research and gangs

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“You don’t have to live like this. There are more than just these projects out here, you know. Don’t you want to go some place you’ve never been before? You love trains, but you’ve only ridden a subway” (Clockers, 1995). Andre worked as a street level police officer in Brooklyn. His message was simple, but could be easily lost in translation. The message was intended for Strike Dunham, a 19-year-old African American drug dealer. Strike was involved in the drug trade at an early age. As he began dealing crack cocaine and street drugs, his life took a different direction than that of his older brother, Victor. Rodney, who mentors Strike and is the drug-dealing kingpin of the Brooklyn Projects, has other plans for Strike. As Strike had learned from Rodney in the past, he now mentors his own protégé, Tyrone, an 11-year-old boy who hangs around Strike (Rich, 2012, p.1). The film shows that the crime-fighting agenda in the mid 1990’s was misinterpreted and wrongly directed within the inner city. The racial disparity, hardship, discrimination and loss of life of minorities living in the inner city during the 1990’s occurred due to social injustices and misinterpreting how to resolve issues of drug trafficking and violence in the inner city. Clockers is a 1995 American crime drama film directed by Spike Lee. In a Brooklyn housing project, a group of street level drug dealers sell and distribute, working for a local drug lord. The film is an adapation of the 1992 novel by Richard Price, who helped in writing the screenplay with Lee. The “clockers” are low-level teenage drug dealers working in one of the most crime-ridden areas of Brooklyn (Clockers, 1995). The war on crack cocaine in the 1990’s was controlled by racial disparity. This den... ... middle of paper ... ...es of evil placed on young black men while they grow up in the most at-risk neighborhoods for violence, drug trafficking and crime. They have few options, less role models and no way out of the cycle of violence. Tyrone begins hanging out with Strike and during this time, he receives a haircut from Rodney’s barbershop. Tyrone’s mother finds out her son has been hanging out with Strike and decides to confront him in front of his other drug dealers. Angry and upset, she said, “You ain’t nothin’ but a buncha good-for-nothin, death-dealin’ scum! You are selling your own people death! I can’t let you do that” (McManus, 1995, p. 2). Her message is no different than any other mother looking out for her son. She wants to see her son get out of the hood and make something out of himself other than becoming a victim of violence or crack, or becoming a murderer behind bars.

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