Friday, May 11, 2018

The Conscious Battleground

It is so interesting how the world around us revolves on a daily basis.
You can be so close to people and yet be so far from them at the same time.
I drove a truck  to Ojai, California 6 nights a week, for 6 years straight and traveling to Ojai and back to L.A. was like a culture shock.
I sometimes would have to drive bearing  the burden or trauma of a friend or loved one that had been violently murdered, by way of gang violence, I once received a call telling me a beloved young homeboy that I had watched grow up had just been murdered.

As I drove up S.R. 150 through the mountains up a road that consist of ranches for miles and hundreds of heads of cattle would be grazing in the pasture of  these ranches, in the back of my mind I thought how amazing it is that these people that reside in this backdrop would be oblivious to the trauma and anxiety that I was going through at that moment. There is a shift in dynamics and culture that changed somewhere back when I transitioned from the 110 and 10 Freeways (in South Central Los Angeles) to the more northbound freeways,where the culture of premature  death is woven into a warped way of life that has been fueled by miscommunication, xenophobia, and the Willie Lynch syndrome.
I speak of this culture shock to make a point as I continue.
I am from a gang related neighborhood that runs into the U.S.C. area in some parts, but more than likely if you are not a young Black or Hispanic male you would not know it outside of what you may see on the news or hear from law enforcement.
It is especially funny to me how Black and Hispanic warzones are becoming Caucasian Utopias.
I live a few blocks from U.S.C.'s Fraternity Row, across the street from Mt. Saint Mary's University, and a great deal of my neighbors are students of either of these 2 universities.
Sometimes I meet students in my community but I always have to ask if they are aware of the Black or Hispanic gangs that reside in the area we live in and they become surprised when I give some history of the area.
Before the big Starbucks racism allegations and video, I use to be at the one on Figueroa and 28th Street.
I would often trip off all of the students that would be there because I would be in a space like this because it was a safe place among friendly people and nobody is sett trippin' or looking to shoot anybody over there.
The students would have totally different issues (nothing related to their lives being in danger or death as a reality).

Within the minds of us all exists our own realities and what makes those realities tangible is the amount of people that share those same realities and are will to contribute, expand and build on those realities whether good or bad.
The psychological programming that comes about as a common thought becomes the subculture of the minority and the culture of the majority.

Bloods and Crips were founded in Los Angeles by what were then (in the early 1970's) adolescent teens that had no sense of direction, no particular agenda, and no end game in mind.
You see I am a 50 year old Blood (by way of my history, membership and culture).
for decades I was absorbed by the thoughtlessness of being involved in the L.A. gang Conflict at the climax of the most violent times to ever exist in the streets of  Los Angeles.
That was a time of constant retaliation and no communication. You see by there being no communication there was never any room for diplomacy or negotiation because even though we were growing into being grown men we maintained the traditions of these adolescents that were the founders of these setts and other that constantly engage in violence and escalate to unbelievable heights.

There was not a lot of thought put into the early gang situation in Los Angeles so there were not many decisions made, but that just means to go with the outcome that is determined by default, because to not make a decision is the same as making a decision is still making a decision and the default in the Landscape of the early generations of Bloods and Crips only called for reaction, instead or reaction, or reply.

It was the thoughtless ideologies of this time can be attributed to the massive death toll in Los Angeles during the 1980's and 90's.
Our in spoken reality is that we were busy holding on to the past traditions and history


No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.