Gangs: Gang Living

Gang living

How do gangs go through their everyday life? How do the people they hurt cope? Anne P. Beatty wrote a fantastic article on how the children of a school in LA deal with kids at their school getting killed from a gang member or gang related event.
"IN MY TWO YEARS IN SOUTH CENTRAL, a lot of children died. Maurice, for one. Aaron, an honor-roll student who was shot four times in the heart at point-blank range. No one knew why. Brian, shot while crossing a busy street in broad daylight with his little sister beside him. Beyond the reach of our school zone, kids kept dying. A 15-year-old and her friend were outside a little store one evening, just down the street from her house. They were both killed, casualties of a drive-by shooting. During the second spring that I drove into the ghetto every day, a 13-year-old boy who had stolen a car and refused to stop for the police was shot dead--by the police." (Beatty).
In the whole article this is the paragraph that stood out to me the most. It reflects on just how much this teacher had seen in that school. It explains how many children's lives were taken by these gang members. This was normal for this school. The students were soon not affected by the killings anymore. They learned to cope through them in their own way.
One girl that the teacher was talking to had her own brother die. She was barley phased by the situation. She was used to everything around her being so broken that her own brother's death was not a big deal for her. (Beatty).
Can you imagine having to go through that everyday? Seeing your best friend one day then the next day they are just gone, forever. For these students living out in LA it wouldn't be much of a big deal, but for that to happen to one of the students at your school, you would be speechless. The things some students have to go through and get used to is unbelievable just because of gangs living around their area.

Another instance of gang living is in Honduras. Honduras is home to one of the most deadliest cities in the deadliest country of the world. The number of gangs here is much higher than anywhere near us. In prisons around, it is easy to see who is or is not in a gang. Walking into a prison, and just looking at someone, they will most likely have gang tattoos and scars everywhere. In the prisons in Honduras there are lots of people from different gangs. They don't get along and often their mission is to kill the other gang member. (Verini).

"I quickly learned that if you start runnin’, you’ll be runnin’ the rest of your life. Better to stand and fight– even if you get beat, you can still look yourself in the mirror, and maybe even gain a little respect. Soon enough I’d hear them say in the halls that I was ok– I put up a good fight. Damn if it wasn’t the roughest school year of my life– but I wouldn’t trade those days, even if I could. The cholo brothers taught me to stand up and not take any crap off of no one. I don’t by any means advocate breakin’ the law, but I do advocate findin’ your voice and letting the world feel the weight of who you are." ("The Selvedge Yard").

Here is a wonderful example of gang living. This boy was raised in a hard life, a hard enough life to revert to the gang. He grew in the gang atmosphere so therefore he thinks it is ok to fight and to do what he has to do to win and get respect for his gang.

I found a video on a gang shooting in Oroville. There was innocent people injured by this doing. "Three out of six people were hit, narrowly missing two others." ("Oroville Gang"). The police concluded that this was a gang related shooting. There has been violence in this neighborhood before this shooting had occurred. There was a fight in a field, a stabbing down the street and now another shooting. The neighbors complain about these gang related issues, but can't do anything about it, for fear of the gang members finding them.