The History of Street Gangs

Gang Bangin' Good Times!

While I was being shot at on the I-405 today, I began thinking about the current gang situation in America. If you live in the United States or any other part of the world, you've undoubtedly been exposed to the wonderful world of America's street gangs. They've consistently ranked in the "Top 20 Media Menaces" category for the past 15 years or so, despite the fact that street gangs kill less people annually than scurvy. Street gangs are the media's sweetheart, and news broadcasts will leap for a chance to pump out any special reports detailing how there's a fairly good chance you and your children could be brutally murdered by street gangs while buying nondairy creamer at the local 7-11. Gangs are one of the most photographic topics to cover on the news, ranking up there with natural disasters, "un-seansonlike weather," and Congressmen who have been indicted for improper relations with a fax machine. It's a safe bet that any gang-related activity will be covered in detail by the local news, as the broadcasters only put off those reports to explain how the defenseless members of your family have a better chance of swallowing an entire jumbo jet than not being murdered by a street gang.

However, the news media has never done a satisfactory job of detailing the entire "street gang" phenomenon, tracing the evolution of gangs throughout history. I mean, we all know what gangs are like these days, but some people aren't aware of the stunning metamorphosis that these ruffians, hooligans, and nogoodniks have gone through in the past century or so. Let's take a brief look at street gangs through the 1900's:

1900's - 1920's

Since America was still in its startup phase and hadn't secured enough funding for an established street gang training program, many of the so called "gang members" were nothing but filthy immigrants and homeless beggars. Gangs were a collection of bearded guys and dirty children who sat around a barrel which had been lit on fire a few years before. Since the majority of the population was covered with mud and soot from the nearby coal mills, nobody could tell anybody apart, and gang warfare was nearly impossible. The majority of gang members' time was split between playing a harmonica and dodging spinning newspapers that carried bold print headlines regarding World War I.

FAVORITE GANG CRIMES:

1920's - 1940's

Foreign, non-American countries began to export their most proficient criminals, ensuring that the United States had a steady supply of Tommygun purchasers. Gang bosses from Ireland and Italy began to take over the "mean streets" of New York, Chicago, and to a lesser extent, downtown Beloit. Many gangsters chose colorful and intensely stupid nicknames like "The Nose," "Crazy Legs," and "Sticky Fingers" because their last names (which were highly foreign) sounded goofy. People would easily forget how dumb their real name was if they chose a nickname such as Antonio "Spinnin' Crawdad" Magalabeli. Gangsters weren't as filthy as they were in the previous 20 years because the power industry shifted from using coal to... well, something else I guess. There's a lot of footage of people working in steel mills back then, so I guess power plants were fueled by really hot melted steel.

FAVORITE GANG CRIMES:

1940's - 1960's

The second generation of true gangster criminals began, and they proceeded to get a lot wussier. While previous generations wore coal-infested rags or snappy business suits, the criminals of the mid 1950's chose to wear plain white shirts and jeans. Also, since they were born and raised in America, they had more traditional American names like "Stevie" and "Ernie" and "Frankie" and various other names which ended with "-ie." This generation wasn't as concerned with producing crimes as they were with looking "cool." Their main pastime consisted of standing around with their armed crossed, smoking cigarettes, asking asking if anybody else had any more cigarettes that could possibly be smoked. They would also spend a lot of time combing gallons of hair gel / pig lard into their hair, because having a highly flammable fire hazard above your head was all the rage.

FAVORITE GANG CRIMES:

1960's - 1980's

Known by historians as "The Era of the Pimp," the streets in the 1970's ran rampant with hustlers who had more gold inside their mouth and around their neck than Fort Knox. Instead of peddling drugs and booze, they now peddled women. And drugs. And booze. The gangsters of this era are generally known as being much cooler than the ones of the previous generation, whose toughness was demonstrated mainly by combing their hair backwards. The pimp street gangsters dressed a lot cooler, had a hipper attitude, and were the first gang members to actively hit women when they got obnoxious. Street gangs all revolved around a central pimp figure who ruled the streets with an iron fist that had been dipped in gold. Their minions, a legion of really ugly people who had greasy hair and jean jackets, committed crimes for their boss by holding wacky jewelry heists and driving through the streets of San Francisco really fast, although sometimes they jumped across ravines in slow motion. When the mid-80's rolled around, gang members began to get less greasy but they also started wearing flamboyantly homosexual neon colors and jeans with the knees cut out, so it all balances out on the grand scale of horridness. Prostitutes, which were also known as "hos" back then, were under heavy demand because people who looked grotesquely hideous were quite the rage at the time, which is known as "The Era of Really Ugly Women." No wait, I guess I wrote earlier that it was "The Era of the Pimp." Oh well.

FAVORITE GANG CRIMES:

1980's - CURRENT

The present generation of gangsters. According to the news reports and television shows, which are never ever ever wrong in any form, all of them are black and Hispanic. Oh sure, you'll sometimes see a couple white guys in the background during a few movies, but all they do is wear their hat backwards and nod their heads. All the real "movers and shakers" are muscular black guys and Latinos with rags around their heads. This apparent minority takeover of the gang scene is in big contrast to the past 80 years, which were predominantly ruled by goofy white guys. This also marks the first time gang members actually started committing "real" crimes, like drug dealing and cutting through Police officers with a chainsaw. Wait, I think that was in "Robocop 2." Oh well, it still applies. Make no mistake, there are a lot of white guy gangs, but they're usually found either mopping floors at Dairy Queen or updating their Geocities website.

FAVORITE GANG CRIMES:

I hope you enjoyed this in-depth look at gangs throughout the 1900's. If you didn't, take it up with your local gang union representative, who will lodge a formal complaint with my webmaster union representative. Make sure to include drugs with the deal.

Yes, Now STOP

Cliff Yablonski will update tomorrow. He's currently, uh, away from the computer. Stop emailing, uh, him.