Zitat des Tages über Gang:
I had friends at school, but I was never part of a gang and I dreamed of that sense of belonging to a group. You know, where people would call me 'Em' and shout across the bar, 'Em, what are you drinking?' after the show.
Gang violence in America is not a sudden problem. It has been a part of urban life for years, offering an aggressive definition and identity to those seeking a place to belong in the chaos of large metropolitan areas.
Raise your eyes and count the small gang of your oppressors who are only strong through the blood they suck from you and through your arms which you lend them unwillingly.
We need to get serious about combating gang violence on Long Island, and the entire nation.
I want the violence among young people in this country to stop - particularly gang violence.
In the fall of 1996, I sat inside weekly strategy meetings of conservative activists as part of research for my book, 'Gang of Five,' chronicling the rise of the baby-boomer Right.
It feels very cool to be part of a girl gang.
Arrogance generally is a bad thing, but with a band, somehow you have to have this gang mentality or this certain degree of arrogance to push forward an idea that's new enough that people aren't comfortable with it at first.
The concept of God in America is very different than it is in England. Because we see the horrendous outcome of religion as being an American thing, in which the name of God has been hijacked by a gang of psychopaths and bullies and homophobes, and the name of God has been used for their own twisted agendas.
People have to see that there is a high degree of complexity about belonging to a gang. It's a symptom, not a problem.
A gang is the same as a wolf pack; gang members do not use their energies in friendship with one another, for they do not know what friendship is. If they are united, it is by the common bond of a desire to attack their world.
The peace and justice movement has to expand and not run away from the plight of gang members.
Now nobody get nervous, you ain't got nothing to fear. You're being robbed by the John Dillinger Gang, that's the best there is!
I like life on the road. It's a lot easier than civilian life. You kind of feel like you're in a motorcycle gang.
You have, in America, you have gang signs. Well, 5,000 years ago, there was thing called a mudra, which is your sitting position when you do yoga or you're meditating or you're praying or whatever. And there's not a lot of them that are named after gods and goddesses, but the middle-finger is specifically named the Matangi mudra.
It is important that gang members are aware that if they engage in aggravated assault, maiming, kidnapping, or manslaughter that they will receiving a minimum sentence of 30 years.
I had seen so many injustices done in the court by well-meaning people. I had lost fourteen clients to gang violence in only seven years. I was angry at a system I thought had failed my clients, and I was part of it.
What people don't understand is joining a gang ain't bad, it's cool, it's fine. When you in the hood, joining a gang it's cool because all your friends are in the gang, all your family's in the gang. We're not just killing people every night, we're just hanging out, having a good time.
A friend of mine had his own theater company, and he jumped me in like I was in a gang. And once I came in, it was just that simple. For the first time in my life, I felt, 'This is a career, this is a life that I think I can grow old doing.' It was love at first sight. I loved being on stage and reading these plays. It was great.
But sports carried me away from being in a gang, or being associated with drugs. Sports was my way out.
My parents were laborers so we lived on South Park, which was a low-income region of Seattle. You had a choice - you either joined or formed a gang or you let others bully you.
Me wanting a gang member to have a different life would never be the same as that gang member wanting to have one.
I founded Homeboy Industries in 1988 after I buried my first young person killed in our streets because of gang violence.
Bobby and I have been to various reunions of Our Gang. We've been to like three or four reunions over the past 15 years or so. We were at one in Palm Springs, California.
When at the CIA, I was fond of saying that many jihadis join the movement for the same reasons that young Americans join the Crips and the Bloods: youthful alienation, the need to belong to something greater than self, the search for meaningful identity. But it also matters what gang you join.
I was a gang leader. Although, it was a gang for defensive purposes. It was not a gang to sell drugs.
From the age of about five to twelve I was very bad, a hideous little terror who beat people up. I was a member of the Rough Gang - we went around and terrorized all the pupils in school.
I remember the first time I saw the 'Sugarhill Gang' on Soul Train. I was 11 or 12. I was like, 'What's going on? How did those guys get on national TV?' And then, when I was a little older, a rapper from the neighborhood got a record deal. I was shocked.
No kid is seeking anything when he joins a gang; he's always fleeing something. He's not being pulled; he's being pushed by the circumstances in which he finds himself.
A demagogue is a person with whom we disagree as to which gang should mismanage the country.
From a parent's right to know what their children are doing, to protecting citizens across the country from the growing threat of gang violence, the House Democrat leadership is simply out to lunch.
I suppose the book I really remember loving as a child was one called 'The Outsiders' by S.E. Hinton, about a gang of kids from the wrong side of the tracks in Sixties Oklahoma. I grew up in the Eighties in Nottinghamshire, but this tale of troubled, but essentially good, kids - or 'greasers' - was something I completely connected with.
You know in my own area of Waltham Forest, we've had many murders as a result of the gang violence and often innocent bystanders get caught up in it.
I met the Colonel when Elvis was recording some song I'd written for one of his movies. Elvis was just having fun with the gang and all the Memphis boys and Colonel Parker was sitting over here in like a theater seat.
You prevent kids from joining gangs by offering after-school programs, sports, mentoring, and positive engagement with adults. You intervene with gang members by offering alternatives and employment to help redirect their lives. You deal with areas of high gang crime activity with real community policing. We know what works.
When I was a boy, my older brothers listened to Earth, Wind & Fire and Kool and the Gang. When I would try to get into their room, they would close the door and say, 'You can't hear that. It's not for a child!' Now, I can listen to it and enjoy it.
