The Art of Bangin'

9781545603383

Introduction

The colonized man will first manifest this aggressiveness which has been deposited in his bones against his own people. This is the period when the niggers beat each other up…The native is forced to accept a status quo which he hates. In his anger he becomes irrational and turns against his family and friends.

Frantz Fanon

The chief problem in any community cursed with crime is not the punishment of criminals, but the preventing of the young from being trained to crime.

W.E.B DuBois,The Souls of Black Folk

This is the ideology of one who has been involved in and experienced Bangin’ from the grass roots. Involvement and experience that has been present since the early stage of adolescence, which forms the basis of opinions, theories, and facts that are formulated to educate the masses of youth that can be led unconsciously astray from the truth of the power structures evident ploys to continue the genocide in urban communities.

Being that we people of color tend to find solace and happiness when being a part of something, and that something of physical existence in low-income, poverty stricken areas most of the time are gangs. There are proper procedures, principles, and rules that must be obtained, retained, and then practiced when one is involved in, a member of, or associated with a gang.

I’am not in a position to judge or condemn another for whatever one chooses to do with their life, but I do believe that whatever one chooses to do in life, there should be and needs to be some sort of guidance from one who is available with experience in the field that another chooses to partake in.

An observation made of Gang Bangin’ from an outsider whether they are critic, oppose, or admirer would not grasp the arcane art of Bangin’ by just witnessing gang activity, knowing a gang member, or even having a relative who is a gang member. There would have to be actual involvement and growth within the organization to be equipped with the complexities to survive or not survive within the gang world. The chances of survival are slim, but there is more of a chance of survival when enlightened to these rules and principles.

If one unfortunately gets involved in Gang Bangin’, obtaining, and retaining this information could possibly save one from death and or prison, if not by way of prevention then by intervention. Youth may be reluctant and hesitate to read such information that could uplift them, so in event that this may be the case, the information conveyed from this source can easily be conveyed to the youth who may or may not be risk, and who are willing to increase their knowledge, obtain new information while at the same time keeping an open mind.

An example of one type of the power structures ploys is a ploy enforced by the police whose first job ever in United States was to keep track of the blacks, is to instigate and wage wars between individuals’ and communities of the same race. This is a ploy which was introduced to America by Willie Lynch, who was a British slave owner that taught in Virginia, the cruel methods of controlling black slaves in the year of 1712. Division by unavoidable and natural differences such as age, color and gender; once the distrust and envy is present within the black race the issues of our common problems are neglected while all our attention is focused on the destruction of each other. As an example in the world of Gang Bangin’, the police encourage victims of circumstance to inflict harm on their enemies either from another gang, or even worse, to the satisfaction of the system, to cause harm to a member of one’s own gang. Once an unenlightened victim of the police’s manipulation carries out the action of this wicked plot, he is taken to jail and charged with the violent act that he imposed on his victim, most likely of the same race. If the victim is murdered he is then zipped up in a body bag then placed into the ground. This is called killing two birds with one stone. Do not feed into this form of racism, racism that we have as a people within ourselves, but it does not have to be a permanent way of thinking.

Racism is not just a single white person who displays hate for another race. Racism is the whole system in which we operate under. Racism is the educational system, the prison system, the court system, the welfare system, employment establishments, the housing authority, etc. This system teaches and trains us to hate our skin color, color that is depicted as being evil and results in repulsion towards the power structure and even worse towards one another, which is condoning genocide. For example, one may encounter members of the black race who are employed in positions that can determine other black folks’ well-being. For instance, there are blacks who are employed at welfare offices who give their own people a hard time about different types of uncontrollable issues, which again causes division within our race. Another black person may be employed at the housing authority and is sent out by the system to put another black person, a single mother and children out on the street, which also causes division within our race. Black people and our struggles were intended situations. These situations soon change the attitudes of those blacks employed by the system, due to the familiar feeling of being a have-not. Once that feeling has been materially extracted, the blacks employed by the system never want to experience that have-not feeling again. They adopt the attitude that they don’t care how their fellow people feel or think about the job they enforce, whether it’s hurting another black or not as long as they are employed. As long as they are not suffering financially they do not think there’s a problem, but their not to blame for their way of thinking or feeling, it’s the system that is to blame.

Genocide

Genocide is said to be necessary for the development of the modern capitalist economy according to Howard Zinn. Black against itself also known as black capitalism is used as a tactic to alter the trust and unity which is a threat to this society if practiced amongst members of the black race.

Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic, racial, religious, political or cultural group by all means necessary. There are eight stages of genocide. Between the years of 1941-1944 a Polish writer and attorney named Raphael Lemken created the word by combining the Greek word genos, which means race with a Latin word cide, which means killing. Genocide is the killing of a race, and members of a certain group which in this case are black people. For hundreds of years we’ve been victims of serious bodily harm and death. Viciously conquered then kidnapped from Africa, 400 million blacks from the tribes of whydah, Eboe, Congo, Senegalese, Coromantee, Gaboon, Nagoe, Paw Paw, Angolas, Mandingo’s, etc., were brought to the United States, and the majority to Brazil in slave ships to be slaves for the greedy capitalist of white descent in the 1500’s. The act of separating families, murders and rapes were viciously carried out on African people, who then were purposely stripped of their customs and beliefs. As the African heritage was stripped from slaves, slaves were also excluded from the American culture, which resulted in the struggle for self-identity within the black race. Beaten with whips, lynched by the hundreds between the years of 1880 and 1900, attacked by police dogs, sprayed with high power water hoses, and Billy clubbed in the 1950’s – 60’s and 70’s, to now being tazered and shot to death while all along fighting for equality, blacks are still excluded from the American culture. As time goes on the violence that we endured as a people has been increased and becomes more brutal. We’ve been through so much mistreatment that our naturally good hearts were converted into having callous hearts, and spirits full of tenacity.

Genocide is also inflicted by mental harm. We were led to believe that we are bad people, inferior, and not worth anything, which can lead to self-helplessness that a lot of gang members suffer from. This will be discussed later on in the book. We were deprived of education until after the Reconstruction era (1877), severely punished for picking up a book or even attempting to learn which in my opinion is one of the reasons why blacks refuse to read and learn now.

Capitalist manipulative scheme of creating materialistic images to the poor blacks alter our focus and transforms our mind from loving, caring, being sympathetic and empathetic towards one another, from peace and spirituality, from a repulsion state to an acceptance state, which acceptance is an addictive and learned behavior. Acceptance in this case is accepting misfortune and bad luck, and perceiving it as that’s just how life is, and how it’s meant to be. Our ideas and thoughts of unity are diminished, and have been replaced with a corrupted individualism that causes us to then concentrate on obtaining these material things that we can’t afford by committing crimes in hopes of obtaining these things that only the power structure benefits from. Sometimes few succeed for a short moment in these acts of crime that enables them to purchase these items and or live in a lifestyle that is thought to be lavish, but it’s only an illusion and temporary. Such distractions take our concentration off the real problems that we face. Then unfortunately one is captured for the crimes, put in jail and the power structure still benefits.

Education and training in fields that will always be of need in this economy is what needs to be rendered and retained in order for one to achieve survival amongst a society who once considered blacks property, and three fifths human, as it was once documented. The US Supreme court even sanctioned the notion that blacks were not citizens, after being forcibly carried off from our homeland, brought to the United States, and denied the right to leave and return to Africa. This is the third stage of genocide known as dehumanization, which one group fails to recognize another group as human beings.

Black men were so severely oppressed that it was impossible to support their families, so they were taught to abandon their families without a second thought, and to this day black men still think and will do this exact same thing. This is called the dividing of a nation. We were also taught not to take orders from one another so then when certain blacks were appointed superior positions over other blacks to give orders to, this also caused conflict within the race; again this is another form of division implemented by the power structure. We also were made to believe that lighter skin is better than darker skin, which is not true at all. We all are of the same black and beautiful race no matter what complexion one is. The reason why some of our complexions are light is because the beautiful black women were raped by their so called