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UPRISING: Crips and Bloods Tell the Story of America's Youth In The Crossfire
Fourteen gang members from Los Angeles, members of rival gangs the Crips and the Bloods, discuss such subjects as the bonds among gang members, "gangsta" rap music, and the possibility of an end to gang violence
352 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1995
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May 20, 2024
A SERIES OF INSIGHTFUL INTERVIEWS WITH GANG MEMBERS
Ice T wrote in the Foreword to this 1995 book, “When I came out rapping, I was rapping about street life, and it was the white press that categorized us as gangsters. I never said I was a gangster… I was more of a hustler… my daughters’ mother was a Criplett, she was banging… she was down with the Hoover Crips and I started rolling with them, but as far as going out and putting in work, doing drive-bys and all of that, I was never on that level. By me not having a mother or a father… and my leaving my aunt’s house when I was seventeen years old, my focus was always on making money, on straight survival. So the gangs to me seemed to be something that at that time, because there wasn’t any dope involved, there was no money involved. So I figured I would have to flip this… but get some flavor about myself… So after hustling, I started rapping….
“What made me start to rap like that was here in L.A., there was no hip-hop scene, but there was a gang scene…. I could only rap about how I was living. Then later on I did an album called ‘OG,’ which was basically saying that if this is gangster rap, then I’m the original. I was out on tour, representing this lifestyle, and I got a call that there’s a gang peace… I thought it was impossible… The gang peace was real... So I wrote the record ‘Gotta Lot of Love’ … We then decided that we had to change the scope of these organizations from gang violence to gang prevention… Eventually, I had to get down and say we have two problems, we have gang violence and we have unemployment… We have to start businesses… [so] they can go out and try to talk to the kids… The mind-set of Black folks has to change. I had to do it…. The first thing is that you have to admit that you’re been messing up, you have to admit that you BS’d through school, you have to admit your shortcomings. One of the best comments I’ve ever heard was, ‘The best weapon against racism is excellence.’ … You have to be the best. The last person we blame for our shortcomings is ourselves… Having a woman that’s down for the long haul is of major importance. The female has to be as focused as the male…
“As Black people we have a lot of problems with the white situation. I look at it like this: it’s going to be twice as hard, but don’t we say that we’re twice as strong, we’re the original people, so it’s even…I think another thing we’re going to have to do as Black Americans is study the Japanese, because basically … they went from America dropping a bomb on them to them now taking over the world and they don’t even have an army… Then I deal with white kids, I let them know what they’re trying to do, because … they are the ones who are going to decide if there’s going to be a change or not. A hostile takeover will not happen… As far as strengthening the peace on the streets, the sisters are really going to have to step in there and support their men… So if the woman sits back and says, ‘I’m not taking any hot money… I don’t want to roll with a banger,’ brothers would slowly but surely change… Racism is something that is going to have to be outbred. Unfortunately… gang-banging is not going to help us, because we’re going to die and racism will still be here…
“Do you understand that there are no more strong Black TV programs… They have ‘Martin,’ but they cut off ‘Arsenio,’ ‘Roc,’ ‘South Central,’ and ‘In Living Color.’ What they’re doing is cutting off information. They don’t want us talking to white kids, they don’t want anybody white to understand Black people, they want to dictate to the white kids what we’re about… It has nothing to do with skin pigmentation. That’s when they really considered me a so-called threat, when I changed my perspective from just anger to actual solutions… when you start telling Black folks to move out of the ghetto, to move into Beverly Hills… They thought they had branded us with the mind-set of, ‘you stay where you are, you’re leaving your hood if you do that.’ ... sooner or later people are going to realize that … we’re not even only just from Africa, we’re from Earth, so anyplace you want to live and rest your head you go do it…
“What I’m trying to create is what I call … ‘young urban capitalist guerillas.’ … The guerrilla part of it is that we will have to work at IBM, we will have to work within these publishing companies, but just to learn the game… I think Black people as a whole need to get their s___ together, we need to learn how to respect the achievements and be happy for the achievements of others, instead of being envious and jealous of others… Once we get the senseless violence down, there will be a lot more networking it’s going to give us a chance to talk instead of fight…What gang-ganging is, is male love pushed to its limits. It’s like surrogate families and brothers bonding together to the death…it’s based on love. It’s a love for the hood…”
Authors Yusuf Jah and Sister Shah’Keyah interviewed Big Phil (from Westside Harlem 30s): “My main objective is getting South Central L.A. back communicating and functioning. We have all of these churches… That’s where people think they can hide out at…. We’re going to have to come out of those churches and come into the community and get it back functioning, instead of hiding behind that preacher.” (Pg. 34)
’Red’ said, “I know times when I hurt people real bad, shot people, and everything else, and felt bad. Especially if it was another brother. It’s just a bad feeling. Anything I ever did to white people I never felt any remorse for. I’ve seen my homeboys jump on dudes, and I’ll be in there telling them that the guy has had enough, because when you hear somebody’s head cracking up against the cement, that sound is horrible. It sounds like a watermelon bursting open, but that’s a human being.” (Pg. 46) Later, he adds, “We are not meant to be confined up in regulations and rules. We’re supposed to abide by the laws that God gave us… if we just lived by them, we wouldn’t have to be trying to rent some land. This land doesn’t belong to anybody, this land was put here by God…” (Pg. 58)
Angelo states “I was at a graduation the other day, and I was talking to some cats just coming out of high school, about ten young Black graduates, and I said, ‘Why don’t y’all go down and join the police force?’ They all started laughing. I said, ‘You’re going to be the same brothers, seven or eight years from now, crying about the police, saying there aren’t any brothers on the force.’ … So one of my philosophies is to get brothers down on the police force, because we need Black men on the force… American would be a f’d up place if the whole police force were all white boys, believe me. We need brothers on the police force, brothers that won’t sell out.” (Pg. 72)
Playmate recounts, “The truce that has been going on right here, we started to build the truce back in 1990… SO by us taking the initiative to come at them with peace, we found out that everybody in these gangs have been wanting to stop the killing for a long time. I found that out from a lot of brothers that I speak to, that I have never had a chance to hold a two-word conversation with, that everybody has been wanting to stop the killing and stop gang-banging.” (Pg. 91) Later, he adds, “Right now with the peace treaty going on, brothers need something to do, other than kickin’ back, chillin’. …There are no youth centers around here. There are no Boy Scouts of Girl Scouts around here. There has never been anything like that around here for kids… YMCA, where at? There are no YMCAs around here.” (Pg. 100)
Later, he adds, “Imagine the whole projects… all following up in that game plan… Do you know we could do whatever we want to do around here? We could remodel; we wouldn’t have to have anybody else come in. We would not have to wait for them, twenty-seven or twenty-eight years to remodel the projects, we could to it our own selves. We don’t have to be sitting back complaining n drying about cable television.” (Pg. 109)
General Robert Lee observes, “Some people join [gangs] for the protection… There are some that join for the family, for the unity. They don’t have any family, they don’t have anybody, and they see the unity of family when they see gangs… They get support that they don’t get from their families, even as far as clothes. If he’s hungry, they’ll give him food. They keep each other going.” (Pg. 126)
Godfather Jimel Barnes said that Raymond Washington “came over to me, [and] pulled out a picture of a baby’s crib, he said, ‘this is what I’m going to call our gang, Crips---like Cribs. It’s from the cradle to the grave, C-RIP, may you rest in peace.’ … I was stunned, because he seemed so happy and so delighted, like he had found the mothership. Raymond always wanted his place in gang history.” (Pg. 152)
Bruno notes, “When I got out, I want and saw ‘Menace II Society,’ and I really didn’t see too much positive in that… I told my girls, ‘They shouldn’t even put that out for these youngsters.’ When they watch all that violence, the killing and the shooting, if that’s what they see, then that’s what they want. That pumps them up. When they leave the movie, that’s what they think about. Just like when they watch those karate movies…” (Pg. 174)
Leibo states, “These Crips and Bloods, and these so-called dope dealers, they all come from a family. Their family unit has been destroyed, so they went outside of that biological family and formed another family, which the white man labeled as gangs. If we can get with some of those people from within our families that are professional businesspeople, and get them to come to the community without the intent of robbing and stealing from the people, then we could life ourselves up.” (Pg. 186) Later, he adds, “The only thing about the peace parties was that everybody was just getting drunk and high every night. Nobody was really coming up with any solutions or anything. Nobody was really making it stronger.” (Pg. 191)
Leon suggests, “I feel that after the Uprisings, people like Bill Cosby, Magic Johnson, and other people with enough money should have taken advantage of some of this burned-up property that people were running away from and trying to sell, and they should have built it back up. They could have built Black-owned supermarkets, and for a change we could have had a place where our people can go… and feel welcome… Other people come in and make money off of us, but they’re not going to buy anything from the little sore that we have. They go back to their community to get the things they need for their household.” (Pg. 265)
Q-Bone was asked what leaders had offered support to help the community, and he replied, “On the business I can name it on one hand---Danny Bakewell, Maxine Waters, Ice-T, Ice Cube, and the Nation of Islam, who have all helped by trying to tell us what we need to be doing… Support and spiritual endurance have come from Reverend Eavy Hill, Minister Louis Farrakhan, Coretta Scott King, Betty Shabaz, Maxine Waters, and Diane Watson… there are a lot over here that are just talking…not working the walk, not living the life.” (Pg. 290)
Twilight was asked about the gang peace treaty in his area of Watts, and he replied, “A peace document was actually drawn up by Daude Sherrils, and Brother Tony X, but what happened was that the treaty was discussed only amongst the older generation, and even though they may have agreed to certain terms, it never got down to the younger generation.” (Pg. 306)
This book will be of great interest to those concerned about gangs, and about the possibilities for peace.
Ice T wrote in the Foreword to this 1995 book, “When I came out rapping, I was rapping about street life, and it was the white press that categorized us as gangsters. I never said I was a gangster… I was more of a hustler… my daughters’ mother was a Criplett, she was banging… she was down with the Hoover Crips and I started rolling with them, but as far as going out and putting in work, doing drive-bys and all of that, I was never on that level. By me not having a mother or a father… and my leaving my aunt’s house when I was seventeen years old, my focus was always on making money, on straight survival. So the gangs to me seemed to be something that at that time, because there wasn’t any dope involved, there was no money involved. So I figured I would have to flip this… but get some flavor about myself… So after hustling, I started rapping….
“What made me start to rap like that was here in L.A., there was no hip-hop scene, but there was a gang scene…. I could only rap about how I was living. Then later on I did an album called ‘OG,’ which was basically saying that if this is gangster rap, then I’m the original. I was out on tour, representing this lifestyle, and I got a call that there’s a gang peace… I thought it was impossible… The gang peace was real... So I wrote the record ‘Gotta Lot of Love’ … We then decided that we had to change the scope of these organizations from gang violence to gang prevention… Eventually, I had to get down and say we have two problems, we have gang violence and we have unemployment… We have to start businesses… [so] they can go out and try to talk to the kids… The mind-set of Black folks has to change. I had to do it…. The first thing is that you have to admit that you’re been messing up, you have to admit that you BS’d through school, you have to admit your shortcomings. One of the best comments I’ve ever heard was, ‘The best weapon against racism is excellence.’ … You have to be the best. The last person we blame for our shortcomings is ourselves… Having a woman that’s down for the long haul is of major importance. The female has to be as focused as the male…
“As Black people we have a lot of problems with the white situation. I look at it like this: it’s going to be twice as hard, but don’t we say that we’re twice as strong, we’re the original people, so it’s even…I think another thing we’re going to have to do as Black Americans is study the Japanese, because basically … they went from America dropping a bomb on them to them now taking over the world and they don’t even have an army… Then I deal with white kids, I let them know what they’re trying to do, because … they are the ones who are going to decide if there’s going to be a change or not. A hostile takeover will not happen… As far as strengthening the peace on the streets, the sisters are really going to have to step in there and support their men… So if the woman sits back and says, ‘I’m not taking any hot money… I don’t want to roll with a banger,’ brothers would slowly but surely change… Racism is something that is going to have to be outbred. Unfortunately… gang-banging is not going to help us, because we’re going to die and racism will still be here…
“Do you understand that there are no more strong Black TV programs… They have ‘Martin,’ but they cut off ‘Arsenio,’ ‘Roc,’ ‘South Central,’ and ‘In Living Color.’ What they’re doing is cutting off information. They don’t want us talking to white kids, they don’t want anybody white to understand Black people, they want to dictate to the white kids what we’re about… It has nothing to do with skin pigmentation. That’s when they really considered me a so-called threat, when I changed my perspective from just anger to actual solutions… when you start telling Black folks to move out of the ghetto, to move into Beverly Hills… They thought they had branded us with the mind-set of, ‘you stay where you are, you’re leaving your hood if you do that.’ ... sooner or later people are going to realize that … we’re not even only just from Africa, we’re from Earth, so anyplace you want to live and rest your head you go do it…
“What I’m trying to create is what I call … ‘young urban capitalist guerillas.’ … The guerrilla part of it is that we will have to work at IBM, we will have to work within these publishing companies, but just to learn the game… I think Black people as a whole need to get their s___ together, we need to learn how to respect the achievements and be happy for the achievements of others, instead of being envious and jealous of others… Once we get the senseless violence down, there will be a lot more networking it’s going to give us a chance to talk instead of fight…What gang-ganging is, is male love pushed to its limits. It’s like surrogate families and brothers bonding together to the death…it’s based on love. It’s a love for the hood…”
Authors Yusuf Jah and Sister Shah’Keyah interviewed Big Phil (from Westside Harlem 30s): “My main objective is getting South Central L.A. back communicating and functioning. We have all of these churches… That’s where people think they can hide out at…. We’re going to have to come out of those churches and come into the community and get it back functioning, instead of hiding behind that preacher.” (Pg. 34)
’Red’ said, “I know times when I hurt people real bad, shot people, and everything else, and felt bad. Especially if it was another brother. It’s just a bad feeling. Anything I ever did to white people I never felt any remorse for. I’ve seen my homeboys jump on dudes, and I’ll be in there telling them that the guy has had enough, because when you hear somebody’s head cracking up against the cement, that sound is horrible. It sounds like a watermelon bursting open, but that’s a human being.” (Pg. 46) Later, he adds, “We are not meant to be confined up in regulations and rules. We’re supposed to abide by the laws that God gave us… if we just lived by them, we wouldn’t have to be trying to rent some land. This land doesn’t belong to anybody, this land was put here by God…” (Pg. 58)
Angelo states “I was at a graduation the other day, and I was talking to some cats just coming out of high school, about ten young Black graduates, and I said, ‘Why don’t y’all go down and join the police force?’ They all started laughing. I said, ‘You’re going to be the same brothers, seven or eight years from now, crying about the police, saying there aren’t any brothers on the force.’ … So one of my philosophies is to get brothers down on the police force, because we need Black men on the force… American would be a f’d up place if the whole police force were all white boys, believe me. We need brothers on the police force, brothers that won’t sell out.” (Pg. 72)
Playmate recounts, “The truce that has been going on right here, we started to build the truce back in 1990… SO by us taking the initiative to come at them with peace, we found out that everybody in these gangs have been wanting to stop the killing for a long time. I found that out from a lot of brothers that I speak to, that I have never had a chance to hold a two-word conversation with, that everybody has been wanting to stop the killing and stop gang-banging.” (Pg. 91) Later, he adds, “Right now with the peace treaty going on, brothers need something to do, other than kickin’ back, chillin’. …There are no youth centers around here. There are no Boy Scouts of Girl Scouts around here. There has never been anything like that around here for kids… YMCA, where at? There are no YMCAs around here.” (Pg. 100)
Later, he adds, “Imagine the whole projects… all following up in that game plan… Do you know we could do whatever we want to do around here? We could remodel; we wouldn’t have to have anybody else come in. We would not have to wait for them, twenty-seven or twenty-eight years to remodel the projects, we could to it our own selves. We don’t have to be sitting back complaining n drying about cable television.” (Pg. 109)
General Robert Lee observes, “Some people join [gangs] for the protection… There are some that join for the family, for the unity. They don’t have any family, they don’t have anybody, and they see the unity of family when they see gangs… They get support that they don’t get from their families, even as far as clothes. If he’s hungry, they’ll give him food. They keep each other going.” (Pg. 126)
Godfather Jimel Barnes said that Raymond Washington “came over to me, [and] pulled out a picture of a baby’s crib, he said, ‘this is what I’m going to call our gang, Crips---like Cribs. It’s from the cradle to the grave, C-RIP, may you rest in peace.’ … I was stunned, because he seemed so happy and so delighted, like he had found the mothership. Raymond always wanted his place in gang history.” (Pg. 152)
Bruno notes, “When I got out, I want and saw ‘Menace II Society,’ and I really didn’t see too much positive in that… I told my girls, ‘They shouldn’t even put that out for these youngsters.’ When they watch all that violence, the killing and the shooting, if that’s what they see, then that’s what they want. That pumps them up. When they leave the movie, that’s what they think about. Just like when they watch those karate movies…” (Pg. 174)
Leibo states, “These Crips and Bloods, and these so-called dope dealers, they all come from a family. Their family unit has been destroyed, so they went outside of that biological family and formed another family, which the white man labeled as gangs. If we can get with some of those people from within our families that are professional businesspeople, and get them to come to the community without the intent of robbing and stealing from the people, then we could life ourselves up.” (Pg. 186) Later, he adds, “The only thing about the peace parties was that everybody was just getting drunk and high every night. Nobody was really coming up with any solutions or anything. Nobody was really making it stronger.” (Pg. 191)
Leon suggests, “I feel that after the Uprisings, people like Bill Cosby, Magic Johnson, and other people with enough money should have taken advantage of some of this burned-up property that people were running away from and trying to sell, and they should have built it back up. They could have built Black-owned supermarkets, and for a change we could have had a place where our people can go… and feel welcome… Other people come in and make money off of us, but they’re not going to buy anything from the little sore that we have. They go back to their community to get the things they need for their household.” (Pg. 265)
Q-Bone was asked what leaders had offered support to help the community, and he replied, “On the business I can name it on one hand---Danny Bakewell, Maxine Waters, Ice-T, Ice Cube, and the Nation of Islam, who have all helped by trying to tell us what we need to be doing… Support and spiritual endurance have come from Reverend Eavy Hill, Minister Louis Farrakhan, Coretta Scott King, Betty Shabaz, Maxine Waters, and Diane Watson… there are a lot over here that are just talking…not working the walk, not living the life.” (Pg. 290)
Twilight was asked about the gang peace treaty in his area of Watts, and he replied, “A peace document was actually drawn up by Daude Sherrils, and Brother Tony X, but what happened was that the treaty was discussed only amongst the older generation, and even though they may have agreed to certain terms, it never got down to the younger generation.” (Pg. 306)
This book will be of great interest to those concerned about gangs, and about the possibilities for peace.
May 20, 2020
Didn't really hold my interest. I saw a lot of people in bad neighborhoods trying to justify very serious crimes against their fellow man. There's no question they were dealt bad hands to start with, but that doesn't give them the right to take it out on people just passing through their neighborhoods, or because they're white and drive a nice car. There are some good ideas presented here for rising above the poverty, crime and drugs that our government put on their streets to begin with. It's just not my culture, so while I agree there's some good stuff here and conversations we need to be having, I'm not sure this has aged so well.
March 31, 2023
Although the message is important, reading essentially the same thing for 300 pages gets kind of dull.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews