The question is, do gangs recruit members or
are the members recruiting gangs? Some members will actually join
the gang without being recruited. In the nature of how kids are,
their streets, their alleys, their little area becomes their area
of influence. They can’t control that block and that whole street;
they can’t control the whole neighborhood, but they can become part
of an organization that does. This is their world: “This is my
block. I run it. I own it.” If those guys standing on the corner
are all Black Gangster Disciples, then why would he go out and join
another gang? These gangs are prepared because over the years, more
than likely, they have offered the kid some kind of protection. He
sees this as his peer group or the group that he looks up to.
Think about this: You’re 12 or 15 years old,
and an older guy says to you, “Hey listen, shorty, if anyone ever
messes with you, you come see me. I’m gonna take care of it for
you. We’re out here and we’re running the street.” To a 12- or
15-year-old, it certainly puts an impression in his mind. He’s not
getting that kind of support at home or at school. A gang gives a
kid a sense of belonging, a sense of self-esteem that he’s not
getting from anywhere else. Plus, you get to hang with a 21- or
22-year-old who’s been to jail, so it’s like, “Hey man, if he’s a
bad guy and you’re hanging with him, then you must be a bad-ass
too, you know.” The kid thinks, “Yeah, that’s right. I am somebody
you don’t be messing with.” And that’s the only thing this kid has
got in his life. If you think about it, he derives no other
benefits from life except in the street gang culture.
In other social strata, you don’t see a
21-year-old hanging around with a 15-year-old. However, in the
street gang culture, it’s not uncommon to see a wide range of ages
of people who gather together in certain locations for camaraderie,
for safety, for income. And everybody has a role. You’re a shorty;
you’re a new guy; you’re going to be the lookout, and eventually
then go to jail or get shot, and that’s how you come up in the
order. And then you can take over my role as the drug dealer and
become the beneficiary of the income that the gang has. Of course,
everyone in it makes a little bit of money. The kids who are
lookouts can make $50 to $100 a day.
It’s ironic that sometimes we find that a
particular guy serves a four- to five-year sentence and then he
comes back to their corner and wants to take over the corner. “Man,
I’m back. This is all mine now. I’m running this corner.” And a guy
who has been out there for four or five years ain’t ready to give
up his role, so you have internal gang conflict. Somebody is going
to get killed, either the boy who came out of jail or somebody on
the corner to re-establish himself. The young buck goes, “You know
what? Screw you, pal. While you’ve been inside, we’ve been out here
dodging bullets.” And he’ll take the other guy on. I call this
thinning the herd.
You see this guy over here with the hat on
standing there with all those clothes on? He’ll be yelling
something as people walk by. He’s the salesperson telling them
where to buy. He doesn’t have anything on him. You can stop him and
go all the way down to his underwear; he ain’t got it on him. If I
ask him what he’s doing there, “I’m waiting on my cousin.” We’re
not dumb. We know what he’s doing there. Or you’ll pull up to a kid
standing there with two pairs of gloves, three hats on, four pairs
of pants, boots. He is so insulated and freaking immobile that he’s
been out on the corner for over an hour, and a cop pulls up asking,
“What you doing?” and he says, “I’m waiting on my cousin. He’s
coming down the street. He should be here any minute.” You drive
off and come back an hour later, and he’s still standing there.
Why should they continue to go to school or
get a job at McDonald’s for six or eight bucks an hour? It’s easy
money. They just have to work two shifts. It’s a 24-7 operation. So
$100 cash money, $500 a week, $2,000 a month, he buys his own gym
shoes. In this case, he becomes the breadwinner in the family. He’s
important. He’s bringing them the bacon. He’s 15, and mama won’t
fight it. She won’t ask him what he’s doing. They need the money.
It’s more than a welfare check.
It really starts with more economics. It
starts with parenting. You’re looking at remarkable facets that are
influencing this problem. Even then, you’re looking at street gangs
in more affluent suburbs. People think street gangs are just in the
city, but let me be the first to tell you, they are in the suburbs.
They still have kids who establish street gangs out there.
Sometimes there are actual branches of the original gang, and
sometimes they are copycat gangs. It’s just a phenomenon, a
cultural thing, that bad-boy image taken to another level. The
question I always ask is, “If a wannabe gang member shoots another
wannabe gang member, do you have a wannabe murder?”
Now this street, called Kensington, is Latin
King territory. From this point forward—Michigan Avenue all the way
east to the riverfront—is their territory.65 This is a Mexican food
mart, a taco stand next to it; you have a lot of Hispanic people
here. They have been here for years, I mean 30 to 40 years. We’re
talking about third-generation Latin Kings. No one’s out here now,
but if this was the summer or a Sunday afternoon, people would be
all over. This is Prairie Street. This is definitely one of their
locations.
You see the 7-4-11? Here’s one for you.
What’s the seventh letter of the alphabet, the fourth and the 11th?
G.D.K., Gangster Disciple Killer. It’s a warning to the Gangster
Disciples that if they enter this territory, the Latin Kings will
try and kill them. So with three numbers you probably wouldn’t pay
attention to, the Latin Kings are identifying their territory and
warning their rivals to stay out. Like I say, you can read it like
a newspaper.
The local gangs all know that this is their
neighborhood. They know the yards they can run through and they
also know what houses they can run into. The streets are where they
live. They are going to control that. No doubt about it. This is
their territory. I don’t live here. I only work here.
—
Interviewed by David Cueman
Endnotes
64 Jeff Fort was one of the founding members
of the Blackstone Rangers, later known as the Black P Stone
Rangers, the Black P Stone Nation and the El Rukns. In 1986, while
in federal prison, he was indicted, along with other high-ranking
El Rukns, for attempting to purchase high-powered weapons from
Libya to commit terrorist acts against the U.S. government.
65 This corner is only a block and a half
from Kids Off the Block, Diane Latiker’s community organization at
11621 S. Michigan Ave.
THE WALK HOME
JUAN AND ESTHER PITTS
For nearly three decades, Juan Pitts and the
Rev. Dr. W. Esther Pitts have shared a life. They can tell endless
stories about their relationship—including the one about being
divorced once and married three times, and about their busy life
mentoring children in Jeffery Manor, a South Side neighborhood with
winding, mazelike streets and a history of gangs, guns and
drugs.
The Pittses have raised two biological
daughters and six children adopted from foster care. They have also
taken in 14 other children in need of a stable home. Esther Pitts
wears a flattering blazer and still has the flawless skin of her
days as a model. Juan Pitts wears a sweater and slacks, and sports
a subtle goatee. They are friendly and dignified, but their smiles
appear weary. In February 2009, two of their teenage sons were
killed within two weeks of each other. The Pittses stay busy with
family life and church work, but they are in the process of leaving
Chicago for the warmth—and the new memories—of Florida.
Juan:
When we first moved to Jeffery
Manor,66 we was actually the first blacks in the area. I remember
the neighbors used to come up in front of my house, singing
Christmas carols and everything. We actually used to sleep in front
on the yard. I remember going to some of my school friends’ houses
for lunch, or they’d come to our house for lunch. It was pretty
much okay until more people started moving in, and then it got kind
of divided.
Esther:
When my mom and dad purchased
their home on the West Side, it had a cottage in the back, so we
felt wealthy. It was a mixed community, predominately Caucasian and
a few black families. I remember my mom would put on talent shows
in the backyard. Her house was the type where all the kids,
throughout the whole community, would come and sit. She taught the
Bible, there in the basement.
We would ride our bikes to the Brach’s Candy
Company. At some point, Brach’s decided they wanted to buy up all
the homes so they could expand. It hurt so many people in the
community. That’s when we moved to the South Side.
Esther:
We met working at the Tropical
Hut restaurant at 91st and Stony Island Avenue. It was a
Hawaiian-type atmosphere. Very homey. People were so attached to
this restaurant that they would come from as far as Carol Stream to
eat there.
Juan:
We all worked there: all my
brothers, my mother, my whole family.
Esther:
I think I was 23 when I met
Juan, and then I ended up pregnant by him. I was only kicking it
with him; we weren’t really a couple. I was modeling back then, and
it took a lot of people for a shock, because I was so
career-oriented. But I stopped working, because it was a high-risk
pregnancy. After the baby was born, I was about to marry somebody
else.
Juan:
She wasn’t about to marry
someone else.
Esther:
I was. Because I knew enough
about God to know that what I had done was out of God’s wishes. I
was raised in a two-parent household, and I was really serious
about marrying someone. Juan was like, “No, no, no, wait. Don’t do
anything until I come over!” So he came over and changed my
mind.
We had a big wedding. Then I lost the
marriage license, so we had to marry again. My uncle was a pastor.
He married us twice, and he was like, “When are you all going to
get this thing right?”
We filed for divorce in 1997, and it was
final in April of ’98. He did his thing, his life with someone
else, and I had someone. We ended up back together because the man
I was with died in 2000, out of the blue. Actually, the day that he
died Juan said, “What do you want to do? Do you want to get back
together?” Isn’t that funny?
Juan:
Actually, the third wedding was
the best wedding.
Esther:
It was the best one. It was
outside. I wanted that island look, so we had tropical trees. We
had a waterfall we had put in. We had so many people, even the
people we didn’t send invitations to were there. It was really
nice.
Esther:
My godmother was a foster
parent and Juan worked with her. She kept pressing on us to be
foster parents. She said, “Get a place and do it.”
Juan:
When she closed her group home
down, all the kids just went out of the house crying, because some
of them had to go back into the shelter. They didn’t have any place
to go. And that’s when I told Esther that, if we get a house, let’s
consider doing this.
Esther:
We took in a family of four
girls, and they would say, “We don’t want to leave here.” When it
was time for them to go, it was so heartbreaking. We had to take us
a vacation because it hurt us so bad.
Then Hull House67 called us like three days
later saying, “Can you take another family in?” I told them no, I’m
not. And then, about two weeks later, they said, “Can you please
take them in, because you all have available housing and you’re
good.” So we took them in, another family of four. After we
divorced, I ended up adopting three of them.
Juan:
I kept being a foster parent,
too. First, I adopted two brothers from foster care, one of them
being Carnell, and then I adopted Kendrick a year later. He was 8
when I got him. He was born into the system.
Esther:
So when we remarried, we
brought the kids together. I first got the townhouse, and he bought
the adjoining one. We ended up knocking the wall out and raising
four boys and four girls together.
During the time we were divorced, God had
called me. I woke up on my couch and there was a note: Matthew
10:22. It reads, “And you shall be hated of all men for my name’s
sake: but he that endures to the end shall be saved.” I understood
that to mean even though you won’t be accepted by a lot of people,
you still push.
God told me to start a Bible class, so I
started it in our house. I was in the process of being licensed and
ordained. And we had all these kids come over, it would be like 54
kids, spending the night on the weekends to go to church. There
were so many kids came out to that house, they would be sitting up
the stairway, all over the living room and the dining room.
We work with kids and whatever bad that’s
within them—I don’t mean to say bad, but whatever disturbs them, we
get to the root of that. I never, ever believed in whupping
them—but what I did say is, if you do wrong, you’re going to be
washing these walls or you’ll be doing dishes. We call it the
KP—kitchen patrol. I can find chores for you all day long. And, I
promise you, things would be different by the time they finished
those chores. I think we did a pretty good job with God in the
house, because all our kids graduated from high school.
Juan:
We had a deck on the outside.
While she was out there ministering to the kids, I’d be in the
house cooking for them. I’d just make all types of appetizers and
little fancy things for them; stuff that they probably have never
seen. I loved it. Actually, it kind of, like, took over our life,
because we was in church just about every day.