Jumped In: What Gangs Taught Me about Violence, Drugs, Love, and Redemption (Leap, Jorja)
One. Napalm
Don’t go believin’ anything unless you see it. And even then, don’ be too sure. —Big T. I cannot say exactly when I saw my first dead body. Probably my earliest experience with one was when I was around eleven years old and my grandmother was diagnosed with brain cancer. My mother’s reaction was that I should go, as soon as possible, to a funeral, any funeral. There was a crazy kind of logic to this. Open caskets were de rigueur at Greek Orthodox funerals. My mother wanted to protect me from being surprised or upset when I eventually gazed upon the body of my soon-to-be-dead grandmother, who was terminally ill with brain cancer. She also decreed that I wear navy blue, because I was far too young for basic black. Consequently, my attendance at this first funeral was preceded by a shopping expedition. From then on, death and new outfits would be inextricably linked in my mind. And so, wearing a navy blue dress with white piping and matching jacket, I saw my first dead body. The body itself belonged to a distant and elderly relative and resembled nothing so much as a mannequin in a dress shop for “mature” women. I felt curiously detached. I had the same feeling eight months later when my grandmother actually died. Somehow the body remained abstract, unreal. Since then, I’ve been to many funerals and have seen a lot of bodies. These ceremonies involved godparents, aunts, uncles, and extended family. What I looked at seemed more some sort of cosmetic marvel—carefully made up, well dressed and artificial—a stand-in for the person who had died. I finally saw the real deal—bodies without benefit of a mortician’s makeover—when I was a young social worker at an LA County hospital emergency room. The bodies there had, for the most part, met some grim ending. Dead of a gunshot wound or decapitated in an auto accident. They were so freshly dead, they often appeared to be twitching (and in some cases were). These were the bodies of the barely departed, yet they still failed to register within me, emotionally. Even more extreme experiences awaited me beyond the ER. Several years later, serving as a UN volunteer in post-war Kosovo, I saw bodies in varying states of decomposition, twice at mass burial sites. Still I looked upon them with detachment, an example of “man’s inhumanity to man.” Until a summer night in August 2002. I do not remember all the details of this particular night. All I know is that some switch got flipped for me—all my cells turned over—and nothing was the same. It is after midnight, and I am standing inside the yellow police tape blocking off part of a neighborhood intersection in South Los Angeles. Small bungalows and ramshackle apartment buildings line both sides of the street, in an architectural style that can best be termed “urban depressed.” Each one comes equipped with burglar bars and dark screen doors, and behind the mesh it is possible to make out the faces of people peering out the windows tentatively. The more brazen among them—old women and young men—mill around in groups outside their houses or on the sidewalk or in the street, their expressions registering hostility or suspicion. Children play in the street, and even though it is summer and school is out, I keep wondering, What are those kids doing up? They should be in bed; they should be asleep, until I realize how idiotic this all sounds given the level of noise and confusion rising up from the street. I am struck by how strange it is that they are playing in the middle of all this, and I wonder if it’s nothing out of the ordinary, just another summer night, just another crime scene. A police helicopter flies noisily overhead. Four black-and-white patrol cars are parked at varying angles in the middle of the street, their headlights outlining three teenage boys lined up against a chain-link fence with their hands cuffed. The three adolescents appear so young, it looks like they haven’t even started shaving yet. There is another boy. He resembles the other three children in every way except one. He is lying in a pool of blood and his body is being photographed and probed by members of the Los Angeles Police Department. He is nameless, unknown, and he is dead. I cannot stop staring at the body as the blood slowly spreads on the pavement. It is impossible to turn away. My heart is beating and I am thinking, Whose baby is this? Whose brother? Whose grandson? He is frozen, forever, dead. I am trying not to cry. The three handcuffed youngsters deny having any idea who he may be. Whatever the question, they uniformly mumble, “I d’know.” The police officers show varying signs of sadness, resignation, anger, and detachment, establishing a makeshift command post and dolefully noting that the shooting is “gang related.” They are taking notes, making jokes, and gossiping. One woman wearing the LAPD uniform looks over at me and we exchange nods of recognition. I have a grudging respect for Sergeant Mitzi Grasso, a small, wiry force of nature. She has just finished a term as president of the Police Protective League—the officers union. She, for one, is not talking about gangs. Grasso is focused on a work-schedule issue and I hear her saying, “Look, the mayor is going to listen because he wants to be reelected.” Meanwhile, the dead boy’s body is being covered and prepared for transfer to the coroner’s office. Several conversations are going on at once, and no one is speaking in hushed or respectful tones. Talk ricochets between a discussion of which gang sets are currently warring and a debate over who might be selected as the next chief of police for the LAPD. I hear snippets of gang names—the Grape Street Crips, the Rollin 60s, Florencia, MS-13—coupled with speculation over how Bill Bratton, the current favorite to become chief, will get along with Mayor Jim Hahn, given how frequently Bratton, as New York City commissioner, once clashed with Rudy Giuliani. Police radios crackle. Even though everyone is tuned to the same frequency, the multiple radios set up an echo chamber—it’s almost like the police operator is channeling a rap singer—and the new locations of police activity reverberate through the night. “Two-A-Fifty-One: handle a 211 in progress at Seventh and Alvarado, Code 3. Suspects are three male Hispanics armed with a gun attacking a transient at the bus bench.” “Two-A-Ninety-One: handle an unknown-trouble 911 open line at the Hamburger Stand, Seventeenth and Vermont, Code 3.” It’s all static interrupted by voices interrupted by more static—until there is almost a rhythm to the cacophony of noise. The radio operator keeps announcing streets, intersections, locations, incidents. It is the city of Los Angeles as performance art, courtesy the LAPD. The police helicopter continues to circle overhead and I can hear its blades cutting the air. The co-pilot directs a spotlight down on the organized chaos, which will endure for approximately an hour and then be restored to normal, with no traces left of “the crime scene.” And inexplicably, over and over in my head, there is the antic voice of Robert Duvall in Apocalypse Now, declaring, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” The noise and the people and the warmth of the night feel altogether unreal, as if I have stumbled upon the filming of some television cop show. Instead, it is 2002, and the city of Los Angeles is experiencing one of the bloodiest outbursts of gang violence on record. And I am standing in the middle of it. I am one of the few non-uniformed individuals here. I am one of the few white people inside the yellow tape. I am one of the few women here, and I am definitely the only woman not wearing a police uniform. I do not fit in, and I cannot stop staring at the body of the young boy. His skin is light, coffee colored and unmarked. It is the skin of a child—there are no blemishes, no signs of a beard. This boy—not yet a man—looks impossibly young, on the edge of adulthood. He has no tattoos, and his hair rings his face in soft curls, partially covered by a sweatshirt hood. I keep looking at his skin, almost wanting to reach out and touch its softness. I keep my head down until my tears drain out, then I look up past the boy’s body at a beautiful, silent man wearing a beige T-shirt, black jeans, and a menacing expression. His black skin shines in the streetlight and his eyes are olives, angry and impenetrable. Khalid Washington, the silent man, looks back at me, but we do not acknowledge each other. We are not speaking—yet. We will call each other in a few hours and meet in the late morning at a small barbecue restaurant in South Los Angeles and talk quietly about what happened, dissecting who might be involved, who might retaliate, and what he has done in the early-morning hours. This is later. Right now, I cannot acknowledge Khalid’s presence in front of the LAPD and I am frightened by the rage that I see in his eyes. He is recently released from prison and is working as a gang-intervention “street worker.” In the eyes of the LAPD he is just another knucklehead, just another gangbanger probably getting into trouble, connecting with his homies and trying to avoid arrest. He is an outsider here, muttering “Muthafuckas” under his breath as a uniformed officer approaches him and, ignoring me completely, asks, “Can I help you, sir? Did you know the deceased?” “No, I did not know the deceased,” Khalid enunciates with exaggerated formality. The officer stares at him and masks a demand as a question. “May I ask what you are doing here?” “I’m a street interventionist with the Unity Collaborative,” he announces tersely. “I got a call from Bo Taylor, who heard about the shooting. We were called in to try to help stop any more shooting or retaliation.” He produces a business card that the officer considers while grimacing. The officer’s eyes narrow. “Mind if I keep this?” he asks while pocketing the card. Khalid shrugs. The exchange is brief but speaks volumes. They hate each other. The current law-enforcement ethos equates joining a gang with losing one’s virginity. It’s a permanent state, and you can never go back, no matter what you may claim about your purity. Khalid may or may not still be gang affiliated. I would bet he is. But it really does not matter. The only thing of which I am certain is that he is going to leave the scene soon to connect with individuals who belong to conflicting sets and gangs. He will try to negotiate a cease-fire of some sort, after the shooting, to prevent retaliation and further bloodshed. The agreement will be fragile, informal, and with luck will hold for a few days, weeks, or months. There is no way of knowing if it will work or if the violence will continue. And in the end, Khalid will never get credit for any lives saved. I don’t know if I trust Khalid. While I have spent time alone with him, I have never felt completely safe. Some of it is sexual tension; some of it is the impact of listening to his seemingly endless supply of stories about shooting people, the force of his telling me, “I’ve felt the fuckin’ blood running through my hands.” I don’t know if he is lying, and I definitely don’t want to ask. Still, I recognize his strengths. He is tough, angry, and articulate. He is also a natural-born leader. Of course, if I utter those words in front of the LAPD, they will fill out a field interview card on me and I will undoubtedly join Khalid on the federal crime database or the CalGang list. So far I have been completely ignored by the cops. I don’t feel particularly afraid in this situation, because my badass rebellious streak has kicked in. Just in case that isn’t enough, there is one man nearby who would step in if any of these uniformed officers started to hassle me. He is wearing the lightweight, short-sleeved LAPD summer uniform and he is neat, pressed, and in complete control. He has one star on each lapel indicating that he is a commander—only one of seventeen—in the LAPD. He is standing quietly by, although everyone present is deferential and respectful toward him. No one knows we are seeing each other. “Dating” seems too idiotic a word to describe the texture of our relationship. No one knows that four hours earlier we left his home thirty miles northwest of Los Angeles and drove into the city together. Mark Leap is nowhere near me, though; he is engaged on the far-opposite side of the incident—talking to several other uniformed officers about what has happened. Instead, David Gascon, an assistant chief, has hovered around me, practically on top of me, all night. He is blissfully unaware that I have arrived with Mark Leap. Instead, because he knows I am “working on the gang problem,” he just assumes I have shown up after learning about the shooting. He probably even believes I have come to find him. With a kind of territoriality that I suspect is imprinted in the DNA of every sworn member of the LAPD, he takes for granted that I am there to stay with him, under his protection. He begins lecturing me on what has occurred at the crime scene. Khalid Washington looks on with disgust as Gascon asserts, “We’re never gonna know who did this. And it doesn’t matter. They’re gonna go on killing each other.” His voice is authoritative. I smile involuntarily. This is the same voice that officiated at the media event of 1994: the press conference during which Gascon had to admit that the LAPD had inadvertently “lost” murder suspect O. J. Simpson, adding that the football great was currently on the freeway in a white Ford Bronco driven by Al Cowlings. The intervening years have not been kind to Gascon. He has lost out in his bid to become the next chief of police. Gascon also possesses critics within the power structure of the LAPD and LA city government. Tonight he is an unwelcome reminder wearing a polo shirt, a symbol of the recent bad press that outgoing chief Bernard Parks and the LAPD have received. Gascon is well into his lecture on how the gang problem should be solved. While there is confusion all around, he holds forth as if there is no noise, no helicopter cutting at the air above him. It’s clear that he knows what he is talking about, but the trouble is he is slightly off in his logic. He is deriding the whole idea of gang interventionists—all within earshot of Khalid Washington. “Y’know, you got cops who think some of these interventionists are gonna help us. But they’re nothing but double agents—gangsters who know how to talk to the powers that be.” I am distinctly uncomfortable with this conversation. The gunshots I keep hearing do not appear to be the only threat to my safety in these early morning hours. Why am I here in the dark, on this anonymous street in South Los Angeles, in the middle of the night? I should be at home in my cottage in Rustic Canyon, sitting on my patio, finishing a glass of wine. Instead all my nerve endings are on red alert as I watch and listen and try to stay still when I hear the popping sound of gunshots. What am I doing here? I suppose I could be glib and say I am here because of my personal and professional commitment. I have a reputation to uphold, after all. I was this tough little UCLA professor who studied violence, writing and lecturing on the “gang problem.” The gang problem consists of stories and police reports and rumor. There are accounts of young women being subjected to brutal gang rapes. And descriptions of suspected snitches getting their tongues cut out because they have shared information with the police. And if that’s not enough, there’s always the media. For the past few days a video has been making the rounds on the Internet, offering up a drive-by shooting filmed in the kind of bloody detail that only Quentin Tarantino fans could love. The gang problem involves a world where tattoos are not merely decorative but threatening and sinister. I think of the adolescent who had let’s fuck tattooed on his eyelids, along with his friend, who had fuck you on his cheek. There is a multiple choice of personal motives for me. I am here because I am looking for a solution. Or to give kids hope. Or to help save lives. I am here for all of the above but I am also here for the strange sort of electricity that’s in the air. Along with all the danger and sadness, at every crime scene there is a pulsating high. This night, like other nights, I am feeling it again. And I find the excitement narcotic. Standing between Dave Gascon and Khalid Washington, I hear a low series of pops—more gunfire—and the cocktail of terror and excitement drives up the adrenaline of everyone inside the yellow tape. One of the cops calls out, “There’s a shooter!” and for a split second everyone freezes. I am a walking, talking, multiple-personality disorder of fear. I am scared that Khalid will discover I am on a first-name basis with some of the LAPD; I am frightened that this familiarity will incite his mistrust or, worse still, his anger. But I am also scared of the LAPD and how many of these Boy Scouts on steroids have demonized every adolescent in the vicinity; I am frightened someone may shoot at them or that they may shoot at the wrong person. I am afraid of the random, rampant danger in the air. And there is no doubt in my mind that in an instant, someone could drive by and shoot into the crowd—campaigning to be immortalized as a cop killer. More than anything, I am overwhelmed, knowing that at any moment, if something were to go wrong, someone could die—including me. And still there is the body of the young boy. Who was he? As if listening to my internal monologue, one elderly woman, probably a grandmother, observes, “Just a baby, just a baby,” shaking her head as she walks back to her white frame bungalow. It is another forty minutes before things settle down. After the body is taken away and Khalid Washington disappears into the night and the cops drive off to their next radio call and people go back to hiding behind their locked doors, I linger at the scene. And I cannot stop thinking, despite the noise and the chaos and the resignation of so many involved, about him. That nameless boy, his body the first to reach me after so many funerals, so much death. I am crying again. I keep thinking of H. Rap Brown’s folk wisdom, “Violence is as American as apple pie.” I keep thinking of the fifteen-year-old who told me he was “just trippin’, just trippin’” after he shot the four-year-old son of a rival gang member. I keep thinking of Father Greg Boyle and his motto, “Nothing stops a bullet like a job.” I am standing on the street, thinking of the body and becoming aware of the noise of the freeway traffic a few blocks away. Its steady and persistent hum tells me that life in Los Angeles goes on, oblivious, despite this dead boy, despite the violence, and despite the “gang problem.” I don’t realize it yet but it is one of those very few moments in my life when, as the saying goes, a door opens and the future begins. Because of this night, I feel alive and determined to understand.
Eight. Poor Black Woman
According to a panel of experts at a forum at University of California, Los Angeles, on Monday, America is just as vulnerable to attack as it was on 9/11, with street gangs funding terrorist groups and also draining resources from law enforcement agencies working to head off future attacks. —New York Times, May 23, 2007 Spending time with the homies and homegirls had brought a new dimension to my research. I was deeply involved in trying to figure out what interventions truly helped gang members. I was also invested in their lives. By early 2007 I had completed several evaluations and had been asked by noted civil rights activist and attorney Constance Rice to serve as one of a team of experts for the groundbreaking report she was writing on gangs in the city of Los Angeles. Connie keeps referring to me as a “gang anthropologist.” And I want to be in the field—living with homies, learning more, filling the gaps in my knowledge. Because of this, I am in Nickerson Gardens with Saint, whose real name is Ronald, or Ronny, Dawson. Ronny grew up here, in a three-bedroom unit with twenty-nine other people. “It was a lot of fun. My dad was gone and when I was four my mom got addicted to crack and my granny took custody of me. I don’t know what happened with my granny—nine out of her ten kids were addicts—but she raised all the grandkids. I loved school and had great grades. I played every sport—football, basketball, swimming—up to Jordan High.” Ronny brags that he never missed a day of school because “I got a welfare lunch every day.” The plastic tiles stamped “subsidized lunch” were all that stood between Ronny and starvation. “My granny was poor. She never had enough money. Most times that lunch was my only food.” Ronny tries to portray his childhood as one continuous house party. But there is always deprivation. His life embodies the national statistic showing that more than one-third of all African American children live below the poverty line. When I ask if being poor bothered him, Ronny thinks for a moment. “It wasn’t that I minded being poor; everyone was poor. I just hated being poorer than anyone else in the neighborhood.” But Ronny’s family created a ready defense. They were the Marine Corps of the projects. They took their liabilities—poverty and multiple children—and turned them into strengths, organizing their own neighborhood, the Hillbilly Bloods. But this also makes it impossible for Ronny to ever leave the gang. I catch on immediately. They’re not just his neighborhood—they’re his family. Literally. How is he going to leave that? This sounds all too familiar. I was raised in a neighborhood that was My Big Fat Greek Wedding cut with anxiety. Every action—real or contemplated—was subjected to the litmus test of “What would the Greek community say?” The infighting and rivalry and psychological retaliation prepared me—in the most perverse way—for life with the neighborhoods. This is in no way meant to minimize gang lethality—it just means that underneath, we all get jumped into something that we’re not sure we can ever leave. When I was young my family’s propaganda maintained that there was nothing better than being Greek. We went to church every Sunday, not only for religion, but also for the sense of community. Our social life was exclusive—we interacted with Greek American families. My suburban neighborhood tract in Torrance, California, featured Greek households on literally every block. On top of that, my father served on the board of the directors and my mother sang in the choir of the Greek Orthodox church conveniently located fifteen minutes away. We vacationed with Greek families—usually our cousins. My brothers and I even went to Greek church camp. No aspect of our life remained Greek-free. Our doctors, our dentists, our babysitters—everyone was Greek. And the whole rationale for this existence was the expectation that we—my brothers and I—would perpetuate this pattern into the next generation. It was a gang. We had colors and a language and loyalty. And control. It was all the same—whether you grow up in a neighborhood or in the Greek community. You would be secure and someone would have your back, but you would never know freedom or independence. You would never grow. Your wings were clipped in full view of the crowd. I felt controlled from the moment I could walk. Of course, one of my childhood responses was to obey. But the other response was to run. I knew that I could not stay. I was going to suffocate. I was going to die. I had to get out of the gang. I was good at escape. When I turned four years old, I was found on a street corner about a half mile from home, holding the hand of a friendly stranger, wearing a T-shirt that said i love my daddy. I ran away from home, I ran away from Sunday school, I ran away from Greek school and the six-fingered, sadistic Greek instructor. But I always came back—first because I had to, then because I wanted to. I grew up and out. But still, in unguarded moments, the cunning, indirect, and manipulative Greek girl would burst forth. I wanted my family and the Greek neighborhood. I wanted the warmth, the familiarity. I insisted on taking a family vacation with my brothers, their spouses, and their children, and I attempted to control everything, quietly, behind the scenes. You just can’t leave the gang. As if listening in on my thoughts, Ronny declares, “We are not just Bloods, this is my blood. They are my family.” Ronny’s family has also passed down a history of violence. He traces all of it to his father, who still checks in occasionally. “My daddy was never around all the time, he still isn’t.” In his family romance, Ronny’s father juggled two wives and three sons, never living with one family full-time. But Ronny maintains, “My daddy loved my mama till she started doing crack. Then they fought. It’s ’cuz she drove him crazy. He lost control and beat her. Then he left. He had his wife, my mama had crack, and I had my granny.” But his father’s violence was not strictly domestic. There had been trouble in Louisiana, where his father killed a man and did time in prison. Ronny relates this story with nonchalance, adding that his father’s other two sons—his half brothers—also murdered people during the Los Angeles gang wars of the mid-1980s. “What happened to your brothers?” I ask. “They’re both dead,” he says flatly. “I’m the only son my daddy has left.” “So you’re the third generation of violence,” I offer. “Yeah, the cycle has gotta be broken.” Ronny could truly go either way. He starts to talk about what went down two nights earlier, when the LAPD showed up at his auntie’s house to arrest his cousin, Little Joey, for murder. “What happened?” I ask. “Little Joey went to West LA to see his girlfriend. He was in Crips territory and they cornered him. He had to shoot his way out. The cops got him.” “Does he have a lawyer?” I am already looking up numbers in my cell phone. “Oh, he told them he did it.” “What?” “Why are you surprised? He did it. So he told the cops. But I am thinkin’ maybe he can get off on—whacha call it?—self-defense. He went there before to see that girl and some guys from the set told him, ‘Don’t come back or we gonna kill you.’ I think he could say he did it because they were gonna kill him.” “One little problem,” I snap. “He had a gun—that shows premeditation. And I’m sure he didn’t buy the gun at Sears.” Ronny is unfazed by my sarcasm. “You’re right. Oh well. I guess he’s gonna do time.” There is a resignation to Ronny that comes from years without. Without parents. Without money. Without anyone to take care of him. While I am thinking about this, we both see an eleven-year-old riding around on a bike and Ronny motions with his chin. “That’s me. You wanna know what I was like back in the day, look at this little homie, Darius.” Darius rides up to exchange greetings with Ronny, eyeing me suspiciously. Ronny responds with the same line he uses on everyone in the projects. “That’s Jorja, she’s my godmother.” Satisfied, Darius rides off and we walk over to a two-story unit and stand outside the security door—a heavy-duty screen made out of steel. The smell of marijuana comes wafting out. Ronny’s cousins and friends are inside smoking a combination of bud and crack and God knows what else. When they see me through the grille they start joking, then invite us in. “This yo’ first time at Nickerson Gardens, little mama?” “She’s a cute little spinner, Saint. Mama, you been here before?” Ronny doesn’t even have time to launch into introductions before I start talking and laughing with them. They offer me some of their spliff, but I decline. “No, I was here before any of you were born. In the ’70s and the ’80s, I worked at Martin Luther King Hospital.” I leave out the fact that most of the time I came to the projects I was there to pick up children for placement in the foster-care system. “You was at Martin Luther King?” One homie is suddenly interested. “Yeah. I loved it there.” “You saw me born! I came through there. I was the little baby with an Afro!” He is suddenly excited, high, and the air fills with laughter. He is choking on smoke, and Ronny and I walk him outside to breathe fresh air. As if on cue, a black-and-white pulls up and the police jump out of their car so rapidly they leave the doors open. They are running across the grass. “It’s the popo,” I observe, and Ronny starts laughing. “Yes it is. They gonna arrest someone,” he adds. His prediction comes true while Darius rides by on his bike, watching carefully, collecting data. We all witness two men who look to be in their twenties being handcuffed and pushed into the back of the police car. “They got Little Devon,” Darius reports. “Little Devon is so stupid, he got hisself arrested by a rookie. What a dumbass.” The arresting officer looks up, walks over to where we are standing, and asks what we are doing. Darius’s assessment is accurate; this is a rookie. I doubt the LAPD officer has even started shaving. He begins to give Darius and Ronny a hard time until he looks at me and pulls up short. “Ma’am?” He is tentative. “Yes?” I truly don’t want to say a thing. I don’t want to introduce myself. He is a rookie and this is South LA, but I don’t want to take the one–in-a-million chance that he is going to recognize Mark’s name. I am prepared to remarry my ex-husband on the spot and reclaim my old identity. “May I ask what you are doing here?” I want desperately to tell him, No you may not, this is wrong. But I tell him that I am a social worker meeting with my client. That suffices and he moves away. Ronny, meanwhile, starts complaining about the LAPD and their constant “fuckin’ with everyone in the projects.” This is not the friendly, easygoing Ronny—he morphs into angry-black-man mode. Destiny, his girlfriend, has warned me, “You gotta be careful with Ronny. You know he has four personalities at once.” Right now I am getting a look at gangsta Ronny—Saint. “It’s not fair, it’s not fuckin’ fair,” Ronny says, hitting the side of a building in frustration. “I know, I know,” I tell him. “Shit, I gotta go. I gotta go talk to my homies about this.” Ronny takes off abruptly. I can’t remember where I parked my car. Darius rides back by and I ask him to help me. I don’t want to wander around alone. “I need to find my car, can you—” “Yo’ ride is a Prius—yeah, I know where it is.” I had forgotten about hood intelligence. Darius leads me to the car. I give him five dollars and he rides away happily. I go home that night, thinking about the LAPD. I don’t say anything to Mark. I really don’t want to deal with his reaction. I have also gone silent because we have been fighting constantly. It’s not about gangs; it’s about counterterrorism. It’s clear that there is an insane amount of money being spent protecting Los Angeles from (drum roll here) terrorist activity. I am finding this all laughable—except for the fact that there has been what the LAPD likes to call mission creep. The war against terrorism has slowly started to include talk of the need to “fight urban terrorism in our communities.” Increasingly Mark has been talking to me in his “official business” tone of voice about terrorism on the streets and in the neighborhoods. It doesn’t help that while I am driving home after Ronny has abandoned me, I hear Mark on the radio discussing how terrorist organizations are raising funds by selling counterfeit purses at swap meets. He is about to be interviewed on PBS’s Frontline by the correspondent Lowell Bergman, my longtime hero. I don’t know whether to feel proud or angry or embarrassed. “Hi, honey, I’m home from the swap meet,” I snap in lieu of describing my day in Nickerson Gardens. “I think a terrorist just tried to sell me a counterfeit Prada bag.” Mark ignores me as I continue. “But I’m not worried, ’cuz I heard what you said on the radio. I’m so relieved that this is what my tax dollars are being spent on.” “Y’know, you don’t even know what you are talking about,” Mark begins, with exaggerated patience. He has adopted the tone of a math teacher explaining division to the class idiot. “This is not a small thing. We are talking about millions of dollars being funneled into overseas accounts. This is what is financing terrorism across the globe.” I really think I am about to lose my mind. “You want to explain to me why it is so important to watch swap meets carefully, while patrols have been cut in East LA and there was a big shootout in Nickerson Gardens two days ago?” “Here we go,” he mutters. “Poor black woman.” This phrase had its origins in a major fight that was still a sore spot for Mark and me. A month earlier, I had arrived home drained after spending time with the family of a young homie who had been shot near Athens Park in South Los Angeles. It was unclear whether he was an active member of any neighborhood. All that was certain was that a sixteen-year-old boy would be facing the rest of his life paralyzed from the chest down. I wanted nothing more than to curl up in my husband’s arms and cry. Instead, I was greeted by the sight of Mark hurriedly making arrangements to leave the house. “You can order something from Emilio’s,” he instructed. “They’ll deliver. Shannon already circled what she wants on the menu.” All I saw was the uniform and all I heard was his officious tone, so I started screaming: “Where are you going?” “Will you control yourself?” he whispered. “I don’t want Shannon to hear you yelling.” This was all I needed to hear to raise my voice another decibel level. “Stop telling me what to do! Stop being so controlling!” Then in a triumph of intellectual reasoning, I added, “You’re acting like an asshole!” “Calm down.” This was the “license and registration voice” I knew so well. In the past, Mark had told me stories of soccer moms swearing a blue streak when he stopped them for speeding. He would ignore the profanity while adding charges to their citation. As the women screamed he would write, “Driving without a seat belt,” and “Brake light out,” and “License expired”—all visible offenses that would add to the ticket’s grand total. He was maintaining the same pleasant tone with me while I screamed like a banshee. “Look, I’m not supposed to tell you this,” he began. Here we go, I thought. I wasn’t fooled. This was the sweetener. All cops used this with wives and family. You were let in on some important, inside information—so inside it was probably just being reported on the local news—to help you understand why your husband, boyfriend, father was running out the door. When Mark and I were newlyweds, the long-suffering wife of the chief of operations advised me, “Honey, get used to being alone. They’re gone all the time.” I had absolutely no intention of accepting this reality. “Just tell me where you are going,” I repeated, now using a normal tone of voice. “There’s a guy who killed two cops in Colorado and they think they’ve got him trapped in Long Beach. So the LAPD has set up a command post along with the Long Beach PD to get him. We’ve got thirty men on overtime and I’ve got to get there as soon as possible.” That only enraged me further. “You don’t have to go to this.” “No? This is my job.” Mark was just starting to show signs of agitation. “No it’s not. Your job is to run the counterterrorism bureau and babysit John Miller. Please just tell me how someone who may or may not have killed two cops in Colorado relates to counterterrorism. Please. Tell. Me.” The mention of John Miller was not good. By tacit agreement, Mark and I stayed away from the subject of the man who was, on paper, Mark’s superior. Early in his tenure, Bill Bratton had brought along Miller—who was his best friend—to head up the counterterrorism bureau, which had been designed and implemented by Mark. Bratton frequently pointed out Miller’s wide-ranging experience, which included a stint working as Barbara Walters’s co-anchor on 20/20. This did not exactly endear him to the troops. But Miller was a good guy who constantly sought Mark’s counsel and acted responsibly, given his limited law enforcement experience. Despite all this, the favoritism evident in his appointment was a particularly vicious thorn in Mark’s side and a topic I generally avoided. But not tonight. Mark looked at me sharply. “Look, you know, it’s about the murder of a cop. I’ve got to go.” “You’re all a bunch of maudlin idiots. You’re gonna spend a lot of taxpayer money on overtime hunting this guy down because he killed a cop. Meanwhile, a mother was shot and killed in South Los Angeles last weekend. Was there one hour of overtime spent on her? No. Because it was a poor black woman. You don’t fucking care.” “Look, I’ve gotta go.” He walked over to kiss me good-bye and I ignored him. After he left, Shannon came down wide-eyed. “You and Daddy were having a fight?” She was half-questioning and half-observing. “Yes, and I don’t want you to get scared. We were just fighting over the way the LAPD investigates certain cases with lots of energy and ignores other cases—particularly those involving poor people.” The ongoing brainwashing of my only child diverted me from my fury. Mark rarely interfered in the education of Shannon; for that I was grateful. When I had come into her life, she was attending a summer camp run by Calvary, a fundamentalist Christian group. This was a desperate choice, made at the last minute, after Mark was unable to enroll Shannon in a school-sponsored summer camp. I had known Shannon precisely two weeks when she announced, “I have something wonderful to tell you.” I narcissistically waited for the declaration that she would love for me to be her new mommy. Instead I had to check my facial expression when Shannon continued, “I found Jesus.” It took all my self-control not to ask, “Was he lost?” and smile while thinking, I have gotta get to work on this kid. That had all changed. Recently Shannon had arrived home from school and announced that it was important to be honest and say she was an atheist because people who were agnostic were just afraid to tell the truth. She also believed George W. Bush was probably the Antichrist. But right now she was focused on my anger at Mark. “Do you mean how Daddy doesn’t care about gangs and you do?” Shannon was well aware of the never-ending argument about how much money was spent on counterterrorism and how little was spent on gangs. While Mark was tasked with spending $50 million in government grants, negotiating how money would be allocated—City Fire, Information Technology, Emergency Response—I was working with community-based organizations that were lucky to get by on $100,000 a year. Greg Boyle did not receive any government funding at Homeboy Industries to support his work on job training, tattoo removal, mental health services, drug counseling, and education. From that night onward, whenever we argued about gangs and counterterrorism, Mark would try to end the conflict by joking, “Poor black woman.” “Dad doesn’t always understand what people go through—especially people in Watts. They are poor and they commit crimes. That’s wrong, but it doesn’t make them terrorists.” “When we went to the Watts Towers you told me lots of people there weren’t gang members. Is that what you mean by ‘poor black woman’?” I was happy to settle for this small victory. Shannon and I moved on to the take-out menu. A few days after the swap-meet argument, however, Mark and I continue to argue. “It’s not ‘poor black woman’ and you know it,” I say. “It’s the inequity of the whole situation. You should have been with me two days ago with Ronny. The LAPD is just hassling people in Nickerson Gardens for nothing. And they don’t even understand the gang problem.” It only increases my fury when Mark responds, “Look, the gang problem has been around for a long time. It’s not gonna get better—and after 9/11 we need people to feel safe.” “It’s wrong,” I insist. “People are not afraid of terrorists. They’re afraid of getting killed. They’re afraid of Florencia and the Rollin 60s. In the hood, the Twin Towers don’t mean the World Trade Center. They mean the county jail. That’s what’s real—18th Street is real.” But I know we are arguing about money and what Mark had said on the radio and the emphasis on counterterrorism because we really don’t want to talk about the elephant in the room. Mark is afraid. And, even though I didn’t want to admit it, so am I. It had all started about a week earlier, when a gang interventionist named Mario Corona told me, “There’s a rumor on the street your husband is LAPD.” I never volunteered that I was married to a cop, nor did I hide it. I also knew that street intelligence on outsiders was pretty limited. The neighborhoods knew about one another and who came into their territory, but they knew very little about people in the outside world. I was never involved in any arrest. I kept telling people nothing was going to happen to me. But Kenny Green had told me the story of Gil Becerra, and it had an impact. Gil Becerra had functioned as a gang interventionist. He had impressive bona fides—he had been in the US military and on the streets. None of this had saved him from what occurred when he got in between two rival gangs, trying to negotiate a truce. He was beaten and left for dead. He sustained multiple broken bones and now had permanent back injuries that made it painful for him to walk or stand up straight. But for me, the critical issue lay in the phrase “gotten between two rival gangs.” I was convinced that as long as I didn’t plant myself between warring neighborhoods or interfere in gang activity, I would be okay. I also was careful never to go into a violent situation without someone from a neighborhood along for the ride. When Mario told me about the rumor, I told him I was always careful. He listened patiently but warned me again. “You gotta be careful. If these guys find out that you’re married to someone who is a cop, they’ll kill you.”
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This comment is extremely early on, but I was struck by the irony of this comment: “She also decreed that I wear navy blue, because I was far too young for basic black.” Isn’t an 11-year old boy too young to be attending funerals to desensitize himself to dead people? The comment helps me to understand how death is viewed in the game—it is as banal as shopping for a new suit. When a mother advises her son to avoid basic black, in fear that he is too young, rather than advising her son how to cope with death—BECAUSE HE IS SO YOUNG—I would assume death is a common occurrence.
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I was also surprised (though maybe I shouldn’t have been with all we’ve talked about in this class) at the advice to “go, as soon as possible, to a funeral, any funeral.” It’s shocking to think that in areas such as the LA county described in this reading, funerals are something that are so common place you can just pick any one out and go to it. This also reminds me of the children in The Wire not having a 10-year plan. If you grow up in a place where funerals happen every few days, and the people being buried are your relations of some sort and not just complete strangers, why would you bother planning that far ahead?
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I am going to respectfully disagree (meet on the lawn later for a duel?). Thus far in the article I see no indication of “the game,” but rather I see a responsible mother adequately preparing her child to understand the phenomenon of death. Personally, I feel it will be a responsibility as a father to help my children understand death so they can live safely and make healthy and wise decisions to avoid it at all costs. Perhaps this logic takes on a certain amount of danger for those involved in “the game,” as it maintains the possibility to fully desensitize them to death; however, a desensitization of death is not causal of a desensitization to violence. Therefore, at this early stage in the article, I do not see a precursor to street violence or murder as much as I see a caring mother trying to make the best out of sad situation.
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When I was reading this I couldn’t help but think back to a point in season 3 when Omar and his crew were trying to get back at the Barksdale organization by hitting all their stash houses. The run down went bad and someone ended up dead. Hours later when the cop had established a crime scene and the cops were trying to figure out who was involved they notice some kids are playing on the street just outside of the scene. They were pretending to be Omar, they were reenacting the scene like it was a game or a movie. They all wanted to be Omar shooting the bad guys but they failed to grasp the notion that a person was dead. Like this person in the article it doesn’t seem real to them, it is disconnected and the fact that these kinds of crimes occur often enough that kids can become naturalized to it is a scary notion because these kids will grow up with their perceptions of death relatively unchanged until something dramatic happens. The best example I can think of (spoiler alert) is when the little kid shoots Omar at the end of the series and he is freaking out at the sight of a real dead body, more so the fact that he just killed somebody. These kids aren’t teenagers, they look like they are under 10. A generation of children desensitized to death.
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I think that the normalization of violence is a necessary coping mechanism for these young children on the streets. By being in the streets, it is necessary to become numb to violence in order to survive. If every time these kids are exposed to violence they have a dramatic reaction, they would not be able to be functional or even survive in their community. Another reason why I think the kids in The Wire are numb to violence besides their sheer exposure to it is the way that the adults in their lives handle it. Just by a simple order, Stringer, Avon, and Marlo can end someone’s life. These kids grow up in a culture and community that is desensitized to violence which heavily influences the kids’ ideas about violence.
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I think Erin makes a really good point that outsiders looking in are desensitized to the violence as well. I think a major part of this is the mentally of the children that live in these poor, urban areas that violence is all they know, but I also think the outsiders are desensitized because of seeing these poor, urban areas as producing violence – it is expected. The stark contrast between the “numbness” to the violence in poor areas and the outside is when tragedies happen that seem so far out of the normal. With shooting and fatalities in urban areas, there is little media reporting; however, in a school shooting such as the CT shooting, it becomes such a reported on topic because of the idea that “things like this don’t happen here”.
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I believe those of us not in these circumstances are desensitized as well. I think being desensitized for those living in violent environment could be a coping mechanism, but at the same time be a very dangerous coping mechanism. Many times when people do not want to acknowledge the circumstances they are living in, they turn to other methods of coping i.e. drugs, sex, etc. I think trying to be numb to these environments can have even more detrimental affects than solely living in them.
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To what degree do you believe mass media is, at least in part, to blame for outside group’s desensitization to inner-city violence? While we are hyper-sensitized to suburban shootings such as Newtown, CN, there were 324, yes, three-hundred and twenty four murders in Philadelphia in 2011, 322 in 2012 (as of December 26), yet these cities have not been a major focus of media coverage, not subject of major legislation passed on gun restrictions. Why? It doesn’t sell to the America public anymore, and this may be partially or largely attributable to shows like The Wire and other, more traditional cop shows. In the case of The Wire, we see that people living IN these areas are numb/desensitized to murder all around them, so why should we do the same? IN the case of the more traditional cop shows, the cops always find the “bad guy,” so that has to be somewhat like the real world, right? Justice is served, the bad guy goes to jail, and cosmic balance is restored, so we shouldn’t care as much. In both cases, outside viewers are desensitized to urban violent crime because either its accepted on the inside or its solved, in accordance with mass media portrayal. This is, of course, only part of a series of causes of our desensitization, but I think it is a powerful one.
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I think part of the reason that these kids are so desensitized to violence is because that is all they know. When they grow up on the street, there is nowhere else for them to turn, nothing else to see. It is a never ending cycle, and they can’t get out, and then theyre children will be stuck, and then their children’s children and so on. Life on the street is so violent, that it doesn’t even phase them because it is an engrained part of their lives. For example, Wallace, in season 1, tries to leave, and ends up coming back. He tries to get away from the violence because he realizes how bad it is, but is ultimately drawn back, and life continues on violently with his death. Life on the street is life, and the violence that comes with the street is just a normal part of that life, no matter how old someone is.
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This sentence about the police officer’s varying degrees of emotions when dealing with the dead body makes me think of the police in The Wire. Most people, when they see such a gruesome murder and a dead body are horrified and disturbed and scarred for life. But to people who deal with it on a regular basis, this is just as normal as a quarterly report on an office desk. Police officers in homicide departments, like McNulty, deal with this type of disaster everyday, and become desensitized to something so horrific. I think about when they find the girls in the shipping docks in season 2, and how McNulty isn’t particularly appalled by the dead bodies, whereas most civilians are. In the homicide department, they write these murders down on the white board, and they just become another statistic. this is what happens when murder and death is a part of a job, and the police in the scene in the article remind me of how there are real McNultys out there, and desensitization really does occur.
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It is interesting to consider the ways in which media and narratives have shaped this officer’s perception of her current situation. It almost seems unhealthy in a way. How much is she thinking about her job and how much is she having an out-of-body experience imagining herself in a film or television show? I think her insights are particularly intriguing in light of what we have discussed in terms of the psychological journeys of police offers and the disappointment they might face in realizing that their efforts are ultimately rendered ineffectual.
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This sentence is exactly what has been missing from our conversation about prison-related-items in the past couple of classes. Whether or not the boss ultimately decides to hire the guy or not, after looking at the box checked “yes” for “I did a crime,” he can’t look at the candidate the same way. Not only does he look upon the the resume a certain way, but the boss knows how he is SUPPOSED to look at a guy who has been in jail before.
This gang concept is the same. The prison tattoo. The scarlet letter. Whatever it is. And what is even better about this article is that not only do the cops know how they are supposed to look at Khalid for being a former gang member, Khalid knows exactly how everyone is looking at him. Hence the over-enunciated, “No, I did not know the deceased.”
So basically, a lot of people say you can take the player out the game, but you can’t take the game out the player. Well, at least I know I DEFINITELY say that all the time because, I mean, look at me. I sound like Professor Williams quoting N.W.A. But what this idiom really means is when you take a player out of the game, everyone around him within this allegedly-outside-of-the-game-world (or so they like to think) is still going to look at him as if he’s still there.
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I think that Richard brings up an interesting point. I agree that often perception is the only thing that matters. Whether someone has served twenty years in prison and has come out truly a good citizen of our world will often make no difference because of perception. The second someone hears that they are an ex-con, their mind can’t help but wander to thinking about what type of person is standing before them, regardless of the progress or debt paid while in prison. I think perception creates a lot of the inequality in our society, but is something that is hard to change because it is often passive or subconscious. Even though we know these thoughts or judgements are not rational or just, how can we repress our subconscious from making them? How can we change the lens through which we look?
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Perception plays a huge part in how people are defined in our society. I think, though, that another aspect that couples with this is stereotyping different “types” of people, such as ex-cons. I think stereotyping and our perceptions of how society tells us to view certain people result in the actions of these people to be seen through a biased lens. We are told that ex-cons are a certain way, can’t be rehabilitated, etc. and these stereotypes guide our analyzing of people’s actions as fitting with definition they have been given. The label that these people fall under influences the way their actions and demeanor are understood, and, because of these prevailing stereotypes and perceptions, while observing certain behaviors, we perceive them as fulfilling the stereotype they have been given.
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The New York Times recently published an article about a white woman who was arrested for selling a few ounces of crack cocaine and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. About a decade into her sentence she was pardoned and set free when technical flaw in her case surfaced. (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/us/long-prison-term-shortened-by-judges-regrets.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0))
The article frames the main issue as the fact that some prison sentences may be disproportionately long for the crime committed, due to mandatory sentencing guidelines that the Supreme Court struck down eight years ago. While, that is an issue in and of itself, the article does not address the racial implications that can be drawn from this situation. What does it mean that the pardoned individual is a college-educated white woman? Would this same apology have been made if it had been a man, or moreover, a black man?
If an effort were made to release prisoners deemed to have been given inappropriately long sentences, do you think the project’s beneficial ramifications would be delivered to the black community? Or would the “Mercy Project” only really end up benefitting people of certain socioeconomic statues? The judge proposing the “Mercy Project,” lawyers would work pro bono to seek relief for inmates such as the white women previously mentioned, which is interesting to consider in terms what we discussed about the difficulty of access the services of a public defender during the incarceration process.
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I think you are right that the perception of ex-cons is what can make life so difficult for people just out of prison. I think the biggest obstacle in changing this perception is that there is no guarantee that the convict was rehabilitated. Just because someone is granted parole doesn’t mean they have changed. Take Avon for instance. All he remembers is “the day you go in and the day you get out.” He is clearly not remorseful for any of his actions (other than getting caught) and plans to continue business as usual as soon as he is released. Unfortunately, because there is no guarantee, it makes employers hesitant to take the risk that the person wasn’t rehabilitated as the state claims.
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Mattia, I think that both you and Richard bring up excellent points regarding rehabilitation and the stereotyping of ex-cons. While I think there is truth in your thought that the biggest obstacle to changing the perception of an ex-con lies in the lack of guaranteed rehabilitation, I believe the manner in which society frames ex-cons is equally important. Consider the “prison tattoo” or “scarlet letter” that Richard suggests society sees when looking at an ex-convict. Instead, what if society were able to portray those that found themselves in jail – for one reason of another – were individuals who made a mistake and deserve a second chance? In my opinion, this framing/outlook would make society more receptive to (and reduce stereotyping of) ex-cons, because society can now better identify with them: everyone makes mistakes. Yet, it is one thing to make a mistake, and another altogether to learn from that mistake. I believe that Cutty’s actions outside of jail are indicative of such a rehabilitation of which Mattia makes mention. His willingness to start a boxing gym for struggling youth is an example of his personal rehabilitation. This only helps Cutty in allowing him to branch out and look for other job opportunities (janitor at the school, etc).
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I completely agree with this statement, and it is true in a variety of situations. As soon as that box is checked yes, you are a criminal, and there’s nothing you can do about. One situation that I find very applicable from my life is that with steroids in baseball. Although clearly not as serious as prison and criminals, alleged steroid users get the same negative connotation in the sports world as those criminals do in the real world. Take for example, Barry Bonds. It is pretty much universally accepted that he is a former steroid user, and is one of the poster boys of the steroid era in baseball. His use of steroids has forever tainted his image, not just in the sports world, but the public view as well. By using steroids, he in essence has to check yes when he looks for baseball admiration. Trying to make it into the hall of fame as a steroid user is just as difficult as getting a job as a former felon. Even if Bonds was a great stand-up guy who had made one mistake one day and got caught with a syringe, he would still have that “Steroid User” label, and would get no respect or second looks from the Hall of Fame. Despite having one fo the best careers in history, he barely received any Hall of Fame votes, and it is likely that his career will forever be tarnished because of it, and he will have to live with the consequences just like a criminal has to do.
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This sentence reminded me of something I learned from The Wire. Violence will always return, regardless of any sort of truce or peace that is negotiated. It seems like violence is unavoidable in the inner-city and that truces hold little meaning. One small spark is all it takes to ignite gang violence anew. Why is this the case? I think a lot of it has to due with the strong emphasis placed on personal respect as street capital.
Even under a truce, gang members and inner-city males in general are obligated to stand up for themselves no matter what. This type of culture, where everyone is trying to be the “bigger man” and no one backs down, inevitably leads to violence.
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I wholeheartedly agree with the pessimistic notion that violence is an endless cycle. Gangs perpetuate this violence and will always find ways to circumvent law enforcement and transgress through criminality. I think this has important implications on the psyches of police officers, as we have seen in several instances throughout the Wire. It appears the only fixing can occur by changing the very structures of the larger institutions that carry societal and cultural weight. I do not have the expertise to suggest how to break this cycle, but I do believe it will not occur on a micro, individual level. This illustrates another strength of the Wire—its portrayal of politics and a world of corruption—which points the finger at the crux of the problem.
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I agree completely that inner-city violence is in a destructive cycle, but wonder how can we create an environment in which it isn’t a competition in “being the bigger man”? Is it even possible for individuals outside of the street to change this mentality, as cultural outsiders? Certainly there will be pushback from those who profit from street culture, but there will also be pushback from those on the street who view any kind of outside assistance or attempt to change as a cultural intrusion. This is, of course, a vast generalization of inner-city inhabitants, and Wire characters such as Poot serve as examples of individuals who would welcome outside assistance.
The question still remains, however, of how to start a cultural shift wherein individuals aren’t violently competing to be the “bigger man.” Does it start in the schools, with tougher policing, with more governmental assistance? I don’t have the answer, but think there must be some form of coordinated effort aimed at deterring this behavior in youths before the street has the opportunity to permanently capture them.
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In reading about Khalid, I could not help but think back to how The Wire addressed the issue of former gang members and their attempts to reach out and help young people get out of the cycle of violence. While I’m sure Dennis “Cutty” Wise is a somewhat romanticized version of what actually goes on in the lives of felons who choose a cleaner path than what got them in trouble in the first place, I still wonder how much of what he does is actually real. This article seemed a bit disturbing to me in its depiction of Khalid in that the author and most of the cops believe he is in some way still affiliated with his gang even while he claims to be an interventionist. Is it really impossible for people to escape the gang lifestyle even after they have spent years in prison? If not, how difficult is it to completely break ties and rejoin society as a whole? Is Cutty a completely unrealistic interpretation?
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You brought up two points that I wanted to address: How realistic is Cutty and is it really possible to break ties completely with your gang. First of all I think that Cutty’s character seem very believable especially given tot scene we see when he first get’s out of prison and is wandering the street to get to his mother’s house. He seemed fairly lost and confused because he has been in prison for so long that everything has changed. That should help tell you a few things about his character right there. He has been dislocated from society since he has been in prison for like 10 years or something like that and he was finding it difficult to find help anywhere so for him, as well as many convicts who get out and face all these institutional walls, it was very easy to fall back into the habit of crime and association with their gang because at least their gang will take care of them. That said, not every rehabilitated convict will fall back in their old ways. Some have had enough of the gang life and seem nothing but a better life without the hassle of the game encompassing every aspect of their lives. Around the country are people who give these takes about their experiences and how they have changed, not because it was the right thing to do but because they wanted to do it for themselves.
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Is street knowledge applicable into the education system, corporate world, or does it only help one in the streets? Does the knowledge acquired in the streets, in gangs, or in the drug game transfer to political leadership roles? Should we respect and give children who make it out of these environments easier access to college acceptance and job opportunities? Malcolm X lived a life of crime, went to prison, and came out a strong leader representing the nation of Islam. I would attribute his strong political and activist skills to his life in the streets. I believe that the most effective leader would be a person who has experience in many different areas of life. It seems like our society views people who have participated in crime as incapable of being as good as someone with a clean slate. Thoughts?
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I agree with much of what O’Shea is saying. I think that values you learn on the streets are able to be transferred into other areas. For example, Avon Barksdale is not just respected because his organization sells the most drugs in West Baltimore, but because he has fostered an allegiance of people who are literally willing to die for his cause, because he has managed to run a successful, profitable business over a period of time, and because he has delegated effectively enough to run a successful business. Although this business may be one of crime and violence, qualities that allow him to be successful would probably make him successful in another industry. This is also indicated with Stringer Bell, who uses persuasion, business smarts, and his personality to be a successful leader of the Barksdale organization, which are the same qualities that would make him successful in another business. There is something to be said about leadership, no matter how it is manifested. I too, agree that the most effective leaders are people who have experience all over the board.
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In theory, I agree with the idea that a diverse range of leadership experience would allow an individual to be an effective leader in most realms. However, in practice, I’m not sure how realistic this would be. How likely is it that an individual who has lived a life of crime will be able to succeed and prosper in a political leadership role? While there are certainly examples of this happening, would most members of a society accept that individual as a leader? I think that most of the time, stereotypes and stigmas would ultimately prevent an ex-criminal from excelling in any leadership roles, even after they have been through the prison system or renounced their life of crime. Even individuals who are merely associated with such a lifestyle are likely to be held back by these associations in today’s political and media landscapes. Modern leaders are so harshly judged for their past actions that a former involvement in crime would likely be a major hindrance.
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I think the point you’re getting at is that there are attributes that can make someone successful that aren’t easily quantifiable. For instance, there is every possibility that someone who graduates from Harvard with a 4.0 could wind up less successful than someone who graduates from a Baltimore community college. There is a large array of skills and personality traits that are deemed “soft skills” but are no less important in a professional or social environment. Things like conversational skills, networking ability, instincts or gut feelings all play a role in someone’s ability. I feel like the street smarts you mentioned is just another term for the soft skills. They are an important part of a person’s ability but it is difficult to see them, especially on a resume.
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This quote from a LAPD officer shows the mentality the police have about gang related violence. Even when it comes to a young boy, who the author describes as not even hitting puberty, Gascon still says it doesn’t matter who did it because the violence is unstoppable.
When thinking about this statement, it is hard not to think that this sentiment is reflected in many of the portrayals of institutions reflected on The Wire. For example, it doesn’t matter who’s dealing the drugs because the drug trade is never going to stop.
I find this element of inevitability disturbing. While The Wire is meant to show the way these institutions, whether it’s the drug trade or gang violence, are so entrenched that it seems that their is simply no way to reverse course. I wonder if this attitude of inevitability actually slows the process of meaningful reform, which will not come in a sweeping fashion but incrementally, and whether or not people in positions of power accepting these things as a foregone conclusion are part of the reason that these issues continue to remain unsolved. I think The Wire takes this view very often. While it may be simply for illustrative reasons of how corrupt the institutions are they made these issues seem unable to be resolved, when in reality I think there can be things that can be done to combat some of the deficiencies no matter how deep the institution in question runs.
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As depressing as this idea is, I agree that the violence seems unstoppable. This quote reminds me of the final episode of Season Four and the scenes leading up to Bodie’s death. Throughout the series, Bodie maintains his dream of advancing in the game. He seems to believe that despite all of the signs around him, he will beat “the game” and actually move up in the ranks. His final disillusionment with the drug game comes with the death of Little Kevin, when he realizes that the violence does not stop—and that no matter how much hard work an individual can put into the game, all of the players are susceptible to the whims of those at the top of the hierarchy. Violence is a way of life within the drug trade, and serves as a way to maintain and enforce power structures. Is there any way to get around these engrained systemic norms? What policies or actions can truly prevent violence in the streets?
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I agree with Kristen in that this comment also really stood out to me. No matter what happens, there is always going to be violence and killing in the streets. I like how you brought up Bodie because he was a hard working soldier that truly believed he would move up in the ranks. However, the violence in the Wire is like pouring gas on a fire, it just keeps growing and getting worse and there is no way out. Im not sure if there is a way to get around this systemic norms but i do not believe there are policies or actions that can truly prevent violence in the streets. Violence in the streets is unstoppable because they deal with gangs and criminal activity. Their virtues are eye for and eye and tooth for a tooth. If something bad happens to them violence is always the answer.
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Gregor, I believe that both you and Kristen bring up excellent points. The gang/drug violence that The Wire depicts never seems to end, as illustrated in the aforementioned scene involving Bodie. Yet, I am more interested in challenging your thought that public policy or actions does not affect the amount of violence in the streets. While I cannot honestly say that I believe public policy or actions by the greater public could completely eradicate violence in the streets, I do believe that individuals and organizations can have a positive influence on those involved. For instance, take Pete Carroll, long-time coach of the USC Trojans and current coach of the Seattle Seahawks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-wIAL0Dfsw
Actions such as those exhibited by Carroll, in my opinion, do make a difference in the violence. There are numerous people and organizations who do similar things and have similar positive impacts on the level of violence. While I do not believe such actions will completely eradicate violence in the streets, I do believe that they make a positive impact and are important in the campaign against street violence.
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I agree that small actions can make an impact. That’s the idea I was trying to get at in my original comment. While I think that it’s impossible to completely eliminate gang violence, people like Gascon just reverting to the idea that it’s never going to end, so why even try, is troubling to me. To eliminate issues like these, the answer is not sweeping reform, but an incremental approach, one neighborhood at a time. I think the example you bring up illustrates that point.
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I don’t think there is any question that many lawmakers and law enforcement officials see gang violence as inevitable. What reason do they have to believe otherwise considering the fact that it keeps happening over and over again? If I learned anything from The Wire, it is that as long as there is money to be made in the drug trade, people will be willing to fight over control of it. Look at the end of the series for example: even after Avon is locked up for the time being, Marlo is forced to abandon his enterprise to avoid the same fate, and countless major characters are either dead or in prison for the rest of their lives, we see the kids from seasons 4 and 5 filling their roles. Essentially Michael becomes Omar, Dukie becomes Bubbles, Randy becomes Bodie, etc. You also see Slim Charles step up to lead the co-op, and Cheese is killed for his betrayal of Prop Joe. Nothing ever really changes, so it’s understandable that there will be some feeling of inevitability among law enforcement.
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I think it’s the lack of faith in their work that brings in the lack of effort. I agree that Gascon’s attitude of viewing street violence as something inevitable is a huge part of the cycle. If he doesn’t want to continually improve his strategy in breaking up the game, then he wouldn’t be able to solve the problem in a traditional way. I find the mentality that since gang violence is inevitable, the police should not try using a double agent like Khalid or attempt to find the murderer of this boy with an extensive wire tap, the most troubling. I agree with Kristen and Gregor that there must be policies to try end the gang violence from its roots. However, I think one thing we can see in The Wire is how smart the gangs are and how they constantly evolve. It’s after Freadman and Prez spend sleepless nights in front of the wire tap, the major crimes unit is able to build their case. Maybe it’s unfair to say that the police are not doing their best. However, I think its the lack of urgency that hinders new tactics and approaches that could bring the end to the cases.
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This section of the article where Napalm attempts to define the “gang problem” is interesting. The Wire does not grapple with the issues of rape. We do not see young women who fear for their safety when they attend school. We do not see young men who give birth to children who they do not know the father- not because they were promiscuous, but because they were gang raped and could not afford an abortion or did not have the know-how to seek legal justice (not violent revenge).
The media constantly grapples with the question, “What is the ‘gang problem’?” Hip Hop music often seems to glorify gang activity whether its selling drugs, carrying illegal arms, or bashing enemies. In a recent song, Rick Ross raps about drugging a girl and having sex with her without her knowing. I see new groups deciding to boycott his music everyday. My issue with the assumption that rap lyrics reveal hidden truths about rappers’ or gangsters’ lives is each listener must decide if rap is related to the “gang problem.” If it is, how do music videos, television shows, or films perpetuate trends in gang violence. Does the absence of rape in The Wire communicate a message of approval to young, naive gang members?
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I think it’s how the current society deals with the issues of rape that makes it difficult for a media to bring up the issue. To almost protect the victimized girls from their painful memories, I think media have had difficult time portraying rape as an act of violence, if rape is talked about at all. I know the issue of rape has come up on medical television shows like Grey’s Anatomy or House in terms of social issues. However, television shows like The Wire that is essentially geared towards men and produced by dominantly by men have hard time digesting and depicting the issue that is so sensitive to women. I find the lack of messages on labeling the gang rapes as a ‘gang problem’ very troubling because it’s a message that the guys listening to these raps and watching the violent shows have to hear.
So to answer your question, I think it’s the media’s inability to find a right way to talk about the issues of rape that creates absence of relating rape as a “gang problem”. Ultimately, neglecting to portray rape as a violent crime that is prevalent in the street.
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This sentence stuck out to me because of the accusatory tone regarding the media’s portrayal of violence, and I have to say I agree. In American society it seems that viewing violent acts has become an almost fetishistic experience. You can watch a news broadcast or a television series without seeing some sort of violence and people are enthralled by it. The Wire has many scenes that are violent and those are often the ones that stick with us. The scene that comes to my mind is the one where Wallace is shot. Other immensely popular shows today like The Walking Dead, Law and Order, and Revenge are also filled with violent imagery. What is it about violent imagery that draws us in? Do you think the violence we see on the media has had any effect on the increase in violent acts like the Tech Shooting or the Newtown Shooting?
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I do not think that the portrayal of violence in visual media is related to the Tech Shooting or the Newtown Shooting. Violent imagery is seen in television shows and also heard in music. I can draw upon examples of discussions of gang activity and murder in many rap songs. Whether these songs seem to glorify violence and discuss how murder ripped away one’s childhood, I do not think I can blame artists for the current crime rates. I do think American culture has an infatuation with violent images, but I do not believe that a correlation between these images and current crime rates can be safely made.
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I think you raise a provocative question. Has the violence we’ve seen on television increased violent acts? I do not necessarily believe seeing violence has made viewers more violent, but I do believe it does desensitize us greatly. I know for myself, after watching Season 1 of The Wire, I did not feel the same reactions when watching others being murdered or shot. I just watched it to analyze for class or as entertainment. What does watching violence repeatedly on television and not feeling any reaction say about us as viewers?
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Allyson makes a very interesting point about how the media is specifically called out in this piece. This leads to the question that has been at the heart of media studies for years: does violence in the media lead to violence in real life? In most (if not all) media studies courses I have taken, the answer has been no. Most media studies scholars suggest that people do not simply imitate what they see on TV- that would give the media a very strong effect on everyday life. However, I agree with Allen that so much violence in media might de-sensitize us to violence in real life. What exactly does this mean? Essentially, it means that people might not be as affected by violence of real life beacause of the amount of violence they see in media.
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The diction used to describe the LAPD was simultaneously amusing and weirdly poignant here. “Boy Scouts on steroids” is a strange way to describe the men charged with keeping the peace and helping to keep society safe. Her words show how these men (mostly) have the notion that their role in society is an American duty. Boy Scouts are connotated with learning to be self-sufficient, diligent workers, and skilled men who are adaptable. Yet in this context, they are blind in their mission to protect by generalizing a demographic of people that also need their protection – perhaps more than the people the police believe are the priority to protect. To what extent is demonizing young black males necessary to the sanity of the police officers who work in areas destroyed by gang violence? At what point does this stereotype become so engrained that it becomes their reality?
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Demonizing black males might be helpful to the officers who serve in high-risk communities, but doing so only hurts these communities themselves. Stereotyping all of those who live in these areas as evil in some way only compounds the antagonism between the police and those in their community. Young black men who interact with the police feel more and more like society expects them to turn to a criminal lifestyle. This makes them all the more likely to eventually do so.
The Wire seems focused on breaking down these stereotypes. We talked earlier in the semester about how the show is more nuanced than the good vs. evil that other shows depict. The audience sympathizes with criminal characters. Season 4 posits a theory about what might happen if the antagonism between police and drug dealers was broken down. In Hamsterdam, Sergeant Carver shows care for the young members of criminal drug organizations and has personable conversations with those involved in the drug trade. Other officers on cleared corners have meaningful conversations and positive relationships with local residents. But after this experiment is shut down, the police go back to an antagonistic relationship in which they are encouraged to continue demonizing criminal activity.
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I think this analogy is also interesting because of what it means for the other side – not just for how the police think of the black gang members, but also of how the police think of themselves. They have the privilege of being on the “good” side of the law, which gives them the advantage of having their actions be right until proven wrong rather than the gang members who are wrong until proven right. Because of this, it is easy for the police to discount any of the work that people like Khalid might be doing and to opt out of the mental work of separating individuals from stereotypes. This is not to say that all police are bad or lazy, but just that the demonization of certain groups on the one hand often brings with it a sort of reification of other groups that is similarly dangerous. The police get to think of themselves as the noble officers fighting for good, which has the potential to mask their underlying grudges and personal motives.
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In the midst of the chaotic scene of a murder, Leap accurately portrays how she feels as her life is threatened even just being there. I can’t even imagine what kind of upbringing and character building the kids – like the ones that she sees around her or even the one who is dead – have in that kind of hostile environment. But the fact that Leap is caucasian woman, who is obviously an outsider to the world, makes these observations more interesting, and perhaps even provides an opportunity to be read by other people. Would this narrative been perceived differently if it wasn’t written by a white woman or an outsider of the community?
Even The Wire is written by Ed Burns and David Simon, who are affiliated with Baltimore, but was never actually an ‘insider’ who suffered from the perpetual cycle of inner city environment. I think it’s interesting and somewhat inevitable that it takes a shock of an outsider for these social/political/public health issues to be brought to the surface.
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I think the narrative would be starkly different if written by an outsider of the community. What we praise about The Wire is its maintenance of integrity regarding the portrayal of inner-city Baltimore and the inner-workings of Baltimore institutions. This being said, that integrity is a direct result of Simon’s meaningful affiliation with Baltimore as a journalist for The Sun. Had an “outsider” attempted to create The Wire, I think it would have likely been like every other crime show on television.
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The thing is that I don’t see any true “insider” wanting to step up and give a real perspective on what is going on. We can send people into these neighborhoods and they can give us their interpretations of the scene. They can also interview people to try and spin some firsthand knowledge, but the fact of the matter is that we will never know truly what it’s like to be in their shoes unless we lived in their world. The author makes reference to the fact that kids are just roaming the streets and playing late at night as if there’s nothing abnormal about a kid lying dead on the sidewalk is very telling. Even in The Wire, actors pulled off the streets of Baltimore just play off the events of the show as “all in the game.” It is mind-boggling to me how this can be so normal to someone, and frankly as interesting as it would be to truly understand what it is like to live this way, I have no desire to ever get that close.
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Ever since finishing season four a few weeks back, I have thought about a theme obvious in those episodes: The Game takes people in from an early age. While we see this especially in the case of Wallace along with Bodie, Poot, and others, season 4’s emphasis on the young schoolchildren really drove this point home for me.
Moreover, this single aspect, over the myriad problems that drugs create in inner-city settings, is probably the most upsetting to me. There is something horribly distressing, almost sickening, about the notion that innocent people – children – are born into a world that is far from what they would have chosen for themselves. They have no real choice in the matter and are subject to their luck on the streets, hoping to stay alive but having no real means to ensure that.
The choice of the words “just a baby” in this article, though, made me rethink an actual baby’s place in the world. When we think of a new parent, we envision how much his or her daily life is now interrupted by the responsibilities of caring for a baby, who can do nothing for himself. Babies are completely reliant on their parents or whomever their caretakers are. That being said, the boy mentioned in this article – a “baby” – may not have had someone looking out for him in the way that a parent with a baby would, and he may have never experienced that degree of concern from anyone. Imagine that that is true for him: if so, then who is the caretaker? Does society become his caretaker? Who is best capable of protecting a child in this situation or keeping him out of dangerous parts of a city? Does that become your job or mine since we are made aware of these issues in light of what we have learned throughout our course?
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Susan brings up a great point about how distrubing it is to realize that so many young children are born into a life of perpetual violence. For one thing, this really made me realized just how priviliged I am to live in an area where there is not constant violence going on. As a kid, I cannot imagine what it would be like to grow up in this type of neighborhood- like Wallace had to in The Wire. It really is ashame that so many innocent children are caught up in the middle of violence that they have no choice but to be around.
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“Violence is as American as apple pie.” This quote really stood out to me because when i think about it, every time i watch the news or go on the internet i see some kind violence done in the US. Violence has become something of the norm in some cities and they have even become known for their violence, like Camden and Detroit. As we see in the Wire, violence seems to get worse and worse with every season. Violence in America seems to be deeply routed in our culture. Do you agree with this comment that “Violence is as American as apple pie?”
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Violence is as much of a stereotype about America as our love of apple pie. Most foreigners see America as a violent place, with high crime rates, guns, and wars. A scene from the movie Rush Hour 3 pops into my head here. In the movie, Chris Tucker is hailing a cab in France, but the cabbie won’t drive such a violent American. Chris Tucker then pulls a gun out and makes him sing the national anthem as they drive to the destination.
While this is a stereotype most Americans are undoubtedly aware of and can laugh at, there is some truth to it. America has been at war for more years than it has not, and it seems like there are always domestic issues with gun violence. I can only guess what this is the result of, but I think the American emphasis on individuality plays a role. This is true in a very general sense, but we are more likely to care about ourselves than our communities. I think this leads to a mindset in america, as opposed to in other cultures, where violence against others seems like a more reasonable solution to a problem.
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This paragraph was really interesting to me for two reasons. The first is that it talks about the juxtaposition of gang violence and terrorism, and second, it compares gangs to an idea we can all understand: community.
Before reading this article, I always thought that gang violence was just a part of street culture that police departments dealt with because they had to. Never before did I think of gang violence as a “distraction” for police and a “weakener” of police funds that could potentially go to fighting other crimes, like terrorism. Terrorism and gang behavior seem similar and dissimilar in many ways, namely the violence they both insight. I had never considered the possibility, however, of a direct connection between these street gangs like MS-13 and the Bloods funding terrorist operations. Looking at season 2 of The Wire and how The Greek and his international organization is tied to Baltimore’s gang activity, it is so easy to see the point made in this paragraph.
Leap also talks about her experience of being a member of a tightly-knit Greek community in comparison to being in a gang in some senses. This puts a lot of it into perspective, especially when we look at The Wire and the family involvement and interactions. We are all a part of a UVA gang that by definition dislikes the VTech gang, right? Maybe that’s a stretch, but the idea that we all have intrinsic values based on our surroundings can go many ways, as clearly illustrated by some of the negative values perpetuated by life on the inner city streets.
Overall, I thought this article was very interesting and it made me think about the role women play in “the Game.” The voice of this article was much more sympathetic and emotional than other readings we have read, which made me wonder if that has shaped the role women do have within police departments and even within gangs. Leap’s discussion of being married to a LAPD commander reminded me of Lieutenant Daniel’s wife and the dissolution of their marriage.
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Ronny’s Hillbilly Bloods draws very interesting parallels with the Barksdales. Since Ronny’s family was such a huge part in the gang, it was impossible for him to leave it. Like we discussed in class, Brianna financially had the chance to get D’Angelo out of the game but she did not- instead she put him on the streets and forced him into the game. But did Brianna really have a choice? The game is the only thing she knows and if she wants to continue to live the life that her family lives (D’Angelo included), D’Angelo must rise through the ranks of the Barksdale organization to take over Avon’s position. Just like any other family business, the younger generation, from an early age, is groomed to take over the business. Through the “family business” of the Barksdale organization, D’Angelo is expected to rise to the top and eventually take care of the family as Avon did. With this task, was it even possible for D’Angelo to escape the game even though he had the means?
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For me, D’Angelo is one of the most tragic heroes in The Wire because it is his innate goodness that makes leaving The Game seem like the right thing to do yet the same quality that keeps him from pursuing something better for himself. He appears to always be torn between doing what society would deem “right” and what his family, a bit corrupt in their values and thinking, urges him to do mainly for their benefit and to his detriment.
I personally don’t think that if D’Angelo had lived, he could have ever really gotten out of The Game, or if he had done so, it would have been many years after we see him in seasons one and two. His moral compass was always pointed toward doing good, but his loyalty to his family, though we see it wane and weaken, seemed to still be crucial to him. I imagine that if he’d gotten out of prison, he likely would have continued to support financially his mother and other family members out of the obligation he seems to feel toward them. Although he probably wouldn’t have been on the streets anymore, his money would still have assisted the players of The Game to a degree, thus perpetuating the vicious cycle.
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I feel like this sentence summarizes the dichotomy of Omar and D’Angelo. Omar is never secure, and no one really has his back (except for his lovers, sort of) but he able to stay free from overarching control of different gangs. On the other hand, D’Angelo is secure materialistically and has the support of his family, but this security makes him completely dependent on maintaining that status quo and respecting the power of Avon and Stringer.
The ironic counterpoint is that even if you have one side of this equation, you do no necessarily have the other side. Everyone is a player of the game, so even when D’Angelo feels secure but is literally a prisoner, we all know he is not secure. Even if Omar does not have security, he is not free from the wrath of other gangs even though he exists outside their bureaucracies.
It just goes to show that existing within or outside a gang does not make one immune to “the game.”
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I completely agree with Emily. Omar at no point could feel secure about his safety because of what he has done in the past. His contribution to the game has ultimately kept him in it for life. He does what he wants when he wants and answers to nobody; however, he always has to sleep with one eye open as gangs are constantly trying to kill him. D’Angelo simply knows to much to simply step away. Due to who is relatives are, he will always be apart of it. Like Emily said, he has to maintain the status quo in order to not disrupt the family system. It all just goes to show that you can’t escape the game.
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The thing that I have found about Omar is that he is a slippery character. Though he is often on his own or with a select few he was never really in fear of everything. It seemed like the fact that he had a shot gun was enough to scare everyone into submission. He would walk around and people are screaming out warning, throwing their drug packages at him as homage and in generally running in fear whenever they hear him whistling his tune. There were many times I stopped and asked myself if a character like Omar could really exist in the real world because of the fact that he is a free agent, so to speak, in the game. He is the ace, the wild card, that factor that you never can really account for because he is so mobile and not linked to any particular safe house, gang, or people. It is a advantage but once again its just one man often against an entire gang organization and I feel that the writers of The Wire let Omar get away with a lot that a normal person would not be able to. Don’t et me wrong, Omar is smart, cunning, and knows exactly what he is doing, that is very believable about him. It’s just the fact that he had stolen from so many people all over Baltimore (mainly west side) they were not quick to forget that and they would all would want revenge. Shot gun or no, it seems the Barksdales were the only one’s who actively sought out revenge against him, which they didn’t even get. It wasn’t till he got to prison that we noticed the lot of drug dealers Omar has stolen from.
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This sentence of all the things Ronny grew up without struck me, and I would assume it is in no way exhaustive. Ronny himself seems to think that his childhood without parents was made up for at least in part by being cared for by his grandmother, but is that the case? Different people grow up without certain lifestyle amenities/necessities all the time and across race/class levels. Is there a breaking point, though, for how many things you can grow up without before getting lost in the system of gang lifestyles and poor living conditions? On the other side, are there certain important life lessons that can be gained by growing up “without” that those who grow up “with” will not understand?
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To answer Kathryn’s question about life lessons that can be learned when growing up without parents: Parent-less children will, of course, learn different life lessons than if they had caring parents to cradle them. These children may have better street knowledge but whatever life lessons this children learn, most likely will not be employed throughout their lives if they are jailed, or worse dead.
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Here, Jorja Leap sheds light on a very important and, in my opinion, often overlooked aspect of a career in law enforcement. That is, Leap highlights a small piece of the impact that such an occupation – and the institution itself – can have on one’s family/home life. Likewise, David Simon touches on the subject. Through the characters of McNulty and Greggs, the audience has a glimpse of the destructive nature of the career. Both have deteriorating relationships with their significant other(s), have lost touch with their children, and seem to constantly have the latest case on their mind even when they are off the clock. How do you think that The Wire portrays home life for those involved in law enforcement? Does Simon give the issue the attention that it deserves, or is the issue one that is altogether insignificant?
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I’m really glad you raised this issue because it’s one that we have not discussed much in class. But for me, this is such an interesting question because obviously a demanding profession, such as that of a detective or police officer, is going to have an impact on the amount of time that those professionals can spend with their families as well as the quality of that time.
From what we see in The Wire, it’s pretty fair to say that McNulty, Daniels, Kima, and others feel the effects that their careers have on their personal lives. I have not yet seen all of season 3 or 5, but from the others, I believe that Simon tried somewhat to show this to his audience. However, I do wish that we had more time to see this play out from the perspective of the partners, like Kima’s girlfriend or McNulty’s ex-wife. Like we said yesterday in class with the women in The Wire, the spouses and/or significant others of our main players do not get to show us their view on this. I think The Wire is simply not able to give time to EVERY character and let him/her have a soap box moment or two in which we could learn every thought or feeling of that individual. Clearly, Simon does value certain characters, perspectives, etc. over others, but I’m not sure how that could be avoided or if it’s a fundamental problem/weakness of the show. It’s simply part of what The Wire is.
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Few outsiders actively intervene in the drug culture in Baltimore. Those involved in public health and religious organizations are seen during the Hamsterdam plot in the later seasons of the show, but these individuals did not appear in the low rises or areas of highest crime until it was safer to do so. Some people try to reform those involved in drugs from the school system or from their positions in politics or shine lights on important issues from the media, but they are never willing to get their hands dirty. This is because working in a violent drug culture is so dangerous. The only outsiders who really enter the areas of highest need are the police, most of whom are men with means of protection.
Because of the simple physical danger that comes from these types of environments, men are much more likely than women to enter the streets. Colvin is so comfortable working with most aggressive and jaded children in the school precisely because he is a strong black man who has worked in the police department. The show covers so few females in the police department because it is simply more intimidating for women to meet the physical demands of the job. Jorja Leap is a woman who did try to intervene in a high-need, high-risk situation. And the ethnography hints at the danger she felt; I would be interested to read more about this mindset.
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This idea also goes back to our class discussion on the bystander effect. During that class period, we talked about the difference between standing back from the action when it means refraining from hurting yourself in some way (in this case putting yourself in physical danger) and standing back because you don’t care enough to do something about the problem. I think you’re absolutely right that we do not see a whole lot of outsiders stepping in during The Wire, although I think part of the reason for this might be the show’s message that within all of these institutions, there are very people who aren’t insiders of the game in one way or another. At the same time, though, as you said, most people only step in once the area has been made more safe. Is the gang/drug problem in Baltimore or any other area something that can be solved without putting bystanders/outsiders at physical risk? Or to put it another way, does this violent problem necessarily require violence in response before anything can change?
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I understand that the question about violence requiring a violent response is proposed as an extreme (and most like facetious) solution, however I would ask to what degree have we seen that as successful in The Wire or inner-city environments in the United States. A violent response to inner-city violence could go one of several ways, but factors to consider should include the police response to this violence, especially when they begin to face injury and death more commonly in their work; the political risks required to issue such an order; the urban bystander reaction to seeing police brutality (I’m rather dramatically envisioning the LA riots); and the media reaction should they come to understand that violence is being met with equally reprehensible violence (what kind of example do we set if those meant to enforce a non-violent society are the agents of violent action?).
On the other hand, extreme times call for extreme measures, but the issue I see with violence meeting violence is that it cannot be (logistically) executed due to how early kids get into the game. Even after knocking off the Stringer bells, the Marlo Stanfields of the world, there are always younger individuals wiling to step into those roles. The answer lies more in our education systems and keeping students in school than fighting violence at higher levels with further violence.
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