"Diversity"
I recall
diversity
like an
unjustified
punch to the chin
I remember
attending
a middle school
in my white
middle-class
neighborhood
being one of
no more than
two dozen
white kids
The rest were
shipped from
ghetto neighborhoods
predominately
the Hill District
To my dismay
they brought
their culture
which was
based on
gang signs
unprovoked
violence and
a disdain for
academics
I watched as
frightened whites
renounced their culture
in a futile attempt to
fortify themselves
from ridicule and
physical abuse
Diversity
presented itself
in my 4th period class
when I was attacked
over my Colorado Rockies
t-shirt
How was I
supposed
to know
that CR meant
Crips Rule
when I didn't
even know what
a Crip or Blood was
Solace manifested
in the sound of a bell
I always anticipated
the end
Their culture
wasn't mine
and I wanted
nothing
to do with it
-- bailey brothaz (Craig Bailey)
The Hill District, a 1.4-square-mile cluster of neighborhoods on the upward-sloping eastern border of downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is the city's oldest African-American community. Because of its importance to early jazz musicians as a stop between Chicago and New York, and the home of the most influential Black weekly newspaper "The Pittsburgh Courier" and the dominant Pittsburgh Crawfords baseball team (the Craws") in the segregated Negro National League, and because immigrants from 25 countries resided there, the poet Claude McKay called the area the “Crossroads of the World.” But after World War II misguided federal "redevelopment" programs deepened its poverty. In 1956 some 1,300 structures were razed, displacing more than 8,000 residents, in ordert to construct the Civic Arena, isolating The Hill from the rest of the city. By 1990 over 70% of its residents and 400 businesses were gone.
ReplyDeleteIn 1969 Stanley Tookie Williams and Raymond Lee Washington united their rival street gangs from the west and east sides of South Central Los Angeles to form the Cribs, reflecting the fact that most of its members were teenagers (although Washington had belonged to a Watts, Los Angeles, gang, the Cripplers; when they adopted canes as their identifying symbols they became popularly known as "Cripples." When Buddha, one of the founding members, was killed in 1973, his trademark blue bandana was worn by gang members in tribute, and blue became their "colors." Non-Crips gang members called each other "bloods." In response to Washington's confrontation with Sylvester Scott and Benson Owens, 2 Compton, California, high school students, the pair formed the Piru Street Boys to protect themselves; in 1972 the Pirus allied with other gangs to form the group called the Bloods, adopting red as their identifying uniform and adapted Crips graffiti symbols by drawing them upside down. Largely due to their profits from crack cocaine and increasing violence, both groups expanded nationwide, organized loosely as smaller street gangs called sets. In 1993 Omar Portee and Leonard Mackenzie formed the United Blood Nation in Rikers Island's George Motchan Detention Center to defend themselves against the Latin Kings and Ñetas.
In 1985 several players on the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team were tried for drug use. leading to 11 suspensions (which were later commuted in exchange for fines and community service). Interests in Denver, Colorade, then unsuccessfully tried to buy and relocate the team to their city. In 1991 Major League Baseball added 2 teams, including the Denver Rockies, who started playing in 1993.