Gangstalicious!

Al Baker and Joel Stonington from the New York Times argues that the definition of a gang has changed dramatically in the past fifty years.  They reason that you can see this through watching movies and musicals. They say that previously gangs were just a group of friends that were typically the same race, lived in the same area, and were either black or Hispanic. At first, gangs were just a group of guys that hung out.  They use movies like The Westside Story to prove their point.  They may have had a few squabbles here and there, but nothing real serious.  Now-a-days, the “gangs” have a connotation of being prominently black guys with some Hispanics that do drugs and shoot people.

My knowledge on the subject is that gang violence is in the media quite a bit. There are gangs here in the Fort Smith area. They are mostly Crips and Bloods. According to Steve Nawojczyk, a national gang and violence expert, the Crips and Bloods originated in Los Angeles, California. So why are they here in Arkansas? Well no one really knows why the spread of gangs came to the Arkansas area. They all have their own rules and regulations as to how they run things.  Since it’s really not a safe thing for me to go into detail on how they do certain things, I’m not going into them. Another thing that all gangs have is a gang sign. Typically gangs will show their gang signs when they want to intimidate someone or when they come across members of other gangs. Also gangs tend to have a specific symbol and color(s) that you can identify them with. For instance, Crips represent, aka “rep”, the color blue, while Bloods rep the color red.

For a while now, one of my many nicknames has been cripple-gangsta-ninja. People call me “gangsta” because I where “black” people shoes like Baby Phats and Pastries.  I also talk and hold myself in a “ghetto” way.  I pretty much let everyone know what I think; I don’t want to sound rude or anything, but I am opinionated.  I’m from the “hood” of G-wood, otherwise known as Greenwood, Arkansas.  Some say that no one from G-wood can be ghetto/gangsta, but once you’ve met me you understand.  People say this about Greenwood because Greenwood is supposedly racist; therefore, there are hardly any blacks there.

I agree that the media typically has its view on every subject matter.  However, its view of gangs is too stereotypical.  Not everyone that is in a gang is black or Hispanic.  Around here especially, there are more white people in gangs than the other two put together.  I personally know members of both, the Crips and the Bloods, along with members of other smaller gangs here in Fort Smith, and they are all white.  One of the most infamous gangsters is a man named Jesse James. Perhaps you have heard of him? He was the leader of the James-Younger Gang.  They were a group of men that robbed trains, carriages, and banks.  They were a band of brothers so to speak and they stuck to the end together. Well that is until Jesse James starting killing members off, then Robert “Bob” Ford took initiative and killed Jesse James. The people in the area had mixed emotions about his death. Some liked him, others didn’t. But every gang member has their own reasons for joining a gang.

They are not in a gang for territorial reasons; instead it’s more about peer pressure. Most people that join a gang, in this day and age, are because their friends or family members are or were a part of that gang.  Pride for that gang has been instilled in them a lot of time from birth.  The pride is similar to that of a legacy in a fraternity.  People often times join a certain fraternity because their father was in the fraternity.  The same occurs when a father is in a certain gang; their son takes his place when he gets old enough to.

Steve Nawojczyk has this to say about why people join gangs, “Many kids who gravitate to gangs do so out of a need to belong to something and for the power that is gained from being in a gang…I believe, however, that the need for attention and the desire to obtain material goods are fast becoming the motivations driving youngsters to these groups (Street Gang Dynamics)”. Other sociologists and some gang members have also identified some other reasons which include:  identity, recognition, belonging, money, love, and discipline. Whatever the reason, the point is that gang violence is not glamorous contrary to what most people believe. Steve has another website Motivated Proformance that has more information about himself as well as gang violence.

People die every day from gang violence.  Just the other day I heard on the radio that there was a shooting at a mall over in Oklahoma that killed one man and wounding another.  Most people think that gangs can’t affect them. Well what if you and your family just happened to be at that mall.  So you may not have gotten shot, but do you really think that it didn’t affect you, or your kids? No, of course not. The point of the matter is gang violence is in the media, and it doesn’t always portray it as it really is.

--Jesse Watson