustle with Blonde Intelligence. Girl, I'm gonna have to check her out. Give it a check, girl.