This Post contains conversations about sexual abuse, gang life and trauma. Please consider this your trigger warning.
Okay we get it, you think that loving gangsters is sexy and cute. Raise your hand if you’ve seen “Legend” which is to my mind, the most accurate gang life film ever written.
Legend is about Identical twins Reggie and Ronnie Kray, one of whom, Reggie, falls in love with Francis. Spoiler alert, Francis ends up killing herself because she can’t handle the way that Reggie treats her like crap because he’s more interested in being a man of means and wealth, than he is about being a good man.
It’s a violent story, with Ronnie being both outwardly gay and racist, and Reggie who will do anything for his brother including threatening a psychiatrist to get his brother out of a mental institution where his psychotic ass belongs.
It tells the truth about what happens to women who are wrapped up in gang culture often against their will.
Most girls – most not all – who get involved with guys in gangs don’t want anything to do with the fucking gang, they could care less about the gang, they care about the guy and the guy damned near gets them killed every fucking time.
Girls who are wrapped in gang culture die at a higher rate than guys, that’s just a fact. Not three blocks from my house a woman with her child in the car by the fucking way, was murdered purely because of who she was married to.
Girls get beaten, tortured and fucking gang raped by these men and you want to write a book telling me these dipshits can be reformed? They can’t, I know this for a fact, guys in gangs will ALWAYS support their gang family often over their own family, every fucking time.
It’s just as bad as the Disney Princess’s waiting for a man to come and change or save their lives. No fuck that, you’re a girl, that’s a fucking super power in it’s own right, save your God damned self. Stop waiting for Prince Charming, that bastard has like twelve Princess’s that he’s married to, you aren’t fucking special, you’re just there.
Don’t be the fucking Wifey – God I’ve said this before, Wifey is not a fucking title that you should aspire to have, because no matter how you look at it, it will never be the same as “Wife.”
A Wife, is a grown ass woman who probably has a job of her own, whose there to share meals with, build a life with, have a future with. Wifey is the girl that comes and goes as she pleases, and always replaces every other girl, but ultimately is never there “Forever after”. I know this because I’ve fucking witnessed it with my own two fucking eyes.
There is no romance in the hood, any romance you find is fake, it’s a fucking show put on for those who can’t afford to have limousines and buy their girls roses. It’s a fucking shit show. Gang life is a reality show in of itself. I know this because I’ve fucking seen it.
Gang life is men doing hanious things to each other, and to women, in order to look and feel powerful. It’s all a fucking act, because if your ass had any real power, you wouldn’t have to tear down others just to make yourself feel good.
I know this because I have fucking lived that life. I thought it was cool and sexy too, on the outside looking in. But when you’re in the center of the storm all you see, all you feel and all you know is fucking drama.
Everyone’s trying to out do everyone else, everyone’s trying to be the “it couple” and they all dress up and spend their money on clothing and shoes than they do on anything that fucking matters.
No one’s thinking about the future because they all want to be around, be the next, or date the next John fucking Dillinger, forgetting that he died.
He was shot in the streets like a dog, by a cop, because he got cocky and forgot that he’s human. Because he got stupid and started hurting other people for his own enjoyment while using those same people to hide among. He wasn’t a hero, he was a fucking douchebag.
His life isn’t something to admire, it’s something to fear. John Douche bag Dillinger was 31 when he died. He hadn’t even started living yet. He wasn’t even an adult yet. I know this because I am thirty-seven and I still don’t feel like an adult.
His friends, every person he knew, was a criminal and when he needed them the most, every one of them with a select few turned their backs on him and every single friend he had left, died before or not long after he did.
His life was steeped in blood and death, his own girlfriend, the “love of his life” was supposedly tortured by the cops for information and when he died, she was left alone, penniless, to raise a child of her own. That’s the kind of life you think is worth writing about? Aspiring to? really?
Stop with these love happens in the streets, forever after, ride or die bullshit. He better be a fucking A MAY ZING man for me to be willing to die for him.
The reason that I never dated any of the guys that I knew in gangs, the reason that they weren’t worth “spending my life with“, was because I had no interest in dying for them and they all knew it.
When the chance came that I might actually end up with a guy in a gang, I did something on purpose that I knew would sabotage any hope of us being together. I fucking walked the fuck away.
Those of us who have real visions for our lives, visions of happiness and joy, know that we’re not going to get there being in love with gangsters.
You know what comes from falling in love with gangsters? Anxiety, stress, depression, fear, jealousy, drama, bullshit and harry karey fairy bullshit.
It seems majickal and exciting in the moment until cops are kicking down your door and finding guns hidden under your fucking bed by your boyfriend who doesn’t give a fucking SHIT if you get burned by his actions. Because you’re existence is there purely to protect his.
You, as a woman in the gang, are a shield against any man, woman or child who might cause him harm, and trust me when I tell you, he will swap you out at any fucking time and expect that you will STILL fucking be there when he calls you back like the dog you’re acting like.
THAT is gang life, does that shit sound romantic to you? No it sounds stressful filled with anger anxiety and sadness, I know,t hat’s the fucking point.
These books are not being read by women in gangs I assure you. They are being read by bored housewives who have no idea what it is like to be in love with a gangster.
That being said, the worst thing about these books is that they are being written by Black women who should fucking know better, because all y’all know someone who is in a gang, that’s just the reality of our culture.
Yes it sells, yes it gets your name out there, and yes it makes money but it’s a dangerous fucking message. You are romanticizing something that for many women around the world is a terrible fucking existence, and it’s not even something you really understand from the inside. Because if you did, you wouldn’t romanticize it.
If you really understood, the drama, fear and trauma that comes from being surrounded by men and women in gangs, you wouldn’t act like it’s the sexiest thing in the world. It’s fucking offensive.
Is sexual abuse fucking sexy to you? Is rape? Is torture? Is the hanious evil that comes with being in a gang sexy to you? Then you need some deep seeded therapy, fuck.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall
Loud Mouth Brown Girl 