[quote name='itspaidgasterblaster']You guys have to live there to actually now what its all about. Most of my childhood friends are either in jail, dead, or in a wheelchair. For most of this people who are gangstars first they come from a low income family and they have faced things most of you have never seen. Most of them are weak minded people who just want to be accepted and have a family. Here they are veteranos if they make it to their 20's. The only ones that are still alive is because at one point they got a chick pregnant and now have to be daddies or shit like that. I don't want to say this is an excuse for being a cholo (gangster) but its the truth for the most part. One of my friends his dad use to beat him up just for fun, well at 14 he joined a gang and actually commited about 5 or 6 drive by's. He rob a bunch of liquor stores and some other things he never told me about cause he said it was pretty shitty.[/QUOTE]
Yea people usually do join "gangs" because they feel a need for family and feel accepted. But, I don't know what you mean by "you have to live there to know what it's all about", I can tell you that justifying killings in the name of bad temper is stupid, it doesn't matter if you're a so called "gangsta".
I was born on the Southwest Side of Chicago (albeit the little Italy part), and then spent a little while on the West Side before my parents were able to move to the burbs, and even now I can see stupid gangster shit starting to spread back into the towns surrounding Chicago. It was bad when I was younger, we always listened to "gang awareness" preaching about the latin kings and gangster disciples. I was surrounded by idiots who thought it would be cool to be a gang member and would PRACTICE gang signs. Then it died off for a little, and now I can tell it's starting to go back to that shit. And no, I just didn't get schooled on it, my whole family got sucked into some stupid fake ass gangster shit.
I'll never understand the allure of the thug life, do people really think there is a lot of money to go around in a gang? 90% of gangs are UNorganized crime, they do shit so sloppy it makes you wonder how the majority of them still exist. (I guess it's just bad luck that 2 of the more prominent gangs in the country are based here, then you see all the stupid ass copy cats pop up, and that's where you get a LOT of this stupid violence and idiocy)
The word gangster no longer holds as a title, to me it's just a pop culture reference, a new slang word. I don't think that title ever held water with me, cause when I think of gangster I think of some stupid ass who thinks he's gettin money because he has a nice TV in the housing project and 20's on the 93 corolla, he thinks he's tough because he's strapped and "will kill anyone who disagrees on any matter", or because he smokes a blunt and wears his hat to the side. I think of someone who doesn't know what they're doing, garners NO REAL respect,, and is trying to be what he heard about. It may sound weird, but rap and idiots who joins these branch off gangs (they remind me off police precincts, it's

ing hilarious), have no doubt ruined the "traditional" gangster for me.
People (especially parents) are tired of having to avoid this side and that side of town. Tired of wondering what color is OK and what color isn't. Me? I still go through the wild 100's if I have to, still through the west side. Yea it's dangerous, but I refuse to have PETTY thugs dictate where I can go and where I can't. But, I'm not going to stroll through that shit for fun either.
"The rappers wanna be gangsters and the gangsters wanna be rappers". Thumbs up Proof, you are a real winner.
EDIT: Something I read that sums up some of my rant and dislike for these "new" gangsters... "Gangs are no longer true to their origins, their traditions and identifiers have been distorted, diluted, and changed".