This documentary takes it’s title from a passage in City of Quartz that reads: “As even The [Los Angeles] Times recognized, the decimation of the Panthers led directly to a recrudescence of gangs in the early 1970s. ‘Crippin,’ the most extraordinary new gang phenomenon was a bastard offspring of the Panthers’ former charisma, filling the void left by the LAPD SWAT teams.”
It’s closing in on 1968 and the civil rights era is fading due to leadership dissolution brought on, notably, against The Black Panther Party by the American government (J. Edgar Hoover, COINTELPRO). Born out of the disjointed fraction of the Party was The Crips. With the collapse of California’s manufacturing base and The Crips offering the only seeming alternative, black youth gravitated toward the lure of the modern gangster lifestyle which was rapidly making a name for itself in the illegal trade of drug trafficking.
Watch this film. It’s on Netflix, if you have it. You can also watch it in fragments on YouTube.
‘Bastards of the Party’ Film Explores How Government War Against Black Panthers Led to Crips Gang
No comments:
Post a Comment