“[An] arresting memoir” about one man’s life in an L. A. street gang, from age ten in the 1970s to his prison turnaround twenty-five years later (Publishers Weekly). Colton “C-Loc” Simpson was a Crip. Beginning at the age of ten in the mid-1970s, Simpson’s world was defined in terms of war. By the time he quit, Simpson had risen through the ranks to become Stabilizer and, later, General. Simpson was the son of Dick Simpson, a ballplayer for the California Angels and Cincinnati Reds, but even before he became a gangbanger, his life was rough. Raised by his grandmother in South Central L.A. Simpson didn’t so much turn to the streets as become engulfed by them: without asking to become part of the gang, his forced induction into the Crips meant running don an alley while the members opened fire on him. Inside the Crips is Simpson’s unstinting account—emotional, violent, ugly, and tender—of life inside a gang. You’ll meet intense characters such as Smiley, Simpson’s fellow gangbanger, and heartbreaking ones such as Gina, the mother of two young sons who married Simpson in prison. With a foreword by Ice T “The book provides a window into an often misunderstood way of life.” —Publishers Weekly “The Crips . . . is a famously difficult organization from which to retire alive. . . . This unvarnished portrayal of gang life is enlightening and even inspiring about a subject badly in need of illumination.” —Booklist

Do or Die is the first insider account of teenage gangs--the lives, loves, and battles of children who kill--from the only journalist ever allowed inside this closed and dangerous world. This is no West Side Story. Welcome to a world where teenagers wear colostomy bags and have scrapbooks filled with funeral invitations; where a young man, after being shot in the chest, drives himself to the hospital; where another youngster, caught in crossfire, uses his girlfriend as a human shield; where teenage gangsters are kidnapped, tortured, and held for six-figure ransoms; where kids hum the latest movie's theme music while killing people. It's a world of clickheads, sherms, bangers, ballers, and mummyheads; a world where the strongest feelings of family come from other gang members; a world where the most potent feelings of self-worth come from murder.

Ventura exposes how the two major parties have allowed corporations, businesses, and politically motivated wealthy individuals to manipulate elections, bribe elected officials, and silence the average American voter.

In the spring of 1992 the African American neighborhoods of Los Angeles — Compton, Watts, Gardena, South Central — were irrevocably transformed by the greatest domestic disturbance of this century: the “Uprisings,” as they were then described on the streets. In the aftermath of the violence emerged a powerful spirit of reconciliation and change, as gang members who had once fought each other for years came together in an attempt to rebuild their homes, businesses, families and most importantly themselves. This new sense of peace and cooperation continued to thrive in the inner city, and now, with uprising, thirteen former Crips and Bloods give voice to their fresh hopes for the future.What these men reveal is both provocative and profound: the rites of initiation, the pressure to commit crimes, the bonds of gang brotherhood, the significance of gangsta rap, the need for self-empowerment, and the durability of racism in our culture. But Uprising has a timely moral mission as well: Mean streets similar to those of L.A. can be found in cities across the country like Chicago, Baltimore, New York, Atlanta, and Newark. Gang warfare is escalating, spreading to the heartland — and here Yusuf Jah and Sister Shah’Keyah proclaim that lives and communities must be saved. An intricate mosaic of a nuanced and often turbulent world, Uprising defines issues that confront all Americans. It’s message cannot be ignored. Uprising is a powerfully raw, intimate history of gang life in South Central L.A. In detailed interviews, gang members of the Crips and Bloods open up on a wide range of issues, including the bonds of the gang brotherhood, the significance of gangsta rap, the despair of welfare, and the scourge of drugs. "Moments of brutal clarity…One finishes the book convinced of its authentic depiction of gang life." — The New York Times Book Review

Imagine you're a sensitive child living with your godly grandmother in small-town Arkansas of the 1960s. One random day your mother, almost a stranger to you, appears and decides to remove you from the only loving home you've ever known and take you with her to live eventually in Watts—the volatile area in south central Los Angeles where the savage Watts Riots had occurred not many years before and where the notorious street gangs—the Crips and the Bloods—had recently started up to confront a hostile world. In the relative peace in the place of your roots, the severe stuttering condition you've always endured had been disregarded as no big deal; but in the hostile atmosphere of the projects in L.A., you find yourself bullied and beaten unmercifully—daily. As a continual victim, you fear for your life. You have no source of protection or familiar support. How can you even survive? Would allegiance to a gang provide the kind of safety you so critically need? Who could blame you for seeking the only available security? Eric's decision to become not only a Crip but a ruthless and hardened leader among them, took him deeply into the valley of the dark side. But God had other plans. Follow Eric's treacherous journey through that valley, the crushing of his spirit and nearly his life, his call toward the peace of God's mountain, and his climb upward to victory. The difference between Eric the Grape Street Watts Crip and Eric the Man of God is truly so startling that, once you've read his searingly honest story, you will never doubt God's unlimited power to change lives again.

The classic memoir of life as a Crip, written in solitary confinement: “A shockingly raw, frightening portrait of gang life in South Central Los Angeles.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times After pumping eight blasts from a sawed-off shotgun at a group of rival gang members, twelve-year-old Kody Scott was initiated into the L.A. gang the Crips. He quickly matured into one of the most formidable Crip combat soldiers, earning the name “Monster” for committing acts of brutal violence that repulsed even his fellow gang members. When the inevitable jail term confined him to a maximum-security cell, a complete political and personal transformation followed: from Monster to Sanyika Shakur, black nationalist, member of the New Afrikan Independence Movement, and crusader against the causes of gangsterism. In a work that has been compared to The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul on Ice, Shakur makes palpable the despair and decay of America’s inner cities and gives eloquent voice to one aspect of the black ghetto experience.

This book provides a concise and engaging examination of the subculture of the Crips and Bloods—the notorious street gangs that started in Los Angeles, but have now spread throughout the United States. Despite the dangers and harsh realities intrinsic to street life and criminal activity, the no-holds-barred lifestyle of gangs continues to interest mainstream America. This provocative book provides an insider's look into the subculture of two of the most notorious street gangs—the Crips and the Bloods. Crips and Bloods: A Guide to an American Subculture traces the evolution of the two gangs, covering their origins in South Central Los Angeles to the organizations' current presence throughout the United States. The author analyzes the ways in which the gang subculture is created, promoted, and perpetuated; shows how the groups currently recruit their members; and explores the ways Crip and Blood culture has expanded beyond the gangs into the larger mainstream society.

In Feminist, Queer, Crip Alison Kafer imagines a different future for disability and disabled bodies. Challenging the ways in which ideas about the future and time have been deployed in the service of compulsory able-bodiedness and able-mindedness, Kafer rejects the idea of disability as a pre-determined limit. She juxtaposes theories, movements, and identities such as environmental justice, reproductive justice, cyborg theory, transgender politics, and disability that are typically discussed in isolation and envisions new possibilities for crip futures and feminist/queer/crip alliances. This bold book goes against the grain of normalization and promotes a political framework for a more just world.

The Rise and Fall of The Crips Brief synopsis: The Rise and Fall of the Crips, is a book that will educate the confused minds of millions of young adults, also those who can’t accept the fall of gang activity becoming unwanted history . . . The book provides gang history, and misleading theory pertaining to the social values that were foolish and adolescent. The drama has left many destined for failure, and death . . . The truth has never been written so clearly, until now! No other book provides the adequate occurrences of destruction—of a nationality so beautiful, so joyful-yet blind behind the self justification, of a fool . . . The book allows to venture and wonder. You’ll find the truth has been documented of all the factual studies, within the short stories and philosophies written by Richard M. Turner, alias Peanut Ric Rock, and a few other gang slogans. From the death of many! to the weakness of a crowd of juvenile delinquents, without fatherhood! The struggle ends with the truth. The drama the misleader ship the lies the manipulation, the murder the rape; by a family of ignorant, confused, human beings. The fall . . . of the Crips! . . .