gangs

Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion

admin — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

At times, I could almost hear my heart breaking as I read Tattoos on the Heart by Father Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit priest who works with hardened gang members in Los Angeles and assists with reintegrating them back into society through his organization Homeboy Industries. Boyle founded Homeboy Industries to provide encouragement and support in the form of jobs and vocational training to former gang members who have expressed a desire to rehabilitate themselves.

Not only did my heart break more than once while reading Tattoos on the Heart, I found myself inspired by Boyle’s recounting of his experiences during the past twenty years in the barrios of East L.A. What kept this book from being flat out disheartening in terms of the obstacles that Boyle and the gang members are up against (Boyle has officiated at the funerals of hundreds of children, adolescents, and adults over the years as a result of gang violence) is Boyle’s sense of humor and faith that glimmers in the stories that he tells. His stories reminded me of homilies strung together to create a beautiful testimony to faith and humanity amongst tragedy and despair.

Boyle is also well schooled in the street language of his homies, which adds even more reality and credibility to his retelling of events. This is a priest who used to ride around on his bike to some of the most dangerous parts of L.A. at all times of the day or night to tend to his flock. Boyle doesn’t share these stories as a means to laud his bravery or piety, but to tell the stories of lost generations of individuals who find themselves in a seemingly unbroken cycle of violence, and to remind us of their humanity. Many of these former gang members were abused by parents or left to raise themselves with no resources or role models. Boyle writes of taking some of his homies to a sit down restaurant for the first time and how these normal day-to-day experiences that we take for granted are as foreign to them as riding a spaceship. Boyle also tells of the death threats he has received as a result of his work from people who don’t believe gang members can or should be rehabilitated.

According to the text, there are:

1,100 gangs encompassing 85,000 members in Los Angeles County, and Boyle Heights had the highest concentration of gang activity in the city. Since Father Greg—also known affectionately as G-dog—started Homeboy Industries more than twenty years ago, it has served members of more than half the gangs in Los Angeles.

I laughed and cried while reading this book. Boyle has a master’s degree in English and has received numerous awards, including the California Peace Prize. He sprinkles quotes of famous spiritual leaders of all faiths throughout his text, including Mother Theresa and Thich Nhat Hanh, the Buddhist monk, poet and peace activist. While I found this book painful to read at times, I also found it to be transformative.

Written by: Gita Tewari, July 16th 2010

Brick City

admin — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 17:01:00 +0000

Directed by Marc Levin, Mark Benjamin

Sundance Channel

In Brick City, Sundance Channel’s five-part documentary series about life in Newark, NJ circa 2008, the camera crew follows Cory Booker, a mayor who is passionate about making a difference in the crime beleaguered city. Along with the mayor, directors Marc Levin and Mark Benjamin (and producer Forest Whitaker) also zoom in on the efforts of community activists, Central High School Principal Ras Baraka, the Newark police department, and even two gang members who have fallen in love and work to help make their community a better place: Jada (a Blood) and Creep (a Crip).

Often compared in feel and tone with HBO’s The Wire, Brick City has the same type of honest, gritty immediacy. Booker, a highly charismatic mayor with a focus on healing the city, even though the tanked economy has made his dream of lowering the crime rate even more arduous, never seems at a loss for new ideas or words of encouragement for those with flagging spirits.

In the first episode, “Summer is Ours,” we learn that Newark is leading the nation in terms of homicide reduction. The mayor and police chief work together to devise systems and programs to thwart the traditional spike in crime during the months of July and August. Meanwhile, new mom, gang member and community counselor Jada is a study in contrasts, especially in her relationship with a rival gang member named Creep.

As a viewer (and reviewer), I found myself put off by these two and felt bad for their child. The language is rough and the fact that they’re still active gang members felt morally precarious. But, as the filming went along, I understood their experiences speak directly to gang members and that is why Jada’s counseling, in particular, is more effective coming from her authentic streetwise point of view. Still, when she and Creep find out they are expecting a new baby, I didn’t exactly feel their joy.

In the second episode, called “Struggle,” Jada finds herself in jail and Creep has to take care of the kids, the Mayor is facing some pretty grim budget issues, Governor Corzine teams up with Booker to create a new state program that will help ex-cons find jobs, and (yay, good news!) the crime rate is not rising as expected. However, the strain on Jada and Creep is beginning to tear apart the fabric of their relationship.

Brick City first ran on the Sundance Channel in September 2009, so most likely there will be reruns. If you can catch it, check it out—especially for the unflinching, inside look at how Newark's community activists work hard to balance their turbulent personal lives while reaching out to help make a difference to others.

Written by: Cheryl Reeves, December 27th 2009

Perfect Chemistry

admin — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:01:00 +0000

By Simone Elkeles

Walker & Company

I can pinpoint exactly where I fell for the charms of Simone Elkeles’ Perfect Chemistry due to the disappearance of my “reflective” notes in the margins: Chapter eleven. Page sixty-seven. The initial sixty-seven pages were rather laborious, as my first reaction was that it was going to be another predictable American teen novel and—to an extent—it was. Boy meets girl at school. They both proclaim their hatred for one another. Boy makes a bet to woo said girl. They both fall in love. Remind you of 10 Things I Hate About You, anyone?

It does, however, prove to be a perfect formula for a story line Take one test tube, add a dose of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight to a teaspoon of Romeo and Juliet, and you have an explosive plot.

The story deals with the cultural differences between high school teen Brittany Ellis, the perfect blonde cheerleader, and her chemistry classmate Alex Fuentes, a Mexican gang leader from the other side of town. Despite initial appearances, they both realize their appearances are merely façades, and aim to break the stereotyping molds they’ve been forced into. They then realize that, despite their initial reservations, they have more in common than they thought.

At times the plot delves into the ridiculous, and the dialogue and events can seem a bit tacky, but yet I still loved it and literally devoured the book in hours. Touching on themes of disabilities, racism and teenage insecurities, Elkeles’ narrative has more depth to it than at first glance. However, with crude language and gang violence, it’s a story for older teens (so it’s not quite in the slushy league of Twilight...) that adults can dip into without feeling guilty.

Perfect Chemistry displays a modern kind of feminism, whereby the main female protagonist enters a journey of realization and transition, as highlighted by the steady and gradual control she takes over her own life—concerning both her relationships with friends and the way in which she respects her own body.

Written by: Emily Ray, October 29th 2009

Gangs in Garden City: How Immigration, Segregation, and Youth Violence Are Changing America

admin — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:32:00 +0000

By Sarah Garland

Nation Books

As sprawl becomes less environmentally acceptable, foreclosures soar, and media trumpet the end of the suburban dream, the suburbs or at least some of them, have emerged as a problem, rather than as a solution. Although the house prices in the true islands of affluence have fallen, crime, drugs, and gangs are emerging in suburban neighborhoods abandoned to working-class and immigrant people. Sarah Garland provides an in-depth analysis of how the Long Island suburb of Hempstead decayed in her book, Gangs in Garden City. She also explores how interconnected the decay of Hempstead and other such communities is to other critical issues such as foreign policy, the war on drugs, immigration, and No Child Left Behind.

However, front and center are the stories of individuals, from gang members to police to educators. We meet Julio, the child soldier of the U.S.-funded Salvadoran army, who braves the perilous border crossing to join his mother in the United States. His attempts to ameliorate the gang problem in Hempstead are rebuffed by authorities and he ends up detained by immigration authorities and eventually agrees to be deported back to El Salvador, where his gang associations still haunt his life. Jessica will especially engage feminist readers. A tough tomboy, who still wants a frilly dress for her fifteenth birthday celebration, she faces fatal retribution when she runs afoul of gang politics.

Garland tracks the gangs of the title from Central America and back, but avoids the facile explanation that views the source of the problem as coming from elsewhere. She traces the ideology of suburbia back to the garden city of the book title, a concept that grew out of the distaste for the slums created by industrialization and urbanization, a flawed ideal of a contained community safe from the outside world. Once a rural village, Hempstead transformed into a suburb in the 1940s and, because of its mix of older single-family housing and apartments, was one of the first suburbs to be racially integrated. She explores the implications of retail flight, a declining tax base, and drug traffic in Hempstead from the point of view of the police chief, the school principal, and county politicians. Add a misguided foreign and immigration policies to this toxic mix, and the result is the sad story of Hempstead. She also explores the uses made of gang activity in stoking the public’s fear of crime for political advantage.

The benefits of meeting the human beings affected by the unfolding sociological disaster are somewhat undercut by the sometimes confused narrative. The intentional intertwining of their stories and the decision to intersperse their stories in necessary exposition about changes in legislation, city planning ideas, and juvenile justice theories make the story difficult to follow at times. Then again, Garland never ignores the complexities attending this issue. For, that she deserves our gratitude.

Written by: Frances Chapman, September 24th 2009

Bra Boys

admin — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 18:06:00 +0000

Directed by Sunny Abberton

Berkela Films

I have to say, I thought I would hate Bra Boys. A documentary about the much maligned surfing gang of the poverty-stricken Maroubra Beach community in Australia, made by the _Bra Boys _themselves, I expected a lot of glorification of violence, sexism, and machismo. Instead, the film portrays violence negatively and only to be used in self-defense, promotes tolerance and acceptance of all cultures, and tells a very compelling story about how surfing saved a great number of boys in Maroubra from broken and abusive homes, drugs, and prison.

As for the overt sexism, there wasn’t any. There were also no women in the film whatsoever, except for the saintly grandmother of the Abberton brothers, the brothers being the primary filmmakers and storytellers of the movie. Perhaps there was some kind of freak sewage spill, and no female children are born in Maroubra anymore? I don’t know. The lack of females is that extreme. I’d like to know, if the boys have surfing to save them, what do the young women of Maroubra have to save them from poverty, violence, and a surfing culture that entirely excludes them.

At any rate, Sunny Abberton tells the story (with help from some totally unnecessary narration from Russell Crowe) of how the Bra Boys were formed, how the police came to hate them (not their fault), how they fought with other gangs (the other gangs started it), how one of his brothers, Jai, came to be charged with murder (naturally, not his fault), and how they have helped to mend racial tensions in the area (they want credit for that). This is where the line between PR piece and documentary becomes blurry; these are some seriously unreliable narrators, after all, which does not entirely detract from the film.

There is a lot to be said about the power of those who have been disempowered getting the chance to tell their story with cameras in hand, a chance to redress wrongs by showing the systematic oppression of a population. Despite the shaky handheld recordings, the overly long running time, and the very narrow point of view, there is a really strong, affirming message underneath about banding together, the beauty of surfing, pride in one’s community, and overcoming some very formidable obstacles. Also, the footage of big, scary waves and incredibly daring surfing are just really fun to watch.

So, Bra Boys exceeded my expectations, and I spent a fairly entertaining hour and a half watching it (although I can’t promise the only real reason I was entertained was because it was decidedly better than I thought it would be). There are weaknesses here, yes, and they can make for a frustrating viewing, but the surfing and the waves, dude, on the big screen, they are just awesome.

Written by: Arin Brenner, April 19th 2008

Blue Rage, Black Redemption

admin — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 23:26:00 +0000

By Stanley Tookie Williams

Simon & Schuster

In the midst of our current pop culture’s street gang glamorization and mafia worship, the Nobel Prize-nominated work of late Crips gang founder Stanley “Tookie” Williams is a flash of clarity and a voice of reason. Executed in 2005 for the murder of four people, Williams claimed his innocence until the end. Perhaps even more importantly—and certainly the legacy we hope he is remembered for—Williams was believed to have been reformed as he spent much of his sentence in California’s San Quentin prison writing and working on peace plans for our badly torn nation. In a remarkable turn, during his incarcerated years, Williams was one of the most outspoken and leading critics of gang violence in America, nominated for multiple Nobel Peace prizes and Nobel Prizes in literature, encouraging youth to stay clean through his own testimonies of life on the streets of South Central Los Angeles.

Blue Rage, Black Redemption is Williams’ memoir, of sorts—a thorough, educational tale of his life in inner city Los Angeles after a childhood move west from New Orleans, written in accessible language that could be understood by almost anyone. Williams details his childhood friendships, his conflicts with his well-meaning mother, and his eventual rise to power in his part of town through his understanding that power could solve his problems. Throughout this tale, Williams also explains how he came to understand his Black heritage and all the subconscious problems his oppression brought, culminating is gang warfare and his eventual understanding of racism as it plays out in the lives of many young men of color. He also details his time behind bars as a lesson for those who could also end up there. This edition even includes photos, prison documents, and a book club reading guide and questions for readers answered by Williams’ co-author and friend Barbara Becnel.

I suspect there are few of us who could live with such vision while under a controversial death sentence, and that in itself speaks volumes about Williams’ work. A bittersweet posthumous edition with a new foreword by Tavis Smiley, this is a narrative full of hope and promise in the face of defeat.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, January 12th 2008