Gangs and The Need For Community

Over at Rogers Park Forever is a post about gangs. In the bad old, good old days of mandatory Latin training it would be considered an apologia, i.e. defense. And quite a defense it is, written as it is from the heart.

When I read the post I was immediately reminded that humans have a need for community. Unless you have a psychological condition that causes you to avoid human contact, you will always be on the lookout for people like yourself. The constituency that you look for depends upon how you define yourself in the human community as a whole.

We can begin with the visibly obvious; gender, skin color, race, ethnicity, and sometimes religious affiliation. Then there is the not so visible; gender orientation, education level, income level, life experiences. Humans are biologically the same species the world over. So far as I know, no one has traced any Neandertal DNA in our genetic sequence. All of us can ultimately trace our matrilineal roots to Africa. Yet instead of living globally in a mutually supportive, respectful way, we often find ourselves in conflict. We find reasons we cannot live in mutually supportive relationships with those 'others' because they are not like us. It is a global phenomenon that knows no boundaries. To be human is to struggle with this reality.

How do we deal with this struggle? Simply saying that we are all human and should share and share alike is beyond Pollyannish. It requires a willingness to be open to those 'others' who appear so different. In my own life, I have seen where life experience can sometimes trump all other considerations. Why is that? Because when you explore life, and not just the comfort zone you know, you find yourself encountering individuals you might never have met otherwise, and learn things about them and yourself that you would never have known. In those instances you broaden your vision of community. Whether it is in nursing homes, soup kitchens, or a remote backwater village with no indoor plumbing, you encounter other humans, learn about them, and discover there are fewer 'others' and more 'us.'

Gangs are a toxic expression of the human need for community. These are not communities of mutually supportive relationships built on mutual respect. These are relationships built on the need for power over and against. It is pursued by financially well-off, politically connected mobsters trafficking in drugs and humans, and the local street gang made up of young people who may be looking for something to hold on to, or lacking any vision of the future at all. Gang membership provides identity, status, connectedness, and potential income, provided the member plays by gang rules. Like all communities, gangs do have rules and expectations that the members must meet if they are to remain in good standing.

Gang leaders enforce discipline in the membership and exact a terrible price for disloyalty, assuming they can catch the traitor. If you are a young person with no vision of the future, no notion of life aside from the zone you live in, gang membership can be an attractive alternative. The price of membership may seem small when one considers the alternative of marginalization in a wider society. So how do we get these young people to see the alternatives outside their personal comfort zone? Can they be convinced to look beyond the horizons that appear to confine them, and imagine what wonders may lay beyond? Can they be convinced, should they even imagine, that the wider society will accept them as members of the community, or will they remain the 'others?'

Vanessa proposes shipping young people at risk out of the city. It's an obvious answer, but it requires some one or some group waiting at the other end with the resources and alternatives to help a troubled child. It assumes that the targeted individual is willing and able to engage in the reflective self-examination necessary to recognize their contribution to the state of their life, and then move forward to change it for the better. At the very least, in the case of youth, they must be able to recognize an opportunity for a better life and hold fast.

If we lack those resources, then we must make do with what we have. Jim G proposed a Boys and Girls Club. Don Gordon wants to provide after school alternatives. The Parks District has programs, are they sufficient and do they reach at-risk youth? Has the adult segment of the community done its job as parents and mentors to help our children reach for a positive future, or are we too overwhelmed to make this a priority? Are the gangbangers out of reach and unsalvageable? If they are, how do we make them so uncomfortable in RP that they go elsewhere and take the lure of gang membership with them? Have we stepped outside of our comfort zones to encounter the 'other' and find out how like 'us' the 'other' is?

At the end of the day, do these youth see themselves as a part of the RP community, and therefore with a stake in its future? Or have they given up caring?