Original Homies
Download Gang Articles |
|
Reason and Violence As Monster Kody, the well-known 27-year-old 8-Trey Crip, put it from a prison in San Bernardino after I had asked him how he would define politics, "The relations between people centered on the seizure and retention of state power." He added that "it was sad that it had to come to this [i.e., the riot] to get attention." Monster Kody continued to discuss social relations and the prospects, post-riot, for political change in Los Angeles in a manner that did shame to the sentiments of many commentators pondering the urban crisis from a more comfortable station in life. Writing in L.A. Weekly, its executive editor, Harold Meyerson (a member, I need hardly say, of D.S.A. and mustard-keen on Bill Clinton), remarked that "even on the wacko nether regions of what remains of the American left, this will be a hard riot to romanticize." There may not have been romance but there certainly was reason, and a plan. It takes forethought to burn down 2,000 Korean stores. As for mini-mails--running on average at 40 percent overcapacity in Los Angeles--the torchings were a promising start, though they did not go nearly far enough. There are still too many of these speculative developments, rushed up in the go-go eighties and mostly economic deathtraps to small entrepreneurs. The biggest architectural loss was Young's Market Building, originally Andrew's Hardware, built on the corner of 7th and Union in 1924. It was a fine structure designed by Charles Plummer as a mixed homage to Maybeck and the Beaux Arts tradition. I worried about Bullocks on Wilshire, but Herman Sachs's aeronautic ceiling murals, done in 1928, came through. The right has it figured the way it always does. Bruce Herschensohn, an L.A. television pundit (and old Nixon favorite) seeking the Republican nomination for Alan Cranston's Senate seat, proclaimed in the wake of the riots that "some people are rotten" and derided the idea of underlying social causes. Picking up on Herschensohn's demon-seed theory, the federal Centers for Disease Control announced that teams of researchers were being dispatched to investigate the "epidemiology" of the riots. We called the C.D.C. to see if this was a search for the dreaded riot virus (sterilization only known cure), and Dr. James Mercy told my colleague Bryce Hoffman that injury is the leading cause of death for people under 45 and that it has become a public health issue: "We would do the same thing in any national disaster." Hammer and Nails In a month or so, when the camera crews have left South Central and Pico-Union and weeds begin to poke their way up through the asphalt in the burned-out lots along Crenshaw, Vermont and Western, it will be easy enough to see who was just talking and who had a genuine plan. At the official level, the only proposal that attempts to grapple with reality is the $35 billion urban rescue package urged by bigcity mayors before the L.A. riots and now pushed with fresh ardor by Jerry Brown and the Congressional Black Caucus. This has been treated with scorn by the neoliberals around Clinton and the conservatives around Bush as "throwing money at problems," to be rejected in favor of hot air (Clinton) or "free enterprise zones" (Bush)--the only scheme of Reagan's old supply-side lobby that hasn't yet melted down in the crucible of reality, simply because it hasn't been tried. What people miss is that South Central is already the absolute definition of a free enterprise zone, with substandard wages, incoherent development, profits exported from the community. The only plan that breathes the concrete expectations and desires of people in South Central is one issued under the name of the Bloods and Crips, which is why I was talking to Monster Kody. The plan, which I cite below, is a coherent outline of community needs, with a price tag of $3.7 billion over and above existing appropriations. What worried me about the plan, which has been leading a fairly legendary existence around Los Angeles since the second week of May, was that it might have been inauthentic and less connected to the gangs and South Central neighborhoods than it pretends. "People underestimate gang members," Monster Kody said, adding that the plan "is from the grass roots, and most of us O.G.s [original gangsters] support it." The provenanCe is still a little murky, though a local Coalition for Justice may be involved. Here are some excerpts from the plan, to which was appended an ultimatum for targeting the police which appears, at least now, to have been hollow. Start with the conditions of everyday life: BLOODS/CRIPS PROPOSAL FOR LA'S FACE-LIFT ($2 BILLION) Every burned and abandoned structure shall be gutted. The city will purchase the property... and build a community center. If the structure is on a corner lot or is a vacant lot, the city will build a career counseling center or a recreation center, respectively. All pavements/sidewalks in Los Angeles are in dire need of resurfacing .... Our organization will assist the city in the identification of all areas of concern. All lighting will be increased in all neighborhoods. Additionally, lighting of city streets, neighborhood blocks and alleyways will be amended. We want a well-lit neighborhood. All alleys shall be painted white or yellow .... All trees will be properly trimmed and maintained. We want all weeded/shrubbed areas to be cleaned up and properly nurtured. New trees will be planted to increase the beauty of our neighborhoods. A special task force shall be assigned to focus on the cleanup of all vacant lots and trashed areas throughout the deprived areas. Proper pest control methods shall be implemented by the city to reduce the chances of rodent scattering. The city will declare a neighborhood clean-up week wherein all residents will be responsible for their block--a block captain will be assigned to ensure cooperation. Residents will clean up the block in unisys [sic]. Continue with an education plan that--besides demanding rehabbing and resupply of schools, a new minimum salary of $30,000 for teachers and re-elections for the School Board--reflects the concerns, and even more frivolous desires, of people who want to learn in dignity: BLOODS/CRIPS EDUCATIONAL PROPOSAL ($700 MILLION) All schools shall have new landscaping and more plants and trees around the schools; completely upgrade the bathrooms, making them more modern; provide a bathroom monitor to each bathroom which will provide freshen-up toiletries at a minimum cost to the students .... A provision for accelerated educational learning programs shall be implemented for the entire Los Angeles Unified School District to provide aggressive teaching methods and provide a curriculum similar to non-economically deprived areas. Tutoring for all subjects... will be mandatory for all students with sub-level grades. In these after-school tutorial programs, those students whose grades are up to par will receive rederally funded bonus bonds which will be applied to their continued education upon graduation from high school. They will also receive bonus bonds for extra scholastic work towards their fellow students .... High achievers in these areas [math and science] shall be granted a free trip to another country for educational exchange .... The LAUSD will provide up-to-date books to the neglected areas and enough books to ensure that no student has to share a book with another.... LAUSD will remove all teachers not planning to further their education along with teachers who have not proven to have a passionate concern for the students .... All teachers shall be given a standard competency test to verify they are up-to-date with subjects and modern teaching methods. Psychological testing will also be required for all teachers and educational administrators, including the Los Angeles School Board, every four years. All curriculums shall focus on the basics in high school requirements... inundated with advanced sciences and additional applied math, English and writing skills. Busing shall become non-existent in our communities if all of the above demands are met. As part of their human welfare plan, the gangs propose three new hospitals, forty health care centers, and dental clinics within ten miles of each community, as well as the reconstruction of city parks; and then deal with a topic on which the quackery of the Haves has exceeded all bounds: BLOODS/CRIPS HUMAN WELFARE PROPOSAL ($I BILLION) We demand that welfare be completely removed from our community and these welfare programs be replaced by state work and product manufacturing plants that provide the city with certain supplies. State monies shall only be provided for invalids and the elderly. The State of California shall provide a child welfare building to serve as day care centers for single parents .... George Bush plans to turn South Central into Willie Horton for '92. Daryl Gates would like to level it: BLOODS/CRIPS LAW ENFORCEMENT PROGRAM ($6 MILLION) The Los Angeles communities are demanding that they are policed and patrolled by individuals who live in the community and the commanding officers be ten-year residents of the community in which they serve. Former gang members shall be given a chance to be patrol buddies in assisting in the protection of the neighborhoods. These former gang members will be required to go through police training and must comply to all of the laws instituted by our established authorities. Uniforms will be issued to each and every member of the "buddy system", however, no weapons will be issued .... Each buddy patrol will be supplied with a video camera and will tape each event and the officers handling the police matter. The buddy patrol will not interfere with any police matter unless instructed by a commanding officer .... As against redlining, there is this: BLOODS/CRIPS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PROPOSAL ($20 MILLION) Loans shall be made available by the federal and state governments to provide interested minority entrepreneurs interested in doing business in these deprived areas .... These loans shall not exceed a 4% interest bearing charge per year. The businessman shall not be required to have security for the loan, however, the businessman must present at least two years of business operation and taxes, with a city license before funds will be allocated .... Assistance for business plans shall be made available by the Small Business Administration .... business owners shall be required to hire 90% of their personnel from within their community.... And finally: IN RETURN FOR THESE DEMANDS THE BLOODS/CRIPS WILL: 1. Request the drug lords of Los Angeles take their monies and invest them in business and property in Los Angeles. 2. Encourage these drug lords to stop the drug traffic and get them to use the money constructively. We will match the funds of the state government appropriations and build buildingfor-building. 3. Additionally, we will match funds for an aids research and awareness center in South Central and Long Beach and will only hire minority researchers and physicians to assist in the aids epidemic. GIVE US THE HAMMER AND THE NAILS, WE WILL REBUILD THE CITY. Dialectics: What Goes Around, Comes Around Monster Kody would not fall afoul of Harold Meyerson's strictures. In fact, he remarked of the Bloods/Crips cease-fire, "I'm optimistic about the gang truce, but I'm not going to romanticize it. A lot of those people are mindless cats with weapons. But the O.G.s are moving and shaking with the community.... We're not anti-Korean, we're anti-exploitation," albeit adding that a great many Korean merchants were "antagonistic profiteers consistently disrespectful of our people." Considering he is due to head back up to Pelican Bay, a thoroughly modern, horrifying top-security prison a hundred miles north of Petrolia, where he is serving a seven-year sentence for a nonlethal encounter with a crack dealer working in his neighborhood, M.K. sounded cheery enough. "A lot of us," he said by way of farewell, "continue on from the ashes and ruins of the sixties. Maybe it goes in thirty-year cycles, and we're starting to come out of it."
News Topics |
Home | Research |
History | Blood Gangs | Crip Gangs | People|
Life in a Gang |
Gallery | Iraqi Cards
|
Memorial |
Migration |
Graffiti | Resume| Injunctions
Homicides |
Maps |
California Prisons | Contact
Original Homies
Gang Forum- Discuss Gangs in LA
Download Gang Articles
Beat the devil. (Los Angeles, California riots) (Column)
The Nation; 6/1/1992; Cockburn, Alexander
Copyright © Streetgangs.com, All RIGHTS RESERVED. Disclaimer
All trademarks mentioned herein belong to their respective owners.
