THE BRIDGE: Gangs and Street Power, Part 1
By Darryl James
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*Say the word "gang" to nearly anyone in America today, and visions of groups of violent young Black men will be conjured up. Racism? Perhaps. But undoubtedly, the marketing of the urban lifestyle via rap music has given the face of gangs an ebony hue.

Some of the crews and gangs in Urban America were also young and Latin. Yet, thanks to Gangsta Rap, America still merges the idea of gangs and gangsters with Black youth. In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, while gangs in New York City morphed into graffiti crews and rhyme posses, the music went straight to the streets when it hit the West Coast, and the content was mostly about the avocation of gangsters and the gangster mentality.

Many of the rap artists who represent the lifestyle in their music have more than likely never been gangsters. Haha Loco, a professed Crip gangster from 357 (named for the weapon of choice), a sect called Pomona Sin-Town, on the West Side of Pomona, California, says that the marketing of rap music has painted an unrealistic portrait of life on the streets.

"We don't just ride down the street and shoot people sitting on the bus stop," he says. "It has happened, but it was blown out of proportion. It might not be a gang member who shot someone or who got shot--it could be completely unrelated.

Let's make it clear before we get too far: Blacks did not invent gangs. And, no matter how much we love Tupac, the word thug is older than he, his parents or even his grandparents.

The word thug was found in India as early as 1200 AD, referring to a gang of criminals plundering villages across the countryside. What was their motivation? Money and power, of course.

And when we think of the gangster lifestyle, it too has been around for a very long time. In fact, the most popular aspect of gang activity ascribed to modern urban gangs--the driveby--was popularized in Chicago during the heyday of Al Capone.

For Capone and his gang, control of the streets meant controlling the cash and power that flowed from illegal alcohol during Prohibition. The use of weapons such as the machine gun allowed them to keep an upper hand on the community and a level hand with law enforcement.

In fact, law enforcement as we know it today came into existence to combat crime and to abate the street power of gangs. In every corner of the world, where there are gangs, there are police and some say their interaction isn’t always based on friction.

Haha Loco also illustrates that there is a very thin line between the street gangs and what Tupac Shakur labeled as a legal gang--the police. Sometimes, he says, the police create gang friction and/or even participate in street crime to their benefit and to the detriment of the gangs.

"That's why the gangs will always take an opportunity to strike back at law enforcement, whether it's through rioting or whatever," says Haha.

Throughout history, the gang lifestyle has revolved around grouping up to obtain power.

On the high seas, for example, pirates terrorized sea-faring travelers, robbing them of precious cargo, including jewels and valuable metals.

In the Wild, Wild, West, Jesse James and his gang reigned terror through towns both small and large as they robbed banks to become powerful outlaws--the stuff of which legends were made.

By the time the West was calming down at the turn of the twentieth century, gangs began roaming the streets of big cities, including New York City. These gangs were Irish and even Jewish, but were eclipsed by Italian gangs such as the Five Points Gang--extensions of the Sicilian Mafia--which included the notorious Lucky Luciano and Al Capone, who later moved to Chicago and into gangster infamy.

Throughout the first half of the century, new immigrants and existing ethnic groups were forming gangs in depressed urban areas.

During the 1940's and 1950's, Asian and Hispanic gangs were emerging on the West Coast, and the powerful Latin Kings and Vice Lords were founded in Chicago.

And while the Civil Rights Movement of the late 1950's and 1960's was moving between Dr. King's nonviolent movement and Malcolm X's message of empowerment, the streets were forming factions of an entirely different type.

Black gangs called the Savage Skulls formed in New York, while in Chicago, the Black Gangster Disciples and the Blackstone Rangers moved through the streets.

Black gangs began to take on new forms, but their existence certainly wasn't new.

Following slavery, when Blacks were shuttled from free labor to cheap labor in burgeoning towns, their housing would be confined to one area of each city, usually the south side. When street commerce ran through the Black community, it did so with the assistance of gangs and gangsters—white, Black and otherwise.

From bootleg alcohol to the numbers game and from marijuana to heroin, gangs have existed in one form or another, surrounding the street commerce of the day. Gangs also served as the catch-all for the bottom of society, as well as a form of mentoring for fatherless sons--role models for strength when there was no strength in the family. The pecking order of a gang provides strength and power for the person on top in each segment, whether divided by Block or neighborhood.

Gangs were already strong within the Black community in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, but when crack cocaine and high-powered automatic weaponry hit the streets, the game was officially changed. These two symbols of power (crack = cash and guns = strength) became the order of the day.

Loco, who entered the game as a teenager and spent nearly ten years behind bars because of it, got into the game because of the money and the power.

"It's a powerful movement," he said. "The gang life allowed me to get out and make money and drive cars even when I wasn't supposed to be driving. But it's also how I ended up in prison--I got caught with kilos of crack and had to do time. I was about the money, but the violence and the territory came with it.”

Because the game was elevated, gangs began to operate like businesses in many ways. Some even began to franchise.

Go West, Young Gangster

Perhaps the most powerful national street gang, The Bloods, stems from a gang founded in Chicago in the 1960s, the Blackstone Rangers, a.k.a. The Black P Stone Rangers, a.k.a. The Black P Stone Nation (BPSN). By the time crack cocaine became an urban street staple, The BPSN was spreading westward.

And, outside of Chicago, the most notorious location for gangs has been Los Angeles, a city many people think of synonymously with The Bloods as well as The Crips, a gang founded in the 1970s by Raymond Washington and the late Nobel Prize Nominee Stanley "Tookie" Williams.

The Crips were the dominant street gang in Los Angeles until the late 1970s/early 1980s when smaller gangs such as the LA Brims came together under the title Black P Stone Bloods.

During the 1980s, the Crips and the Bloods formed national networks, fueled by crack cocaine sales, which some say were even connected to Central American gangs. There were specific aspects of the gang lifestyle that remained consistent from city to city, including the money and the power, but also, according to the self-professed Crip Gangster from Pomona, California, Haha Loco--the respect.

Respect is everything," he says. "You have to keep your respect and hold on to it. You can't take any crap from anybody."

Two years ago, Haha saw the pursuit of respect in the game come too close for comfort. He and his twenty-nine year-old brother-in-law were at a party when a fight broke out. His brother-in-law stopped the fight and one of the youngsters fighting pulled out a gun and shot him dead.

"That's how it is," says Loco. "The youngsters are trying to get respect, so they can become OGs. You're fortunate if you make it past twenty-five."

But, contrary to popular myths, there are many like Haha Loco, who find a way out of gang life.

"I've been living it out for twenty years, but I've become a father and a husband and I'm working now," he says. "The story of my life isn't what I'm doing now, it's what I lived through. I'm not worried about the streets coming back to claim me, because you have to get yourself right spiritually. You learn to fear God and you fear no man."

Loco knew that he had to change, especially when he saw the changes in the laws surrounding street commerce. Those changes in laws included the stiffer sentences garnered from crack cocaine as opposed to equal amounts of the less potent version of cocaine.

And, California's "Three Strikes" laws allowed judges to send repeat offenders to prison for life after their third felony, no matter how minor the final offense.

"I knew I had to change," he says, "because based on the laws, people are getting the same time a murderer would get, just for dealing in the drug game. I had to learn the game all over again and re-socialize."

Haha transferred his game to rhyming, reversing the trend of Rappers claiming to be gangsters. Haha is a gangster who is now a Rapper.

"Whatever I say is indisputable, because the streets will vouch for me," he says. "They know Haha's an OG from 357."

"I've got over thirty dead homies over the years," he says. "I've done over ten years in lockup. I know people from every gang--Watts, Compton, LA, and Pasadena. Hoover Crips, East Coast Crips, Main Street, Nutty Block Compton, Sin-Town, Bounty Hunter Watts, 97 Gangsters, 190's--they all know me."

The crime rates across the nation began to fall sharply by the mid-1990s, but gang activity continues to rise--curiously in suburban areas more than urban areas.

The popularity given to gangs by rap music, according to Haha Loco, has lead to an unrealistic view of gang life.

"To me, rap music exploited what the gangs were doing," says Haha. "I see it as a lot of guys trying to step up as if they did dirt, but the real guys are doing time in penitentiaries somewhere. It made the people who had nothing to do with the lifestyle more aware of the power in the streets.

"I won't take away from them, but when it comes time to show what is being said, they will move away from it. Gangsterism is marketing."

And the overblown marketing of gang life has lead many citizens to harden their view of even the most reformed gangsters, including Stanley "Tookie" Williams, founder of the infamous LA gang, the Crips, who turned humanitarian while behind bars, denouncing gang violence, helping to turn lives around.

Even though Williams contributed greatly to society, some pressed vehemently for his death, citing the violence wreaked by gangs, tacitly ignoring the peace he brought after being jailed.

"He changed his life around," says Loco. "That man was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Is that (The Death Penalty) how you reward a person who turned his life around? He spent more than twenty years locked up, but he did more good in there than many people out here."

Even behind bars, Tookie Williams remained about the power. The power he focused on was the power to change lives and to save lives, steering youth away from the hazards of gang life.

Once in--for life--gang life is about the power. But it is not about some of the things that people publicize-being forced to join, for example.

"You can be born into it, but one thing that is a myth is that people are forced into it," explains Haha. "If you don't want to be in my gang, why would we make you get in and tell you all of our secrets?"

Haha also explains that the first step to being in a gang is rebellion. Adolescents begin to turn their attention away from homework and chores to money and girls. Parents have to be careful of the messages they send their children.

"As a parent, you have to think about your kids," he says. "You can't gang bang and then raise your kids in the same hood and think they won't follow you. I have sons who watch me, but they also watch me go to work. They also play the video game True Crime: Streets of LA and they hear my music."

No matter how many rap videos proclaim to expose the "real" inside view to gangs and gang life, the reality is that no criminal in his right mind with real power would dare expose current activity for which he could be prosecuted.

Power is not always visible with a quick observation. Sometimes, true power moves through the streets as an unseen hand.

Next Week: "The Facts & Faces of Gangs."

Darryl James is an award-winning author who is now a filmmaker. His first mini-movie, "Crack," was released in March of this year. James' latest book, "Bridging The Black Gender Gap," is the basis of his lectures and seminars. Previous installments of this column can now be viewed at www.bridgecolumn.com. James can be reached at djames@theblackgendergap.com.