Interview Narrative
Will is a previous street gang member who joined his street gang in retaliation of being bullied. Because Will was a small child and faced various familial/systemic issues, he felt the best way to get a leg up in the world was from gang involvement. Will has now moved far away from his home city, and lives a life free of gang activity. Back home he refers to the other members of his gang as his partners. Will admits to doing things that he isn't proud of in efforts for his gang, but the retaliation that he executed came from the lack of respect for territory and disposition.
Power Search
The overarching theme that pops out in relation to Will's interview is the search for power, and the way in which childhood impacts the search for power. For Will in particular being small and bullied when he was younger contributed in leading him towards joining a gang for the assumed power. In relation to power the source "LA Gangs" published by the Los Angelos Police Department it becomes clear through their derogatory language that works to belittle and stereotype gang members as a way to assume power of those individuals. This juxtaposition portrays that all individuals, like Will emphasized in his interview, want power.
Full Content of interview
How common is gang culture within your state?
- It is a very common young lady, let's say this it's not like you have mostly bloods and crips. We don’t got that, we really don't have that, you got certain people that are like bloods there's limited people, you do not have crips though
- Yeah
- Like 12, it was just like people that came with certain hoods
- Yeah I guess so
- Why? For me personally it was just something that I wanted to do
- No, most people go about what they see in the media, like shit they be sad but I am my own person I have my own mind. Like if I feel like that's something I wanted to do, that's something I am going to do just because I wanted to do it, not because somebody else did it
- I guess a group, just like a group of people to have around. Because like let me tell you something when I was young, like real young I really didn't have no friends. Believe it or not I used to get bullied when I was young, I used to get bullied a lot because i was so small, I was so small.
- I would give myself a whole lot of advice, if I could go back in time you what know I’d tell myself not to do it. Because it wasn’t really worth it, it wasn’t something that, like as I look back on a lot of things, a lot of things that we used to do or whatever it is something that like, it's not things that most people should be proud of. I would probably just tell myself to not do it or whatever. And I mean I'm not better than them but being raised out there, being born out there it was different, it was way different for us
- I guess because of the government, politicians. I don’t non of that president bull because everybody just lies
- I felt power (from being in the gang)
- Yeah because look at it, I was so small. I was getting bullied so yes the fuck, of course I wanted power. Who don’t want power, you tell me one person on this earth that dont want power, you can't tell me nobody that don't want power. But everybody can’t have it that's why you gotta go take it
- (laughter) Even without my community still gonna be the same without it, even way before it was even worse, so it really doesn't matter with or without. Thats how just New Orleans, thats how New Orleans is, because we cant depend on the fucking politics, like they dont do nothing for the city
- It was, that mother fucker was worse than it is, that shit was worse. Like there's certain walls you couldn't go, like you could only go to your own hood. But now you can go wherever the fuck you want, these mother fuckers are pussy cats now, they’re soft as cotton, theyve been breatfed, they havent matured enough yet. Until they realize they go against somebody, this is a soft ass generation that we live in now
- Yeah, because without it it was tough. Anybody could fucking join, anybody could join. But when they join they have protection. It was different motherfucker couldn’t just fucking join, you gotta be from this hood or whatever (7:03)
- I think that they're just tryna get rich off that shit, real talk, they're just tryna get rich of that shit. Alright let's say for instance without the gang culture right, you don’t have that. But then what else the media got to talk about if you aint got no gangs, people killing people, black people killing black people, if you aint got that, then what you have? You don’t have nothing to talk about, you really don’t have nothing to talk about. If these celebrities or these gang members are gonna give you whatchu want to hear because everybody know whatchu want to hear like you want to hear all this crazy raw shit, but let's say we don't have it, then what. You don’t got nothing to talk about they can't make money off of that, they aint gone be making money