Mike at TOPDOG04 got a bit annoyed at the suggestion made by Ta-Nehisi Coates that thuglife is played:
Back home in "B-Town" it was the Latin Kings, the Vice Lords, and the Gangster Disciples, putting in work 24/7. In Los Angeles, it's the Bloods and the Crips, but from what I hear it's the same story everywhere. More Crips kill Crips than Bloods kill Crips. In Chicago, as many Folks kill Folks as People kill Folks. The Spanish Cobras and Black Gangster Disciples started the Folk alliance in prison, while the Vice Lords and Latin Kings started the People. Yet, the gangs are so fragmented these days by constant police crackdowns on senior leadership that alliances and truces don't mean very much at all. Violence and chaos rule the streets and the down turn in the economy is just adding fuel to the fire. Murder rates are on the rise in cities across the nation. Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating a hands-off approach to drugs or gang violence. I'm just saying gangs are still a big problem, and one we are not even close to solving, even if some people think that gangs are relics of the past:
Tell the truth, that's not what Mr. Coates was talking about, and Mike recognizes it was the opening paragraphs that set him off on an otherwise good piece. He made a sharp left while reading it, but that's okay because I do that all the time… just read a bit of the rest of the page for proof of that. But it's also okay because in the process of presenting evidence that gangs are still a problem, Mike gives us this:
Or visit the library and check out a copy of Always Running by Luis Rodriguez:
Gangs are not alien powers. They begin as unstructured groupings, our children, who desire the same as any young person. Respect. A sense of belonging. Protection. The same thing that the YMCA, Little League or the Boy Scouts want. It wasn't any more than what I wanted as a child
Forget everything you know about gangs, and troubled kids, and Trenchcoat Mafias. This is the key. Any "solution" that doesn't have this as its central understanding will fail. Miserably.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 6/10/2003 03:11:02 PM |
