Analysis Of The FASD-Gang Link In Public Discourse '

This week’s readings focus on the pathways through which prejudice comes to manifest as systemic racism as it is distributed across uneven power dynamics. Mark Totten’s (2009) work serves as an example of academic material contributing to culturally accepted, but unproven attitudes, beliefs, and expectations. The issues surrounding Totten’s unfounded association between FASD and gangs are discussed more specifically in “Moving beyond the Simple: Addressing the “Misuse” of the FASD-Gang Link in Public Discourse” (MBTS). Here, I reflect on my own experience reading Totten’s work – addressing issues more broadly, posing relevant questions, and proposing future directions of study.
Overall, the work provides a bottom-up review of social and structural

factors, providing a limited explanation of the “potential relationship” between FASD, sexual exploitation and woman abuse, and gang membership (Totten 2010, emphasis added). As is noted in MBTS, FASD is neither unique to nor highly prevalent among Indigenous peoples, and yet, the unifying aspect of this work is Indigenous identity. While Totten acknowledges several limitations throughout the work, (i.e., the absence of a historical overview of colonization, limited knowledge on the prevalence of FASD and FASD-related interpersonal violence, etc.,) he proceeds to describe the possible relationship in near-absolute terms. One thing Totten fails to acknowledge is that many of his assertions are based on limited sources, as is outlined in MBTS. Many of the assumptions made in this work are grounded in prejudiced attitudes, and although briefly acknowledging their “strength and resiliency”, Totten broadly describes Indigenous men, women, and children as a collection of perpetrators, victims, and troubled persons. Furthermore, in a hollow attempt to address some of the FASD-related issues he’s outlined, Totten proposes developing a plan to prevent the use of drugs and alcohol during pregnancy but makes no suggestions for entry points or future directions related to this task. Overall, this work presents as a prejudiced, “downstream” approach to a health issue that is not concretely associated with gangs.
We know from previous readings that connections exist between alcohol abuse and Indigenous street gang membership (i.e., Bombay, 2014; Willmon-Haque and Bigfoot, 2008). Some sources have also relayed the association between sexual violence against women and gangs (i.e., Grant, 2009; Wood and Alleyne, 2010). However, we’ve yet to explore the topic of FASD and other conditions as explicitly influencing gang membership and activities. Because I possess limited knowledge regarding the extent of sexual exploitation and woman abuse within gangs, and considerably less about FASD in general, it’s difficult for me to even make inferences about the role of FASD in gangs or related activities. Currently, I have more questions than when I began these readings. Do the effects of FASD, in fact, leave individuals vulnerable to the influence of gangs, and if so, do these effects limit their ability to perform or progress within gangs? Are attempts to medicalize gang activity or associate gang activity with medical diagnoses common? It occurs to me that Totten could have attempted to relate aspects of gang activity with attention deficit disorder, borderline personality disorder, various brain injuries and mental deficiencies, etc. In the future, it would be interesting to study the prevalence of specific health issues among gang members, both Indigenous and non-indigenous as a way of either confirming or dispelling these commonly-accepted associations with Indigenous identity.
This work has forced me to question which sources of information are truly trustworthy or accurate, and which are merely appealing to confirmation bias. Truthfully, it’s rare that I review the references section of any assigned reading or follow up by reading sources of conflicting information. In the future, I hope that doing so will contribute to a more well-rounded analysis or interpretation of the subject at hand.