Gangs and violence

Just before I left for my trip, I had gotten the urge to do some research on gangs and gang violence. This was prompted by a show I saw on CSPAN-2's book readings. I saw Tom Hayden speaking about his book Street wars: gangs and the future of violence. I've always been fascinated by gangs, even though gang life (thankfully) has not been part of my experience.

I went to the library and looked up information on gangs. I've gotten three videos and several books. The video I'm watching now is Beyond Hate with Bill Moyers. This particular video is not looking at gangs specifically but, more generally, at the nature of hate. I'm watching a segment on white supremacy and am again astounded by the way some whites find ways to justify their violence against people of color. I've been fascinated for a while by white supremacy and hate groups and wrote a short paper on hatecore music when I was an undergrad.

I find it extremely interesting that I moved from the southeast (one of the centers of racism in the US) to Portland, OR, a place where racism is also (apparently) a promiment issue. What's interesting is that racism here (in Portland)isn't as ingrained and subtle as it is in NC. What I mean by that is that it isn't as obvious a part of my daily life as it was in NC.

Once you start looking at gang violence, it quickly becomes apparent that the conditions required to support that environment are much, much deeper than many people are willing to look. The variety of issues that feed into the formation of gangs are so intricate, complex, and fundamental that it's impossible to separate them from each other.

I'm not entirely sure why I'm so drawn to studying gangs, violence, and white supremacy, but it's possible that I'm searching for ways to understand why people are so quick to hurt each other. It's the flip side of the coin for me - the other end of the spectrum from peace education maybe. Sun Tsu said "know thy enemy" so perhaps this is my search to learn my enemy.