From the L.A. Times in 1944: "Youthful Gang Secrets Exposed"

[Blue_Tires]

Youthful Gang Secrets Exposed
Young Hoodlums Smoke 'Reefers,' Tattoo Girls, and Plot Robberies

Long baffled concerning the inner workings of juvenile gangs, authorities of the Superior Court have just obtained a detailed exposition which divulges narcotics addiction, carrying of concealed weapons and robbery of pedestrians.

Gang members speak a strange argot unintelligible to the uninitiated, perform sadistic mutilations upon unwilling neophytes, and smoke marihuana costing $5 per "reefer," according to the sworn statements in the hands of juvenile authorities.

Why the juveniles were organized into gangs which gather nightly on the streets to fight, to steal and to rob remains a question without a clear-cut answer. One theory is that the boss of several of these juvenile gangs organized them for the experience of handling mob groups under the influence of subversive elements.

Another, more commonly entertained, is that the gangs are the result of mollycoddling of racial groups and of war-depleted police forces.

Here are the highlights:

Girl members are recruited for neighborhood gangs, whether they are willing or not, under threats of beatings and other violence.

http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/hb138nb3k0/

more outdated nostalgic propaganda at the link...

[kwassa]

1. That mollycoddling will do it every time!

:rofl:

edit to add:

The most infamous race riot of that time in Los Angeles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoot_Suit_Riots

The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of riots that erupted in Los Angeles, California during World War II, between white sailors and Marines stationed throughout the city and Latino youths, who were recognizable by the zoot suits they favored. While Mexican Americans were the primary targets of military servicemen, African American and Filipino/Filipino American youth were also targeted.<1> The Zoot Suit Riots were in part the effect of the infamous Sleepy Lagoon murder which involved the death of a young Latino man in a barrio near Los Angeles.

The riots began in Los Angeles, amidst a period of rising tensions between American servicemen stationed in southern California and Los Angeles' Mexican-American community. On May 31, 1943, a group of white sailors on leave clashed with a group of young Latinos in the downtown area. One sailor, Joe Dacy Coleman, was stabbed in the melee. The violence escalated as sailors and Marines continued to clash with Mexican-American youth; specifically targeting young men dressed in Zoot Suits and calling themselves pachucos. The Los Angeles Police Department initially refused to intervene as newspapers, headed by various Hearst Publishing dailies, placed the blame entirely on the pachucos. As the violence escalated over the ensuing days, thousands of servicemen joined the attacks.

An eyewitness to the attacks, journalist Carey McWilliams, described the scene as follows

"Marching through the streets of downtown Los Angeles, a mob of several thousand soldiers, sailors, and civilians, proceeded to beat up every zoot suiter they could find. Pushing its way into the important motion picture theaters, the mob ordered the management to turn on the house lights and then ran up and down the aisles dragging Mexicans out of their seats. Streetcars were halted while Mexicans, and some Filipinos and Negroes, were jerked from their seats, pushed into the streets and beaten with a sadistic frenzy."<2>

The local press lauded the attacks by the servicemen, describing the assaults as having a "cleansing effect" that were ridding Los Angeles of "miscreants" and "hoodlums."<3> Sailors and Marines had initially targeted only pachucos, but African-Americans in Zoot Suits were also victimized in the Central Avenue corridor area. This escalation compelled the Navy and Marine Corps command staffs to intervene on June 7; confining sailors and Marines to barracks and declaring Los Angeles as off-limits to all military personnel with enforcement by U.S. Navy Shore Patrol personnel.

[Blue_Tires]

2. It's even better if you read it in an "Untouchables" narrator voice...

[pokerfan]

3. Gangs, huh?

[BuelahWitch]

4. Is that Eric Von Zipper?

He is my ideal! :rofl:

[Blue_Tires]

5. morning kick

and you had to pay FIVE GODDAMNED DOLLARS for a "reefer" back then?? no wonder kids were so pissed off...that's like two weeks pay for a teen in 1944...