American Gangster - Page 3

Gmahogany. · (#51 (**permalink**))

Quote:

Originally Posted by Black_Power

*off topic*

them haitian stereotypes must be an american thing cos we dont have that over here

shit even made in into the GTA game

Haitans got a bad rap, here, starting back in the 80's. They unfairly got associated with the AIDs epidemic,among other things, and some people took that shit and ran with it.

Burning Spear · (#52 (**permalink**))

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gmahogany.

I'm always happy to expand/expound, Mr. Kunjufu. You are going to be sorry you asked me to,lol.

A lot of the young men in the 70's and 80's who would have been the prime age for community activisim, a la the young men who started the Panthers and other community organizations, were instead indoctrinated into lives of crime, by people like Lucas, and Tookie Williams. Instead of protectors of the community, they became predators in the community. If you look at the origins of even gangs like the Crips, they originally had a community/political bent. People like Tookie Williams who had the intellect,charisma and leadership ability to get people to follow/emulate them CHOSE to go another route. Williams was a youth counselor at one time, and according to the people he worked with, was able to get young men to do whatever he asked them to do. That's why when all of the controversy about his execution was jumping off, I was one of the few Black people who was not getting all hysterical about it. I'm for the death penalty in some cases, especially for Black people who willfully CHOOSE to be predatory in the community, when they could have just as easily used their powers/gifts for the good of the community. I didn't shed a tear when they executed Williams. THe sooner we stop coddling/protecting parasites, the better off will all be.

The same qualities that it takes to be an activist, challenge oppression are helpful to those who choose a life of crime(and have any success with it), as quiet as it's kept: intelligence, initiative, daring, fearlessness, willingness to have your blood shed, or shed other people's blood, etc. People with leadership qualities know this and use it to their advantage, whether they mean the community good, or whether they mean it harm. I see Lucas, and Williams as willing participants in the destruction of the community. THeir intelligence,ingenuity, resourcefullness could have been used another way, if they had wanted to use them another way, or at least in another community. Don't shit where you eat, as the old saying goes. Other organized crime outfits make it a point not to do their dirt around THEIR people/families/wives/children. That element in our community thinks nothing of bringing that right to us, and we think nothing of alibying, excusing, coddling, providing safe haven for them, in return. We reap what we sow.

There are people who will tell you that the government purposely allowed the proliferation of guns and drugs into the BLack community,tolerated, encouraged gangs, as a RESPONSE to all of the civil unrest and activism of the 60's. Better an anestitized, passive, self destructive community than an active,alert,political one, prone to protest and civil unrest. It's no different than the fact that the government systematically sought to discourage/squash college campus activity, in myriad ways, after the turbulence of the 60's. I"ve had WHITE professors tell me that, at more than one university. wHEN the National Guard shot and killed WHITE suruburban college students who were PEACEFULLY protesting the VIetnam war, at Kent State, back in the day, they were sending a warning to current and future students, and it worked, to a large degree. Anyone who thought they were playing, knew at that point that there were quite serious. Political activism on college campuses almost became non existent for a couple of decades, behind that, and has yet to really recover from it.

Gmahogany,

The Crips and Bloods were never political.Have realatives in the LA area and were in Crenshaw at the beginning.They were always thugs.Everything else you stated I agree with.

Gmahogany. · (#53 (**permalink**))

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burning Spear

Gmahogany,

The Crips and Bloods were never political.Have realatives in the LA area and were in Crenshaw at the beginning.They were always thugs.Everything else you stated I agree with.

Hey Burning Spear, long time no see.

Maybe I should have reworded my post. The founders of those gangs borrowed from the ideas and the terminology of the Black Panthers(which is even worse, cause it means they did that with the utmost cynicism). Maybe their intent was to never really be political, but to use the Pantheresque philophies or terms to draw their early members. This was the late 60's after all, and the Panthers were at the height of their power and influence. I remember hearing that back when Tookie Williams was about to get executed(he could have just been talking shit to make the dirt he did not seem as bad, but it made it worse in my mind), and when reading about the other founder, Raymond Washington.

Terror in our streets: L.A. Daily News Special Report

The traditional black Crip and Blood gangs that formed in the late 1960s in South Los Angeles have fractured into sets -- today there are 109 Crip gangs with 11,257 documented members, and 43 Blood gangs with 4,505 members.
Gang histories and street lore trace the origins of the Crips to Raymond Washington, killed by a rival in 1979, and Stanley ''Tookie'' Williams, now on Death Row in San Quentin state prison. Washington, who was kicked out of Fremont High School and ended up at Washington High, adopted the Black Panther philosophy of neighborhood control to appeal to street kids in his neighborhood around 107th and Hoover streets. That Eastside movement soon merged with Williams' Westside forces.

By 1972, Washington's group was being blamed for a series of crimes, including the beating death of a 16-year-old boy outside the Hollywood Palladium, and the murder of a pimp in South Los Angeles.

The Crips moniker is variously attributed to the way members walked with a shuffle like a limp, to the sporting of canes or to a mispronunciation of Crib Avenues or Cribs, a term for younger gangsters.

Non-Crip black gangs by the late 1970s were referred to as ''Bloods,'' a term that initially was generically applied throughout the 1960s' Black Panther movement among black men referring to each other as ''blood'' brothers.

Le Moor · (#54 (**permalink**))

Does Denzel always have to represent?

MARK ANTHONY NEAL
The Washington Post

For most of his career, Denzel Washington has been the epitome of a "race man" - a well-mannered, well-intentioned role model thoroughly committed to black uplift. He's maintaining that tradition in "The Great Debaters," a new film in which he plays a champion debate coach in the segregated South.

But his recent portrayal of the murderous Harlem drug lord Frank Lucas in "American Gangster," following his Oscar-winning performance as the corrupt cop Alonzo in "Training Day," has shaken his standing as a race man - and has prompted speculation that, after years of playing characters who symbolized African-Americans' mainstream acceptance, he's finally selling out to a commercial culture eager to make a buck off of portraying black men as thugs.

That's not how I see it. To me, the more important question that Washington's career choices raise is: Why, as the nation grows to appreciate the many different ways of being black, do we still need race men at all?

"Race man" is a term from the beginning of the 20th century that describes black men of stature and integrity who represented the best that African-Americans had to offer in the face of Jim Crow segregation. It has lost some of its resonance in a post-civil rights world, but it remains an unspoken measure of commitment to uplifting the race. Race men inspire pride; their work, their actions and their speech represent excellence instead of evoking shame and embarrassment. Thus the pundit Tavis Smiley and the Rev. Jesse Jackson (even with an illegitimate child) can be race men, whereas the comedian Dave Chappelle and the rapper/mogul Jay-Z can never be.

In his collaborations with director Spike Lee, Washington complicated the race-man ethos. No longer defined solely by their willingness to stand up for their race, characters such as Bleek Gilliam ("Mo' Better Blues"), Jake Shuttlesworth ("He Got Game") and Detective Keith Frazier ("Inside Man") represented the new race man, whose main emphasis was on being manly. These characters were self-absorbed and selfish and demanded the respect they thought they deserved. Still, many black audiences embraced them, if only because Washington had earned their trust, especially after his signature collaboration with Lee on the film "Malcolm X."

But that trust began to erode with Washington's portrayal of Alonzo in "Training Day." When he finally won the coveted Best Actor Oscar for that role, on the same night that Halle Berry won Best Actress, much was made of their being rewarded for portraying characters who demeaned African-Americans. And yet it was easy to give Washington a pass, because the Motion Picture Academy had ignored his more celebrated roles as Rubin "Hurricane" Carter and Malcolm X.

The cultural landscape has changed considerably since then. In the aftermath of the Don Imus debacle, hip-hop culture and rap music in particular have become litmus tests for the recent erosion of black culture's prestige.

Washington's desire to portray the gangster Lucas - the kind of character that has become a staple of so much commercial rap music - understandably raised eyebrows. In an interview with Men's Vogue, the actor defended his choices: "It's not about the black experience. It's more specific and selfish than that. It's what I feel like doing, not what I feel like people need."

The problem with the idea of the race man is not that too few strive to embody it but that it purports to define the kind of black body that can represent the whole race.

No one representation of blackness - positive or not - can encompass the complexity of black life. And what do we do with figures such as Oprah Winfrey or Sen. Barack Obama, both of whom challenge a tradition that expects black leadership to be incubated, as so many race men were, in the bosom of the black church? With Winfrey and Obama poised to revamp the very premise of mainstream political leadership in this country, perhaps it's time to give the race man the eulogy he deserves after more than a century of service. And let's give Denzel Washington some credit for finding value in our complexity.

• Mark Anthony Neal is a professor of African and African-American Studies at Duke University and the author of "New Black Man."

JuneauEmpire.com: Opinion: Does Denzel always have to represent? 12/26/07

Prince Hakeem · (#55 (**permalink**))

It's like only 30% of this movie was real. I read another interview with Bumpy's wife who was basically saying Frank is a fraud.

American Gangster True Story - The real Frank Lucas, Richie Roberts

shakac · (#56 (**permalink**))

I have just seen a documentary called "Mr Untouchable"

It was based on the life of Nicky Barnes the biggest black drug dealer in the USA during the 70's. It mentions Frank Lucas and his brothers were called the country boys and that Frank had to come through them to get access to the real estate ie drug users in NYC.

It's clear that Nicky Barnes and his gang did not rate Frank Lucas as he wasn't a real New York man. Infact most of the things seen in American Gangster was what Nicky Barnes did such as gifts of food during festive periods and the women not wearing any clothes during packaging the drugs.

The New York Times ran an article on it's front page calling him Mr Untouchable it provoked such an angry response that led to president carter calling the chief of police in NYC requesting that Nicky Barnes be taken off the streets.

All in all a very interesting documentary.

Incognito · (#57 (**permalink**))

One thing for sure is that no drug or crime empire of this scale can run without crooked police being bought off.