Gangs Based On Race, Gender and Ethnicity on the East Coast: A Historical Look

Introduction

In every society, young people form loose or organized groups or networks around myriads of intertwining and competing interests and practices: It is a normal form of sociality based on generation. Members and outsiders, however, often see and label these formations in different, sometimes contradictory ways. And political institutions may define and public imaginaries understand these groups in ways that determine and justify interventions and programs that help to shape a group's public institutional status and their stake in the overall political process. Ball and Curry (pp. 67-78) mention if formations of groups, networks, or other forms of sociality are normal activities, and if this process is common across historical time and cultural space, then through what epistemological processes should some of them be labeled “gangs,” (Ball and Curry, pp. 66) with all that that implies. What is this modern link between the biopolitics of identity and the construction of sociopolitical groupings such that the notion of the gang makes sense? This is the challenge facing social sciences, anthropology included, for there exists an ideological predicament underlying the category “gang” and the phenomenon it purportedly refers to that threatens to subvert its epistemological status. Indeed, gangs as discussed in literature and official reports appear to be a production of the United States's social fabric that is becoming global. It is not surprising that the bulk of the anthropological discussion on gangs uses the materials from and takes place in the United States, and that this commentary is then projected outward into a compressing global space that this commentary is partly responsible for creating.

Issues Based On Race, Gender and Ethnicity: A Discussion

The controversy surrounding the use of race and ethnicity points to the importance of discourse on ethnic and cultural relationships. The historical and cultural connotations of race are, admittedly, important, but as long as the popular and political discourses on race relations have not changed, they cannot be neutralized by replacing race with a new term (Ball and Curry, pp. 45-47). New forms of racism, often called cultural racism, according to some poststructuralist and postmodernist scholars, can operate effectively without any explicit reference to race, ethnicity, or skin color. Negative and harmful racial imageries and prejudiced attitudes can be encoded in a language that circumvents accusations of racism by using references to cultural differences, nationhood, and nationalism. Contemporary forms of racism are often disguised as cultural defense of a specific (Swedish, Dutch, or English) way of life in the face of a threat by enemies from within or without (immigrants, blacks, Muslims, and so on).

Gender

Smedley and Brian (pp. 78-88) mention an overwhelming majority of gang members are reported by law enforcement agencies to be male; this fact changed little over the NYGS survey years. According to Egley, Howell, and Major, an estimated 10% of gang members are female. The larger the population size, the lower the proportion of gang members that are reported to be female; still, in ...