The office was so dingy it would make the set of Barney Miller look warm and inviting.  Harsh fluorescent light slurred everything in the room together in a boring puddle.  I was waiting to see a police officer about a piece of equipment pertaining to a federal grant.  He couldn’t find the right form and so the hunt began.  There were papers laying everywhere, but there was no sign of a filing cabinet.  He left me alone in the office for quite some time.

I noticed a poster that was a collage of gang symbols meant to be used by the officers as a reference.  It’s presence in the room was almost comical.  I don’t know how many gangs throw signs in rural Kentucky, unless there is a hand gesture for John Deere.  But it was the most interesting thing in the room and I was bored.  So I learned about graffiti markings for the Bloods and Crips.  I saw complicated hand gestures for Latino gangs.  It all looked so ridiculous.  This may not be very politically correct but gang culture has always disgusted me.  Uneducated people who want desperately to belong to something are participating in self destructive behavior.  I am a person who goes into these neighborhoods and houses quite often.  Seeing the way some kids are treated when they are growing up compared to others affords me some insight that the general public may not have.

Poor is poor.  But it doesn’t have to feel that way.  I have been in homes where it is obvious that the people who live there are desperately poor.  But the floors and furniture are clean.  The kids may have only two sets of clothes, but their hair is combed and their teeth are clean.  Everyone in the house is kind and respectful.  And then there is the darker side of poverty.  There are houses that you go into where some horrid beast of a mother is constantly screaming at the top of her lungs at her children who have long since given up caring what she has to say.  Trash is stacked everywhere despite the fact that there are three adults laying on various horizontal surfaces in the middle of the afternoon looking like they are in possession of a little free time to clean the house.  But somehow it never gets done.

Poverty and race are no measure of the quality of a home.  It is the integrity and work ethic of a family’s members that make or break it.  This is why gang culture repulses me.  So much energy spent on something so stupid.  But the culture stems from feeling adrift.  It comes from desperately wanting to belong to something.  It comes from the perception that someone else is against you.

I got bored with the poster after a few minutes and moved on to other areas of the office.  Over one officer’s desk was some strange picture of a skull wearing a green beret cap.  This was painted on a field of complicated imagery that included Latin slogans and an M-16 rifle.  There were also bayonets and various implements of destruction.  The whole hideous thing was framed and hanging over a desk in a place of honor.

On a shelf near the skull picture were some ghastly figurines meant to be funny caricatures of cops in amusing poses.  None of them were amusing.  They just seemed out of taste.  There were also posters of various weapon systems with men in exciting poses using their new weapons in the heat of battle.  One such poster had a shotgun that could fire an electronic taser round.  That must be considered cool.  You get to shoot someone and shock them at the same time.  I also saw some plastic wall sculpture of a bulldog chomping on a bone with some allusion to law enforcement.  The walls were also covered with letters of commendation, citations, medals, and a picture of Barney Fife signed by Don Knotts himself.  A collection of toy police cars was on the other side of the room.  Apart from this the office was in complete disarray.  Junk was piled on the top of every desk to the point where they were no longer functional as desks.

The gang signs and trappings of being a police officer were painfully obvious, and just as exaggerated as the signs on the poster.  Then it occurred to me that this culture has the same origins.  The culture stems from feeling adrift.  It comes from desperately wanting to belong to something.  It comes from the perception that someone else is against you.  These officers are the first to let you know how ridiculous gang culture is.  They will tell you this right before taking a copy of ‘Guns and Ammo’ magazine to the toilet.

Firehouses are no better.  The words ‘gang’ and ‘sign’ are neatly replaced with ‘fraternity’ and ‘tradition’.  Churches will tell you it is faith and symbolism.  Wear some robes and hand out crackers and grape juice and you have a gang.  Schools.  Sports teams.  Yuppies.  Where does it end?

Do you belong to a gang?  Do you look down at someone else who is doing the same thing you are doing?  Mark Twain once said, “I would never belong to a club that would have me as a member.”  I have been subscribing to that idea for years.  I just don’t feel comfortable contorting my hands into funny shapes just for someone else’s benefit.