The Rise of White Gangs

April 6, 2018 10:26 AM

Dangerous, growing, underreported.
posted by MovableBookLady (16 comments total)

Saw this the other day. This is some scary reading.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 10:46 AM on April 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

Gee, I wonder why the existence of white gangs is underreported.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:27 AM on April 6, 2018 [34 favorites]

The further I get from my adolescence in Chicago, the more that I'm thankful that I never ran afoul of any gangs, because I was almost completely ignorant of them. I'd see Simon City Royals graffiti all the time and just think, well, that's interesting. Pretty sure that they had members at my school.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:31 AM on April 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

BUT MS13
posted by Miko at 11:47 AM on April 6, 2018 [5 favorites]

I'd see Simon City Royals graffiti all the time and just think, well, that's interesting. Pretty sure that they had members at my school.

That Simon City Royals business card is definitely something I've seen around town -- tucked into bar mirrors next to some old sports ephemera, and such. The "Koz Park" reference cracks me up a little, since I just saw a listing for a $435,000 condo touting its proximity to Kosciuszko (Koz) Park.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 12:12 PM on April 6, 2018 [5 favorites]

Nothing new. The KKK was in many ways The True Original Gang. When "Gangsta Rap" first started, one of my first reactions was "why do you want to adopt all of White America's WORST practices?!?"
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:49 PM on April 6, 2018 [5 favorites]

Nothing new. The KKK was in many ways The True Original Gang.

I'm not going to link it - you can Google it if you want to see it - but I remember seeing a racist shirt with KKK hoods on it, and a caption "The Original Boys in The Hood". Obvious reference to the early 1990s black gang movie.
posted by theorique at 12:57 PM on April 6, 2018 [4 favorites]

i feel like i've seen that shirt too, and wouldn't be surprised if it was from t-shirt hell.

Gee, I wonder why the existence of white gangs is underreported.

while drunk and belligerent one night i was discussing politics with friends, and everyone was expressing their exhaustion with everything going on, and someone asked "why is everything this way", i retorted that every problem in this country can be traced back to bigotry and greed.
posted by numaner at 1:30 PM on April 6, 2018 [4 favorites]

I really wish white leaders would speak out about this. And where are the white fathers?
posted by misterpatrick at 1:31 PM on April 6, 2018 [55 favorites]

I remember seeing a racist shirt with KKK hoods on it, and a caption "The Original Boys in The Hood". Obvious reference to the early 1990s black gang movie.

Yep. I remember seeing that one for sale at a flea market in VA once in the 1990s. Also one that said "You wear your X , I'll wear mine" and showed Malcom X and a Burning Cross next to it ( two Xs get it?). It was .. bizarre.
The kicker was that the guy selling the shirts was in a booth right next ( as if 3 feet away ) from a black guy selling Black Power/African pride shirts and gear. There seemed to be no problem. It's hard to explain the many weird aspects and degrees of racism in the American South if you haven't lived around it.
posted by Liquidwolf at 1:55 PM on April 6, 2018 [7 favorites]

The KKK was in many ways The True Original Gang.

There were others earlier. The always interesting Luc Sante dates the earliest gangs of New York to just after the American revolution. I suspect that even that is dating them a little late, but that's just a guess on my part.
posted by BWA at 2:52 PM on April 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

while drunk and belligerent one night i was discussing politics with friends, and everyone was expressing their exhaustion with everything going on, and someone asked "why is everything this way", i retorted that every problem in this country can be traced back to bigotry and greed.

just wondering down pretty much this exact train of thought and came to "money and racism" so yeah...
posted by supermedusa at 3:29 PM on April 6, 2018 [2 favorites]

In Florida, outlaw biker clubs can rent out a restaurant for a get-together in a tourist town, with a big banner, right where families walk by to take their kids to the beach.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 6:05 PM on April 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

Dangerous, growing, underreported.

I thought by this point every poor angry white person in the country been assigned an individual NYT reporter to follow them around and ask, "Why?" (and then studiously ignore everything they said involving race)
posted by leotrotsky at 7:42 PM on April 6, 2018 [15 favorites]

Also one that said "You wear your X , I'll wear mine" and showed Malcom X and a Burning Cross next to it…

The version I have seen most commonly had a confederate flag rather than a burning cross, but otherwise pretty much the same sentiment.
posted by TedW at 7:57 AM on April 7, 2018

The version I have seen most commonly had a confederate flag rather than a burning cross, but otherwise pretty much the same sentiment.


I think you're right. I might have confused it with the Original Boyz in the Hood shirt which had a burning cross in the background. Same shitty idea though.
posted by Liquidwolf at 10:18 AM on April 7, 2018