Into The War Zone

Just six miles from Beverly Hills and a half-hour drive from Disneyland sits South Central Los Angeles, an area that sees a quarter of its young males ending up in prison, and many more dying young. It's a community where street gangs are a daily reality, and where guns and color wars have killed more than 15,000 people over the last 30 years—more than have died in the sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland in the same time. (Article continued below...)

Even in the face of those harrowing numbers, law enforcement has been essentially powerless in curbing the long-running warfare between the Bloods and Crips, Los Angeles's two most notorious street gangs. In his new documentary, "Crips and Bloods: Made in America," pro skateboarder turned filmmaker Stacy Peralta chronicles the rise of the two gangs, tracing the origins of their bloody, four-decades-long feud. He spoke with NEWSWEEK's Jessica Bennett.

NEWSWEEK: What's the biggest misconception about the Crips and Bloods?
Stacy Peralta: That the kids involved in these gangs are monsters. We demonize them, and by doing so, we separate our humanity from theirs. These kids are growing up in a hopeless environment, under conditions that are not conducive to building a future. And if you look at the circumstances, I think you start to wonder, "Gee, well, if I were in their situation, would I be doing the same thing?" If it was affluent white kids killing each other, I don't think our government would stand for it.

What kind of circumstances are these kids growing up in?
It's as easy to get a gun in South L.A. as it is to get a skateboard. You go down to these communities and there's so little to do that these kids are just bored out of their minds. They have energy, they don't know what to do with it. They're not sufficiently educated, and they know that surrounding them is opulence and the American Dream while their neighborhoods have nothing. And they don't understand this.

Are many of them coming from broken homes as well?
They're not coming from broken homes, they're coming from non-homes. They're born, in many cases, to unwed teenage mothers, who came from unwed teenage mothers themselves. There's no concept of family; most have never sat down at a dinner table with a mother and a father. A lot of these kids told me they didn't want to get into this, but, in a sense, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't … And a lot of these kids just get stuck.

What are the main historical forces that contributed to the rise of the Crips and Bloods?
Up until the 1950s, there were real-estate covenants that prohibited white people from selling to blacks. So blacks could not move out of South L.A. neighborhoods like Watts. And if you look at an aerial map, those barriers are still very much etched in place. When deindustrialization hit [in the 1970s] the first jobs to go were those of many African-American men who worked at tire and auto factories. Then, of course, in the '80s, crack cocaine hit, and it completely decimated the community.

Did you ever feel threatened during filming?
I had expected that because I'm white and an outsider that I'd be received with suspicion, but in fact it was the other way around. Most people thanked me for my interest. But we did film a truce of two gangs coming together, and things got very, very shaky.

Do these kids know their actions can only lead in one direction?
I can't tell you how many young kids told me, "I'm not gonna live past 21." They accept this as a fact. But you ask them, "Do you want your children to follow in your footsteps?" And they say, "Absolutely not." They understand that what they're doing isn't right, but they're stuck, and they don't have the wherewithal to extricate themselves from the situation.

What do you think would be the best way to battle gang violence?
Well, first, we have to stop declaring a "war" on gangs, or a "battle" against gangs, because then we're doing what they do. We have to treat these kids as human beings. They need education. But first and foremost, the streets have to be safe. We need to rebuild these communities in a way that provides hopeful opportunities for employment.

Have you stayed in touch with your subjects?
I took five gangbangers to Sundance. We stayed in a house together. One of the guys made a comment at one point, "God, we're so rarely a part of this part of America," and I thought he meant Hollywood. But he said, "When people approach you here, they want to shake your hand, not shake you down." And that's really what it's all about. When we were getting ready to leave, they were all kind of melancholy. I asked what was wrong and they said, "Well, this was great, but now we have to go back into the war zone."