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AALBC.com's Thumper's Corner Discussion Board » Culture, Race & Economy - Archive 2007 » Gangs shedding gangsta look « Previous Next »

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Chrishayden
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Username: Chrishayden

Post Number: 5955
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Posted on Friday, December 21, 2007 - 12:05 pm:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Well you got what you wanted.

Word is now that gang members are shedding the baggy pants and tatoos and are dressing up like college students.

Now you won't know who they are until they slide up next to you to slit your throats.

WAY TO GO!
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Troy
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Posted on Friday, December 21, 2007 - 05:24 pm:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Chris you been on a college campus lately?
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Ntfs_encryption
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Posted on Friday, December 21, 2007 - 10:06 pm:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

"Chris you been on a college campus lately?"

No. And after that statement, it's obvious he's not taking his meds either.
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Schakspir
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Posted on Friday, December 21, 2007 - 10:25 pm:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

The baggy pants/tatoos is actually a recent phenomenon in gang dress. The old school gangs--especially of the thirties and forties--dressed very neat, in pen-stripe suits, fedoras, etc. Even in the sixties some black gangsters dressed real neat, with conks, pointy-toed shoes, leather jackets, trilbys, etc. (Particularly Jamaican rude-boys.)
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Chrishayden
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Posted on Saturday, December 22, 2007 - 11:17 am:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Gangs ditch tattoos, go for college look
Facing harsh crackdowns, Central America¡¯s maras try to lower their profile

Rodrigo Abd / AP file
A Mara gang member who identifies himself as "Smoking," 25, poses in prison in Chimaltenango, Guatemala, Oct. 19. Gang members have stopped tattooing themselves, resorting to low-profile ways of identifying themselves. Today, gang members with tattooed faces, are either dead, in prison or hiding.

updated 2:11 a.m. CT, Sun., Dec. 16, 2007
CHIMALTENANGO, Guatemala - Tattoos, baggy pants and tank tops are out. Smart blazers and university recruits are in.

It's an extreme makeover for Central America's gangs. Facing harsh crackdowns by government security forces and citizen vigilante groups, they are trying to lower their profile.

The Mara 18 and Mara Salvatrucha gangs are known throughout Central America and the U.S. for their brazen tactics, including beheading their enemies and covering entire buildings and even their bodies with gang symbols.

Story continues below ¡ư
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Now, according to anti-gang operatives, these traditionally uneducated and aimless youth have begun recruiting high school and college students, and are expanding their criminal repertoire from minor robbery to large-scale extortion, prostitution, car theft and kidnappings.

The gangs first formed in Los Angeles in the 1980s, attracting Salvadorans who fled to the United States to escape civil war. A decade later, after many of the members were deported for crimes committed in the United States, the gangs established themselves in Central America.

The maras are believed to number about 100,000 in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua. As many as 30,000 also operate in the United States, mostly in Los Angeles, according to U.S. federal authorities.

Goal of intimidation backfires
Setting themselves apart by tattooing themselves head to toe with threatening symbols and hanging out in large crowds on street corners, their goal was to intimidate law-abiding citizens and rival gangs alike, experts say.

That has changed recently, after El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras adopted tough anti-gang policies, including graffiti-removal campaigns and harsh punishments for gang-related crimes. Many youths have been arrested or killed, allegedly in operations by police or citizen's groups.

"These days we can't even go out onto the street, where the police look at us and we end up dead," said Giovanni Estrada, 25, an imprisoned gang member with tattooed face who goes by the nickname of "Little Crazy." "That's why we tell (new gang members) not to paint their faces."

Both Sammy Rivera, a security adviser for the Narcotics Affairs Section of the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala, and Jose Luis Tovar, deputy police chief in El Salvador, say the gangs' increasingly lucrative pursuits have attracted high school and college students looking to make a buck. It's a breed apart from the dropouts and other gang members whose main aim was a need to belong.

"Before they would rob a bus and could take away some cell phones and a little money," Rivera said. "Now they have a steady income from the extortion they carry out in their territories."

Woman gives up everything for gang
Ingrid Vicente left her husband, two children, government job and law studies to join a gang in 2002. As a secretary at the Finance Ministry, she earned 2,000 quetzales a month. She doubled that in one day as a gang member.

Because she didn't look like a typical mara, she easily smuggled guns from El Salvador, earning about $650 a day. She also helped uneducated gang members figure out how much they could extort from a storekeeper without bankrupting him.

"These guys don't know what is possible," Vicente told The Associated Press. "They didn't even know how to drive a car or a motorcycle, so I showed them how to drive."

But then she discovered the price. After having two more children with a gang member, she decided to quit. In retaliation, her gang killed her brother and her boyfriend. She is now a witness, testifying against the others.

Gangs have been forced to recruit people like Vicente to stay ahead of the government's zero-tolerance policies, which have forced them underground ¡ª and into new areas of crime.

No longer able to conduct brazen robberies, the gangs have turned to "other activities that require a better level of organization," Rivera said.

And although the graffiti is gone and the walls are blank, said Guatemala City resident Aura Escobar, "we still hear gunshots every day."

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Chrishayden
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Post Number: 5964
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Posted on Saturday, December 22, 2007 - 11:18 am:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Chris you been on a college campus lately?

Chris you been on a college campus lately?"

No. And after that statement, it's obvious he's not taking his meds either

(To you two wimps Steve Urkel is a gangsta. Read the post above and make sure your life insurance is paid up)
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Cynique
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Posted on Saturday, December 22, 2007 - 02:35 pm:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

We can always depend on chrishayden to post some behind-the-time article that impresses him. How relevant is this to us? The black gangs have always existed independently of these hair-net wearing, tatoo covered, Salsa-dancing grease balls. Does Suge Knight wear baggy pants? Does Gator Bradley wear baggy pants? Do the satorically - clad troubadors of the gangsta lifestyle, Jay-Z and Puff Daddy wear baggy pants? The upper echelon of black gangs ditched that garb a long time ago in the process of laudering their money. Baggy pants are nothing more than the fashion statement of wanna-bes who populate the hip-hop culture.
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Cynique
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Posted on Saturday, December 22, 2007 - 02:40 pm:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

And yes, Shakspir is right. The Mafia dons were also sharp dressers.
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Chrishayden
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Posted on Wednesday, December 26, 2007 - 01:55 pm:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

The black gangs have always existed independently of these hair-net wearing, tatoo covered, Salsa-dancing grease balls

(Wrong as usual. The whole gangsta look, everything, the baggy pants, the blue and red handkerchiefs, the tatoos all were sported by Latino homeboys first.

And yes, Shakspir is right. The Mafia dons were also sharp dressers

(They didn't dress preppy. They dressed like greaseball gangsters--big hats, wide lapels, fancy coats)
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Cynique
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Posted on Wednesday, December 26, 2007 - 02:39 pm:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Chrishayden says:
"(Wrong as usual. The whole gangsta look, everything, the baggy pants, the blue and red handkerchiefs, the tatoos all were sported by Latino homeboys first."
So what does this have to do with black gangs "existing independently" of the Latino ones? And I'd like some proof that Latinos were copied by hip hoppers. They may have originated the zoot suits back in the 1940s but blacks always put their distinctive syle on things.
The mafia hierarchy guys did not dress flashy. They kept a low-profile, wearing dark suits and shirts and white ties and stingy-brim hats.
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Schakspir
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Post Number: 1205
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Posted on Wednesday, December 26, 2007 - 03:04 pm:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Actually, the higher up in the gangster hierarchy the thugs tend to be, the more conservative their dress--because the smart survivors keep a low profile.

I always thought the zoot suit originated in Chicago by a tailor named Fox. I don't know if Fox was black or white. But Blacks, Mexicans, Italians, Filipinos, Puerto Ricans, Southern Whites, and young French anti-Nazis were all known for sporting the zoot suit(and yeah, many were hoods).

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