As Vicente's life in 1920s National City, California, near the border with Mexico, reveals the way poverty and racism haunt Mexican American experience in the past, the violent nature of Demetrio's
gangbanger life and death in contemporary small-town New Mexico reveal how much the same deprivation and racism (and, as we will see, even the same kinds of crimes, though now it is smuggling drugs) in the present trouble a deeply embedded Mexican American culture and class hierarchy specific to the New Mexican region around Albuquerque.
"A
gangbanger can be Hispanic, he can be black, he can be white," she said.
I hung around with
gangbangers. I never joined any type of gang, but it's hard not to have a friend that's not in a gang in this neighborhood, back then when I was a teenager.
Elvis Thao, a hip hop artist who plays the bald
gangbanger, speaks volumes in his internet letter, "A Message to the Hmong Community and City of Milwaukee," when he celebrates partaking in the coldblooded and fatal riddling of Walt with bullet holes on set.
Yet should a cop arrest an illegal
gangbanger for felonious reentry, it is he who will be treated as a criminal, for violating the LAPD's rule against enforcing immigration law."
Let someone die in
gangbanger crossfire on a slum corner, and William Bennett indicts an entire generation, an entire race.
There's a "cowboy hustler," a bondage-and-domination "master," and even a former "
gangbanger." A dozen or so get a few minutes to but most interviews have been chopped up and reassembled into categories, including "The First Trick," "Turnons," "Turn-offs," "Watersports," and "Drugs." The film ends with "Alone," for which each hustler is given solo time to say whatever he wants.
Certainly, our society has changed since I founded Sturm, Ruger & Co., but I can assure you that my reaction to a "
gangbanger" on the news is precisely the same as that of every law-abiding American--profound outrage.
For the most part they represent a companionate activity--a way for girls to earn points with their
gangbanger boyfriends--kind of like old-fashioned ladies' auxiliaries.
The next day, Evander learns from his friend Twon that the
gangbanger Lookout Williams has been making threats against him, so he asks for protection from Frizzell, the chief
gangbanger.
He said he envisioned a society in which everyone realizes the "kid in the hoodie might be the next poet laureate and not a
gangbanger."
Alien's crude pass at a helpless Gomez is quite terrifying and the movie's second half, delving into Florida's
gangbanger underbelly, both enthrals and appals.