I was standing in line at Gateway gas station not long ago with my dinner my hand when a young man came in and bought a lighter. The way he bought it struck me.
He specified the color, one associated with a gang. And he said the name of the gang, drawing it out, making the link between the color and the gang. He clearly took pride in being a member.
I looked a little closer at him, no doubt the effect he wanted. He was a bit scruffy and his voice rough from whatever he’d been smoking. He wasn’t rude, or trouble. He just wanted a lighter and wanted everyone to know that, oh yes, he is somebody. He is one of those guys in the famous gang everyone has heard of.
Gangs are endemic. Every housing project and many neighborhoods have gang affiliations. They instigate violence ranging from school fights to premeditated murders. They are a serious problem.
All young men have a powerful need to be, well, powerful. That can mean power and money like George W. Bush’s Skull and Bones society or it can be power in the sense that people are scared of violence.
This persona of power conferred upon the powerless is the appeal of gangs. And that is a very difficult thing to combat. Gang experts say the way to fight them is to not acknowledge them, avoid the gang colors, record and paint over the signs of gang activity, and so dry up the attention they feed upon.
That makes sense. But if you ban gang colors, then any little slip of gang color is a victory for the gang. If you paint over graffiti every single day, then the kid who sneaks a new doodle scores one for his buddies.
To have lasting success you must to take away the sense of pride and power that comes from being in a gang and at the same time offer other, safer ways for young men to be important. Being in a gang has to become embarrassing.
Public service ads featuring young women talking about what losers gang members are might help. Sports and martial arts are good alternatives. Sports stars and kung fu fighters are tough and powerful in many of the same ways a gang member is, except with skill and ability backing it up.
Martial arts has cool imagery, with dragons and black belts and kids who joined up to learn to be tough can find themselves accidentally learning about discipline and character. St. Croix already has many dojos and an annual martial arts tournament with close to a hundred local young men and women competing with teams from the wider Caribbean.
Obviously promoting martial arts and public service ads making fun of gangs will not make gangs vanish. Neither will painting over gang graffiti.
Victory will be measured in baby steps.
