GIRLS IN GANGS

It is a unique world that is uniquely violent. It is a chaotic caste system that reflects a universal caste system of sex and class. It is a pathological plea for power from those who are, otherwise, most powerless.

The original gangsters were white men, who invaded the “hoods” of Native Americans. They went “wilding” from the Western plains to West Africa. As Nikki Giovanni says, in a classic poem entitled “All Eyez on U (For 2Pac Shakur 1971-1996), in her beautiful new book Love Poems:

“...If those who lived by the sword died by the sword, there would be no white men on earth. If those who lived on hatred died on hatred, there would be no KKK. If those who lived by lies died by lies, there would be nobody on Wall Street, in exclusive suites, in academic offices, instructing the young...”

The newest gangsters are female. They wear the faces of our baby girls. They carry the future of our race in their wombs.

In a shocking and superb book entitled 8 Ball Chicks: A Year in the Violent World of Girl Gangsters, by Gini Sikes, we witness wars at a surrealistically safe distance. A distance that is a luxury that most peaceful ghetto residents cannot afford.

There are over 65,000 documented girl gangsters nationwide. They are in every state and city. They represent every race and class. They are often ignored by police and underestimated by sexist male rivals. They are gaining ruthlessness and rank.

Many of these girls have gangsters and drug users as parents. Many of them are molested by their fathers, step-fathers, or the boyfriends of their single mothers. So, when they are gang raped by “homies” as initiation, it is familiar torture. Some must choose between sex with many boys or just one boy, who has AIDS.

“Pain makes me forget my anger. And, I have a lot of anger.”

These girls grow up beating on others for survival. So, when they are “beat down” as initiation, or beat others for sport, it is also familiar and even “fun”. Some have even watched their mothers be beaten by men who claimed to love them. Such patterns of abuse linger, as they are beaten by young men, and beat their own babies.

“These girls don’t give a fuc* about life itself. They been hurt too much.”

These girls often remain loyal lovers and regular visitors to young men in prison. Yet, those same men, who teach them to become inmates, regularly ignore these same women when they are locked down. These men rarely keep their babies, or ever even visit. Many girls are pregnant as they enter prisons. They often give birth to immediate wards of the state.

I was amazed that children who can murder others with ease, dare to think of abortion as the ultimate sin. They often commit “drive-by” murders, but never drive in to abortion clinics.

“Men want you to have all their kids so you can’t have no life...”

Regular activities for female gangsters include raising money for funerals, often to bury the fathers of their children. Many female gangsters are ordered to seduce rival gang members. They are treated as concubine casualties of war. They equate loyalty with death, for men who are NEVER loyal, and ALWAYS deadly.

“He might have stayed with me if I had a baby boy...”

Inhumanity is as ancient as humanity. Rape is a weapon of war in Bosnia and Rwanda. So should we be shocked to find the same sadism in America? Females were guards in Nazi death camps and cruel mistresses on plantations. So, why would females resist pimping younger women or pumping automatic weapons?

Jobs, scholarships, musical bands, sports teams, recreational centers, field trips, and drama clubs have all been cut out of federal budgets. So, does it not follow that peace, love, and safety would be cut out of our communities?

This book allows us to walk in the “hoods” of gangsters. It moves us to ponder the tough questions that politicians avoid, evade, and ignore:

-How do we tell children to be peaceful in a world that is increasingly violent?

-How do we expect children to barely exist on minimum wage when they can earn real living wages illegally?

-How do we expect children to dream about college when the government axes scholarships while mass producing prisons?

-How do we expect most of those who are doomed by the bad luck of pathetic parents, poor education, and toxic environments to escape with good fortune and bright futures?

-How do we dare tell them “Just Say No” when we, simultaneously, offer them nothing positive to say “Yes” to?

Which death is superior: the slow, walking death of poverty, or the certain death of riches in the fast lane? One final quote from 8 Ball Chicks: “We’ve become an ugly society. Our kids are mirroring that and no one wants to take the blame.”

When blame is not taken, it is dealt. The karma being dealt must be paid by us ALL...