Once, circa 1993, I took a friend of mine from high school to X-mas shop at a mall in Dayton, OH. At that point, for anyone who is local, Dayton was starting to have teen gangs. The gangs got so bad at this particular mall that a few years later, the mall closed down. But in 1993, this particular area was just “infested” with gangs. There were also still regular customers and whatnot.
In high school, I wore Raiders gear frequently. Because… well… because that was what Ice Cube did, and I grew up in a neighborhood where it was cool to do what Ice Cube did. I mean it was silver and black (with a little white) gear. It went with everything.
This particular gang wore silver/black and every member kept a pick in his afro. Yes, that also means that every member of the gang had an afro, if you were going to ask. But that’s just information you need for the story. It’s no judgment on hair styles in the early 90s. I, myself, had the “Vanilla Ice” hightop at that point, so who am *I* to judge.
As I mentioned, I grew up in “the hood.” The projects, for what Projects were in my home town (it wasn’t a dangerous place, really– there were worse neighborhoods and the town wasn’t that bad back then). But what this meant is that unlike my high school friends, who were all from nice (and all white) neighborhoods, I was used to things like guys in gang colors. I’m not going to pull the whole “hood pass” bullshit thing, either, but it was not uncommon for my friends– who were of another color than myself– to call me “nigga.” I didn’t do the same in return, though I was told numerous times I was “allowed” to. This is just to say that I understood race relations and came from a place where I was accepted.
My nerdy white friend– who dressed exactly like a nerd, sans the pocket protector– saw only one of the members of the gang before I saw any others. I was looking at a pair of Air Jordans (because of course), at the Foot Locker when I hear my friend say “that’s fucking stupid, walking around with a pick in your hair.”
I… wasn’t pleased. But the gang member was much less pleased.
I’m not going to try to recreate the dialogue that happened next, but let’s just say that:
- it was the first time that friend– or any of my high school friends– heard me talk like I was from a non-white neighborhood. People who know me know me as quiet, but I can be a loud, rather intimidating person when I’m left no choice.
- many boasts were made in both directions
- it was explained– by me– that my “cracker ass” associate was “dumb as hell” and that I would handle his “stupid ass” on my own
- I forced my friend to apologize, profusely, to the guy he had insulted
- Sbarro pizza was purchased for a group of 10 young men in Raiders gear
After this encounter, we quickly made the purchases we’d gone to make (gifts for our parents for X-mas) and I got my friend out of the mall and safely across the street to Toys R Us.
In the car, I laced into him. I wasn’t trained in theory or rhetoric or race studies or any of that yet, but I lecture I gave him was every bit as effective and relevant as anything I’ve written since. I ended it with an example that I have gone on to use in my classes (slightly modified). *I* knew what I was doing in that place, just as I did in my neighborhood, but walking into the wrong place and making the wrong comment based on a context you don’t understand can result in someone dying. I was wearing their gang colors, but they didn’t “mind” that. Because of how I carried myself, because I understood what they were doing and handled myself with some level of grace. My friend– making a classist, elitist jab for his own amusement– not only insulted a potentially dangerous person but did so in a manner that disrespected that person’s sense of identity and belonging. It’s like wearing a blue jacket into Crip territory. You have to know better. Also our friendship was never the same after that; I couldn’t feel the same level of trust or respect knowing that he’d done something so crass, and I don’t think it had clicked to him before that day that I wasn’t white. In rescuing him from peril I’d pointed out just how different we were.
Ironically, I would meet several members of that same gang on later trips to that mall, and we’d bond over playing Mortal Kombat in the arcade, and truth is they weren’t that dangerous. They even told me they’d protect me if anyone “stepped” to me. They were a precursor to much more violent gangs actually turning that mall into a safety hazard.
But that day I smooth talked my white friend out of a 10-on-one ass kicking at the very least.
Sometimes I drive by that now closed mall. I miss it as a part of my childhood, but knowing how dangerous it became, but how I once wandered around there just after getting my driver’s license, I wonder how the next generation will cope. What do young people do now? How do they socialize and experience the world?
Of course I’m also confident that none of my students would walk into that mall and insult a gang member for having a pick in his afro, so there is that.
Merry Rusev Day, everyone!