In the early 1900s, during the wave of European immigrants moving to America, as a response to being in a new land collections of people joined together in solidarity to better their situations in a new country. Gangs in the Five Points area of New York created the country’s first fire companies, that are now regarded as the municipal fire department. The “stockyards” of 20th century Chicago contained thousands of Lithuanian, Polish, Irish etc. immigrants who went on to form some of the strongest and foremost workers’ unions in the United States.
According to the FBI, there are 1.4 million active gang members involved in 33,000 gangs in the United States. The word “gangster” no longer describes Italian men with Bronx accents brandishing Tommy guns and suits, but “thug” which translates to “colored brute”. Merriam Webster says a gang is a group of organized criminals.
Beware: inflammatory statement ahead:
The government is a gang. Republicans and Democrats are having a turf war in the Senate . The police are street lords.
“Gangs are responsible for an average of 48 percent of violent crime in most jurisdictions, and up to 90 percent in others. We’re redoubling our efforts to disrupt and dismantle gangs through intelligence-driven investigations and new initiatives and partnerships.”
--------FBI
--------FBI
These “intelligence-driven investigations” used to be called COINTELpro and were used to deter movements like Communists and Martin Luther King Jr.’s inner circle. Political ideas and any kind of organized force have always existed in the same realms as gangs. The Young Lords Party was a gang of Puerto Ricans—not immigrants, for Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory— who fought as nationalists for human liberation of all peoples. The Black Panther Party and MOVE were collectives of people, not sanctioned by the government who provided health care and community uplift.
Now as colored immigrants, particularly those from Mexico and El Salvador join ranks in forces like of Mara Salvatrucha 13, one of the most feared gangs in the world, the FBI meets them with fervor and contempt.
Emma Goldman, female anarchist, claimed “Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate.”
Geopolitical corners do exist, but the branding and divisions the American government implements are ineffective at times. “Winner-take-all territorial districting is fundamentally flawed because some minority —black, Republican or Green—will always feel unrepresented”(Guiner and Torres). Gangs which almost always result from political inequality and poverty in an area, often claim turf in a neighborhood. Gangs have always risen out of necessity and the squalor or poverty that produces them. Gangs like the CRIPs ,which stands for Community Resistance in Progress, began as a reaction to police brutality in their neighborhood.
However, it does not go unnoticed that most gangs, in order to support themselves financially, involve themselves in drug and sex trafficking with violent business practices. The poverty-filled incubators of ghettos that birth gangs are a vicious cycle. Lack of economic mobility in these areas serve as perpetrators to the continuation of the problem. The government has made attempts to quell this cycle by offering monetary assistance to countries like Colombia and Peru to eradicate access to drugs that run the streets. Choosing to spend $1 trillion over 40 years in other countries instead of implementing functional community programs in underserved communities is part of the reason gangs remain a prevalent stain in the eyes of urban life and culture.
Democracy is all about power and numbers. If the 1.4 million gang members understood their ability to mobilize and fight for the betterment of their respective communities. Gangs could hold voice for their communities. However, in order to be legitimized, they would need to cease illegal activities. The illegal activity is what alienates gangs from the general populace, and what allows media and lawmakers to disregard their function as viable organizations.
Because gangs are disregarded as factions, they are seen as a problem rather than a solution. If the 1.4 million decided to march to their respective Congresspeople and representatives and take back the power that is theirs to remove the issues that cause them to remove themselves from “proper society” -police brutality, drug illegality, basic human rights for those who live in poverty and squalor- they could make this democracy a much stronger system.
Perhaps the people will rise and have a turf war with the president’s gang.
Now as colored immigrants, particularly those from Mexico and El Salvador join ranks in forces like of Mara Salvatrucha 13, one of the most feared gangs in the world, the FBI meets them with fervor and contempt.
Emma Goldman, female anarchist, claimed “Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate.”
Geopolitical corners do exist, but the branding and divisions the American government implements are ineffective at times. “Winner-take-all territorial districting is fundamentally flawed because some minority —black, Republican or Green—will always feel unrepresented”(Guiner and Torres). Gangs which almost always result from political inequality and poverty in an area, often claim turf in a neighborhood. Gangs have always risen out of necessity and the squalor or poverty that produces them. Gangs like the CRIPs ,which stands for Community Resistance in Progress, began as a reaction to police brutality in their neighborhood.
However, it does not go unnoticed that most gangs, in order to support themselves financially, involve themselves in drug and sex trafficking with violent business practices. The poverty-filled incubators of ghettos that birth gangs are a vicious cycle. Lack of economic mobility in these areas serve as perpetrators to the continuation of the problem. The government has made attempts to quell this cycle by offering monetary assistance to countries like Colombia and Peru to eradicate access to drugs that run the streets. Choosing to spend $1 trillion over 40 years in other countries instead of implementing functional community programs in underserved communities is part of the reason gangs remain a prevalent stain in the eyes of urban life and culture.
Democracy is all about power and numbers. If the 1.4 million gang members understood their ability to mobilize and fight for the betterment of their respective communities. Gangs could hold voice for their communities. However, in order to be legitimized, they would need to cease illegal activities. The illegal activity is what alienates gangs from the general populace, and what allows media and lawmakers to disregard their function as viable organizations.
Because gangs are disregarded as factions, they are seen as a problem rather than a solution. If the 1.4 million decided to march to their respective Congresspeople and representatives and take back the power that is theirs to remove the issues that cause them to remove themselves from “proper society” -police brutality, drug illegality, basic human rights for those who live in poverty and squalor- they could make this democracy a much stronger system.
Perhaps the people will rise and have a turf war with the president’s gang.