Of course we can’t talk about Huey P. Newton and the Black Panthers without mentioning the so-called bastards of the party – the Crips and Bloods.  Other than the U.S government, those two sets have to be the most notorious gangs in America. By the way, if you haven’t seen HBO’s riveting documentary “Bastards of the Party” you need to add it to your life pronto. 

 

I caught wind of this over at URB, but it looks like there is another “Bastards of the Party” type film called “Crips and Bloods: Made in America” playing in select theaters this week (the film will air on PBS in May and for some god awful reason the creators are using Jessica Alba and Lil Wayne to market it). I can already tell by the trailer that this aint no HBO documentary but I applaud any attempt to get these kids off the streets…sorta. 

 

 

I’ve always been a little skeptical of films that attempt to use an organization’s historic timeline to try to stop the very entities the organization thrives on. In this case it’s violence, drugs, and a false sense of ownership and family. The whole history lesson angle seems as absurd to me as old-hip heads thinking the entire discography of an artist like Afrika Bambaata could get the likes of Bow Wow to stop putting out garbage. Nonsense.

 

I’m not a gang expert, but the effects of the so-called “gang wars” in the streets of South Central Los Angeles usually creep into my day job. Working with these kids at this youth center is no joke. Most of the time I look at these teens as play gangsters but I know that I can not even fathom the things they see in their neighborhoods once they leave us, and I go home to my pale neighborhood. I also know that while they may be just shit talkers now, there’s a very real chance they could actually grow up to be the type of grown ass men who romanticize thug life, sorta like the ones you’re bound to see in movies like “Made in America” or in an 106th and Park video. 

 

These lil gangsters-in-training don’t scare me much but I can almost always see the fear in their own eyes.  I usually think of one teen, one of my favorites, an eighteen year old named Cedric, when people start talking about saving the children.  Cedric and I often butted heads, but we tried hard to understand each other. This boy always acted like an ass, but when he got real with me, when he let his guard down, I could sense that he was terrified of life, and not like the rest of us are.  

 

Sometimes we’d get together in my office and talk about how he was too smart to be running the streets like he did. But I don’t think Cedric ever believed me. He could barely read, was a sophomore instead of a senior, and stayed blazed. Honestly, there were plenty of times when I didn’t even believe my own words of encouragement, but I said them anyway because a child should never be able to say no one ever told them they could do better.

 

The last time I saw Cedric was in the summertime. I heard he came by the office looking for me once but I missed him. Sometimes I wonder if I would actually find out if he was dead, or in prison. The way that kid was living, those were his only two options if he didn’t get his act together. 

 

So inevitably, when I see a film like “Made in America” I instantly wonder who is the director’s target audience. I can imagine the fuss Cedric would have made if I tried to get him to peep this movie. URB Magazine says: 

 

Peralta [the director] chronicles the rise of the Crips and Bloods, tracing the origins of their bloody four-decades long feud.Contemporary and former gang members offer their testimony that provides the film with a stark portrait of modern-day gang life: the turf wars and territorialism, the inter-gang hierarchy and family structure, the rules of behavior, the culture of guns, death and dishonor.

 

Throughout the film ex-gang members, gang intervention experts, writers, activists and academics analyze many of the issues that contributed to the rise of the gangs: the erosion of identity over the years, the self-perpetuating legacy of black self-hatred, the disappearance of a father figure and an almost pervasive prison culture in which today one out of every four black men will be imprisoned at some point in his life.

 

 

I have yet to meet a kid over the age of fourteen who is interested in what academics have to say about their lives. Instead, I’ve learned that the most random thing can trigger the switch that makes them want to get out of the streets. Sometimes it can be an A on a paper, a death, or even a birth of a child. Still, I remember reading LA Times articles with Cedric about kids that he knew who were gunned down in his neighborhood. It use to frustrate me that those articles never seemed to make him want to change his life, but I realized it was because he didn’t think he had a feasible way to. 

 

I’m not saying films like “Made in America” or even “Bastards of the Party” aren’t necessary. Yet, we – the people who have no real gang affiliations - seem to be the main ones interested in knowing the bloody history behind the groups that both terrorize and provide a false sense of hope for these kids. Hopefully after we’re done with our morbid fascinations, we actually come up with real solutions to stop the systematic destruction of neglected youth. If not, these films are pointless and only preach to a choir that doesn’t even sing the same tune as its on-screen subjects.  

 

Tags: Bastards of the Party, Black Panther Party, Bloods, Crips, Crips and Bloods: Made in America, Gangs, HBO, Huey P. Newton, Los Angeles Gangs