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Of all of my preconceptions coming into this experience, the dynamics surrounding gangs and cops have been the most surprising. What is painted, in large part thanks to the media, as a starkly black and white–metaphorically and racially–issue has turned out to contain more gray than I ever imagined. Before exploring my experiences and observations about the role of cops and gangs in da ‘hood, I’d like to first expound upon my preconceptions and the role that the media played in shaping them.
My preconceptions, formed and reinforced by the media, figure gang bangers as corrupt, imperial dictators who exert control through fear. Evil to the core, their reign is secured by bloodshed and drugs. They wear gold everything, drive low-rider Caddies with chrome spinners, and shoot random people for fun. Cops are warriors for justice, saints who struggle against such forces of evil to bring peace and justice to the streets. The confrontation is a classic conflict of good vs. evil. These portrayals are so numerous, I won’t bother to cite examples. They dominate the media landscape.
Media occasionally offers an alternative view of the police. Films like Training Day offer an image of the “corrupt cop.” Like the gangsters he deals with, he is evil to the core. Such films portray the confrontation as evil vs. evil. However, such films usually paint the corrupt cop as a lone wolf who eventually gets what he deserves.
Crash probably offers the most realistic rendering of the situation as I have experienced it. Matt Dillon’s character is a racist, sexist cop who uses and abuses the power needlessly. Nevertheless, he isn’t the incarnation of evil. He shows compassion for his unwell father, and eventually reconciles for a previous abuse of power. He’s bad but not rotten to the core. The confrontation is much more complex than good vs. evil or evil vs. evil.
However, to my knowledge, the media never portrays gang bangers in a positive light. This representation is also false in my experience. I’m not suggesting that the media portrayal be inverted (good gangsters vs. evil cops). A more accurate picture would paint the conflict of good vs. evil within each side. Both cops and gang bangers contribute to and detract from peace and justice in my neighborhood.
Finally, the nature of the violence as portrayed by the media is severely skewed. The media seems to glorify innocent victims while completely overlooking gang-on-gang violence. If a gang banger is shot, they might get a brief mention in the evening news. If an innocent child on the way home from school gets shot, they get splashed all over every major media outlet for days or even weeks. If the majority of media coverage pertains to innocent victims, one might conclude that the majority of violence is random or targets the innocent and uninvolved.
As my only significant source of information, the media greatly shaped my preconceptions of violence, gangs and the police. My subsequent experience leads me to believe that reality is much more complex than the perspective offered by Hollywood and CNN.
Amanti 
Hi Katie,
Here is one of the articles we talked about today. Read it and decide if you like the information enough to use in your paper.
Darryl
This article is extremely one sided. Civil rights activists like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have gone out of their way not to stand up for black crime victims in court, because there are so many people out there who literally hate everyone who isn’t in a “gang”. They talk about black crime victims as if they are white, and by only standing up for black people when they are defendants, they further the racist stereotype that all black people are criminals.
There’s two groups of people it seems. People who hate gang members for stupid childish reasons, but then there’s the people who worship gang members.
Yes there are some gang members who really do just want to protect their neighborhood. But gang members are still just human beings like the rest of us, so try to see things from both sides. There’s a lot of people in the neighborhood who stay awake at night with a loaded gun protecting their families, who work their asses off trying to make a better life for themselves just like those gang members do. But the gang members are the only ones who get credit for living a hard life. Of course the gang members protect their family, but that doesn’t mean that everybody in the hood who stays awake at night with that loaded gun is necessarily in a “gang” So don’t act like you have to be in a gang to be part of the struggle around here, because that present a very simplistic view of things.
I think Hollywood makes gang members and cops look cool. It sends the message that anyone who isn’t a gang member or a cop has a boring safe secure life. It puts working people who live in the inner-city and face violence on a daily basis, in the same category as privileged suburbanites, simply because those people aren’t in a “gang”.
The people who have love and respect for gang members can be just as one-sided as the people who hate all gang members for no reason. Most of the people who hate gang members are just racists or people who don’t like hip-hop music or something stupid like that. But you need to realize that some people hate gangs because they live in neighborhoods oppressed by gangs and maybe those people have lost loved ones to gang violence. Don’t assume that just because someone hates gangs means that person is a rich snob. Because gang members and cops are both more likely to beat the shit out of you for no reason when you’re walking down the street, a lot more likely than a dentist or a plumber is.
So both groups of people are going to get criticized more than dentists or plumbers get criticized. I could imagine a gang banger or a cop beating the shit out of me for no reason. Thousands of cops and thousands of gang members sometimes do do that to innocent people. But the numbers show that only one or two dentists or plumbers have ever done that. So people are going to demand answers.
I can’t stand criminal sympathizers and police brutality apologists. They are both one and the same to me. Either you are against police brutality and gang violence, or you are not, it is that simple.
Thanks for the comment. In this post I was primarily discussing my perspective of how the media portrays gangs and cops. I was trying to frame my context and understanding for some of the posts I wrote later.
I don’t worship gang members. I’m not trying to glorify them. I guess I’m confused about why you think that that was my goal. I was mostly trying to say that the situation was more nuanced than that of my preconceptions based on the media.
I do realize that some people have had terrible experiences with gangs. However, in my experience, the people who complain the most about the gang in my neighborhood are those who interact the least with them (usually middle-class folks).
I think this lack of interaction explains why they’re more likely to get the shit beat out of them. I know most of the gang members in my ‘hood. They’ve never messed with me because they know me. If the middle class were to get outta the “safety” of their homes and took the time to get to know the other people in their neighborhood, I suspect the likelihood of them getting beaten down by a gang member would drop dramatically.
This in no way condones the violent actions of the gang in my neighborhood. I am against gang violence. Unequivocally. I don’t think anything I’ve written contradicts that.
What I am saying is that gangs aren’t all bad (in the way that the media often portrays them). Our society has failed to provide basic services to my community. In the absence of these services, gangs have filled the role that our society should be playing by meeting these needs. They do other things too, which are bad; the violence that they perpetuate is harmful. But my neighborhood wouldn’t function without them.
I’m not trying to generalize my experiences to every gang and every neighborhood. I’m just talking about my own experience.
I guess it would be helpful for me to know more about the context from which you are speaking. Do/did you live in a neighborhood similar to mine?
” However, in my experience, the people who complain the most about the gang in my neighborhood are those who interact the least with them (usually middle-class folks).”
“If the middle class were to get outta the “safety” of their homes and took the time to get to know the other people in their neighborhood, I suspect the likelihood of them getting beaten down by a gang member would drop dramatically.”
Middle-class people don’t get jumped by gang members. Only poor people living in poor neighborhoods get jumped. Your painting the victims as middle-class just like all people on “your side” do. This is exactly what I was talking about in my comment. Maybe the poor people don’t complain because they’ve been forced to join or at least ally themselves with the lesser of two evils.
Your part of the problem because you automatically assumed I was middle-class. I’m not saying that to attack you or hurt your feelings but I’m telling you that so that you can change the way you talk about this subject because the way you speak your oppressing poor and homeless people who are victims of gang violence by conflating them with middle-class whiny conservative rednecks. The gang violence victims I speak up for are mostly poor people of color, and this is not the first time that someone has made this mistake so please do not apologize because your apology is not going to change the way that The minority position (by which I mean not black people but people who realize how bad police brutality is an automatically go to siding with the gangs). Everything in my comment should point out to you that I know a lot about gangs, and yet you ignore this and keep talking to me as if I am a middle-class person, an outsider, just like I said, “low income people who are not in gangs are not considered low income” and gang violence victims are often painted as middle-class. Didn’t I say that in my first comment? This is not about my feelings this is about me wanting you to stop saying bigoted things and oppressing people. Please.
I have trained myself to speak eloquently which may make me middle-class passing but I am actually a formerly homeless person who was raised in a single-parent household. People like you make me feel separate from my own people by talking to me as if I am a middle-class person whenever I bring up the subject. Talk to me as if I’m someone who’s from the same environment those gang members are, you’re still doing it you’re still talking to me as if I’m separate from them stop doing that. Did you even read my first comment? I want to hear more voices of low income people who hadn’t join gangs, not middle-class people but low income people, homeless single moms and the like, the voices of gang members should be included within the voices of low income people not taking up the entirety of it. You assume that everyone who’s not in a gang is a part of middle-class society, my first comment was exactly about the type of response that you just gave me.
People who complain about being attacked by gang members are most certainly not middle-class because middle-class people don’t get attacked by gang members. Gang violence is a problem for low income people end of. You are exactly what I’m talking about people who deny the inner-city struggle to those who are not in gangs. There is a huge separation between the middle-class you speak of and people like me who are poor and have been homeless and were raised by single parents. Please do not see my comment as an attack on you personally but I have seen this oppressive language throughout a lot of society. You basically just took someone who grew up on the East side of Cleveland and called me a spoiled little white boy, to be honest with you I want to do some gang *****right now just to prove to you that I’m from the inner-city and I’m not some whiny middle-class guy here to ranting to you but I won’t do that and holding back that rage is part of the struggle because that rage is needed to fight our common oppressors.
But don’t ever talk to a low income person like a middle-class person, because THAT is a good way to get jumped. You will respect my lower-class background and not ever conflate me with a middle-class suburban person, that’s like calling a gang member a snitch, that’s called denying the struggle and that’s exactly what I talked about in my first comment. Plenty of white gang members have no reservations about the fact that the people who they attacked are all low income, plenty of white gang members tell me I’m not part of the struggle because I’m not in a gang, even though I have been forced to commit crimes to protect my family (does that sound middle-class to you?) There is nothing middle-class about me, 90% of society looks down on all of us low income people and treats us like garbage, but then the other 10% is to obsessed with whether someone is or isn’t in a gang to show any solidarity for people of low income neighborhoods. The other 10% of society only sees the gang members struggle, the other 10% that’s you makes the mistake of thinking that gang violence is an attack on mainstream society, but it is not because the people who are attacked by gang members aren’t a part of society. The people who get caught up in this gang members or otherwise are the outcasts of society single moms and people who work late shift and working homeless people and people who society doesn’t really care about like me and my family (none of us are middle-class)
Mainstream conservative white America doesn’t care about low income people. You referring to us as middle-class shows just how little the other side cares about us. Yes if you come from a large family and your family doesn’t move around a lot when you’re young than the local gang may provide protection (does that sound like something a middle-class person would say? Talk to me like a spoiled little white boy from the suburbs one more time I dare you.)
However, gang members don’t have the resources to protect every single person who just waltzes into that neighborhood, most of those people drifters who have very rough childhoods and deal with the same problems that those gang members did in their childhoods sometimes even worse. These are not middle-class people I’m talking about there needs to be a movement of support for low income people who have been rejected by gang culture.
There needs to be a voice for dual survivors of gang violence and police brutality. You assuming that anyone who brings up the issue of gang violence must be middle-class, trust me I’ve been hearing that my whole life. It’s a systematic problem and it needs to stop and please don’t apologize personally but adopt this into what you know.
” Both cops and gang bangers contribute to and detract from peace and justice in my neighborhood.”
That’s what I would say minus the cops part. there’s a lot more good gang members than good cops. I think the cops need to be done away with entirely unless there made to wear cameras at all times, American police are horrible. In that sentence above is pretty much all I was ever trying to say.
If an innocent child on the way home from school gets shot, they get splashed all over every major media outlet for days or even weeks.”
WHOA WHOA WOAH that is a completely bigoted attack on low income people. I have never seen the TV news cover the death of a low income child for “days or even weeks” that never happens. Little kids in ghettos and trailer parks get gunned down all the time and it barely even makes the evening news. The only time the news goes on about kids going shot are those rare once in a while occurrences where kids in a school in a wealthy suburb get shot, but kids in ghettos and trailer parks get gunned down all the time and the TV news barely even covers it. I want to know where people are getting all these opinions from. For all middle-class America cares we are ALL gang members. Too bad some people in our own neighborhoods don’t see it that way. I’d like to see more self-defense and security forces for homeless people personally. Some of the gangs would probably help but not if they try to take over. I’d be willing to sacrifice my life to fight for my family and my neighborhood any day so long as it’s a neighborhood that respects my sacrifice instead of shunning me just because my family moved around a lot so we never got to be a part of the neighborhood order or anything.
I apologize if my last comment seemed ignorant I don’t want to attack anyone, but try seeing the kids getting killed as an extension of inner-city life and compared the amount they get talked about to the amount of media time wealthier kids who get killed in school shootings get talked about in the news. part of the problem is you formed your initial conceptions of gangs based on the media, and that is something that I have never done, and you also seem to have experience with middle-class society which I don’t. All of my opinions on police are based on first-hand experience living in the inner-city including white inner-city neighborhoods, it seemed as if people who would actually be willing to fight and die protecting their neighborhoods weren’t allowed to sometimes if the gang hierarchy didn’t accept them, although none of us really use the word gang it was a family, it was a family that cared for each other but they didn’t have room or resources to care for everyone in that means some of us got left out. You see things as gang members versus middle-class America, and you’re completely forgetting about all the low income (not middle-class) but all the low income people in the ghetto who aren’t in gangs but are still very much effected by gang culture.
They say the violence is never random then how come every person I who’s been homeless or lives in a poor neighborhood’s been attacked while walking down the Street and not saying a word. It’s in attack on low income people, the conservatives don’t care about anyone who lives in this neighborhood the media and mainstream white middle-class society? You think those people care about gang violence victims? Those people don’t care about gang violence victims. Those people are on the side of the police.
The police hate us and so do some gang members, when you compare people who speak out against gangs to middle-class suburbia you are demasculating those people by comparing them with a cushy lifestyle, thus why my last comment was ignorant sounding in parts. Anything you say about gangs you should be saying about all low income people and not just gangs.
You don’t have to be in a gang to be hated by middle-class society, all you have to do is be born into a single-parent household or be born into a poor neighborhood. The conversation needs to be steered away from “gangs” and toward the struggles of all low income people in general, which includes police brutality, incarceration for nonviolent offenses, victimization by violent offenses committed by other low income people, these are all things that middle-class America could never understand and low income people of all colors and creeds need to gather together, not under the banner of “gang culture” but as a low income people, and if individual gang members want to join us as individuals than that’s fine.
Thank you very much for your thoughtful response. As painful as it is to read that untrue myths for the millionth time, “gang members beating up middle-class white people” (a conservative myth that has been adopted by the left), I have respect for anyone willing to listen to me in a world where everyone else has shunned me.
My opinions about gangs I meant, were formed by living with them and in their neighborhoods and being friends with them. The worst thing you can do to a young man from an inner-city neighborhood is to compare him to a middle-class white boy, and that is why I get so angry on this subject, I just want us non-affiliates who live in low income neighborhoods to be talked about more often, these middle-class people think that gang members is all there is to the inner-city because gang members are the only people who ever get to speak for us. People like me are not a part of middle-class mainstream society and people who want to speak up for those who’ve never been spoken for should take a look at the few family members and friends I do have, scattered across in alleyways and prison cells and homeless shelters and mental institutions.
There’s nothing middle-class about me or my life, and I cannot bear any longer to see person after person conflating gang violence victims with middle-class white society, the “people who complain about being assaulted by gang members” are probably homeless people who get monthly beatings in front of their children. if there are some middle-class white folks complaining about gangs ignore them, only about 1/6 of the violence hurts a white person and it’s never a middle-class white person, the only white people affected by this are either extremely poor or homeless white people. Thank you for being so much more reasonable than anyone else has toward me on the subject nonetheless. mainstream society sees the neighborhood order as a bunch of criminals, inner-city society sees the neighborhood Order as a bunch of saviors who can do no wrong, but I just see the neighborhood Order/Family as a bunch of people in my neighborhood who protect their own kind and may or may not protect me and my family, I don’t really hate the order itself I’m just against the idea that these homeless people and these single women who keep getting attacked don’t all band together to outnumber the order, it feels sort of effeminate being told that I’m being protected by an order of other men. I guess if you were a middle-class person out in the suburbs you’d be used to that since they have the police and all, but if some corrupt cop tries to rape one of my family members I’ll be the one taking matters into my own hands not some “gang member”.
You say the neighborhood would fall apart without the Order. How do you know that another Order can’t be possible, an Order for all low income people not just a few muscular young dudes protecting a few wives/kids in their own family?
I just see gangs as a protection organization like any other and I see the prospect of putting your life on your line for your family and neighborhood as a very mundane thing that I myself am likely to do one day. Coming from the East side of Cleveland it’s just every day stuff to me. I always knew that the cops were our enemy and would never protect us and that I had to protect myself and my own family I knew that since I was a kid because that’s just a part of growing up on the East side of Cleveland. I never attributed it to “gangs” or considered myself a gang member or anything like that I just considered it a part of life. Later on I found out that middle-class people lived a much higher quality of life that I did, and so I considered myself a part of the struggle of the low income neighborhood, but I also found out that a lot of people in my neighborhood didn’t see me as a part of that struggle because I wasn’t in a “gang”. Middle-class society always shunned and rejected me but with this weird gang thing all of a sudden my own neighborhood was rejecting me at the same time. I try telling them about how I grew up in a single-parent household and had pretty much the same childhood they did but it didn’t matter to them, all that matter to them is that “those people”were protecting our neighborhood and that meant that they deserve to respect, respect that I would never get from anybody.
Respect that I would need to become the type of man you have to be to protect your family in this neighborhood. I’m no different than those gang members but since I’ve been a drifter my whole life and never had a large family I get thrown to the sidelines. When I get shot I’ll be buried in a cemetery right next to one of those gang members except I won’t have a kid first or get the respect that they had in life. maybe in your neighborhood anybody who’s low income can call themselves a part of the struggle and join the neighborhood order but on the East side of Cleveland you gotta be from then neighborhood because I don’t really think gangs even exist I think it’s just families and if you don’t have a large family and you don’t have a lot of uncles or cousins you’re pretty much screwed, like me and my family are. Sitting ducks waiting for the next false arrest/murder/false imprisonment but all talk of the inner-city struggle is centered around these mythical “gang member” people.