Opinion: On Gang Tattoos, Survival, and Respect in the USA

I grew up on the safe side of town with educational access and expectations of gainful, dignified employment. Selling harmful addictive substances was not a consideration I needed to make to provide for my family. Moreover, the mobility and security afforded by my skin color and privileged class background have allowed for me to safely visit and learn in some dangerous places which residents can not easily leave. 

As a college student I spent a semester in Tucson, Arizona back in 2010, in the days of SB1070 when they were illegalizing Ethnic Studies and Joe Arpaio was still the Maricopa County Sheriff (pardoned by Trump in 2017 for crimes committed while in office). About an hour from the US/Mexico border, they would jump in their cars and hunt city residents down to deport them with the gusto of professional athletes. As an east coaster in the desert for the first time, it looked like a deplorable and horrifying mirage of cowboys and Indians. More specifically, it looked like many of the law enforcement officers might have seen themselves like the gun-toting protagonists of Western movies which might do little more than sugar coat genocide (films I grew up on). 

I spent a lot of my most personally meaningful time there in The Sonoran Desert with guys who were younger than I was then and had already entered a life of painful consequences which God willing I will never need to experience. Many of them came from various Indigenous nations from the regions surrounding Tucson (from Xucxon: Black Valley). Much of their diverse heritage came from a lot deeper into the land around there than the wall interfering with it. Even though I was a square, the young people welcomed me with hospitality, many clad in only one color of many, some wearing lifelong military tattoos, too. 

There are several things closely associated with colonial violence which I had to learn from Indigenous people in order to begin comprehending some of the deeper value in for myself. One is honoring the Creator as a Christian and the other is honoring all veterans. 

It has been years since I read the sacred text Are Prisons Obsolete? by Dr. Angela Davis. One of the gifts I received from her is loyalty to the deeply challenging notion that inside of all humanity we share a capacity for real transformation. 

I respect all veterans. I honor people who sacrifice their lives for their people. I also respect the people suffering within systems of violence. 

For years people have been incarcerated in the US for no crime other than being in a gang. Courts have used tattoos as one of not too many factors to determine someone’s (alleged) membership and subsequent imprisonment. 

Recently there have been many refugees from Venezuela deported from the Southwestern USA on the premise of variously false and also true gang membership.

One former US resident was violently expelled from his home based on the ridiculous idea that the Autism Awareness tattoo which he wears for his brother somehow represented membership of some kind of dangerous gang. (I am familiar with three other nonsensical deportations based on tattoos with no relationship to gangs or any associated suffering which have occurred in this particular recent and ongoing sting). 

The first concentration camps were not designed with the intention of killing Jewish people. Rather, they were invented in Germany’s colonial nightmare against the Herero and Nama people indigenous to present day Namibia. Similarly, hostility against people with heritage in African and Turtle Island is foundational to the existence of our country. That is to say it didn’t begin with MAGA, or grow overnight. Even so, the wolf is clearly not wearing all of the sheep’s wool behind which it grew in silence even three months ago. 

One telling example is the word which our new secretary of defense, the “Christian” crusader Pete Hegseth has permanently engraved on his body, which identifies him as an “Infidel” to all people who can read Arabic. Someone who takes measures to define themself as an enemy to all people of another faith, does not sound like behavior which Jesus Christ would condone. Marking oneself as a threat to all practitioners of another religion sounds more resonant with the Romans who executed our good Palestinian prince of peace in the year 0. 

The Black Muslim teachers I’ve been blessed to learn from have shared generously with me based on our mutual recognition of our shared humanity. Being White didn’t make me an infidel, and neither did being an (aspiring, real) Christian. 

Some gang tattoos merely represent the group of people which the wearer belongs to – possibly the name of a street, or perhaps the flag of a country. 

Our Secretary of Defense’s new, lifelong visual identity marker is different – he is defining himself in opposition to anyone who prays in Arabic. It is clear-eyed, hard-nosed disrespect and if it is not a gang tattoo, I do not know what is. 

Gangbangers are people too, just like everyone else – even the ones sitting in the White House like Pete Hegseth. 

Although it can mean holding someone in high esteem, respect can also stem from intelligent recognition of someone else’s capacity for undesirable violence. 

Learning about “colonialism and the horrors of war” from Kanienkehaka Elder Roger Jock was helpful for me in the ongoing process of seeking to find my place in our shared journey for unity and peace. 

It’s clearly easy for people in the Trump administration to treat Black and Indigenous people like something considerably less than what they clearly are.

From what I have learned, it seems like when we begin to view evildoers as scum, we begin to lose our own humanity, too. I guess the point might be that we maintain our humanity only as long as we can maintain sight of everyone else’s, too: even them. 

Unless someone is interested in picking up arms and fighting to the death against them, it seems like some kind of love is the only way through.

Brooklyn Demme is a thankful new resident of Shutesbury, having migrated here recently from his hometown of Nyack, NY. In 2020 he co-founded Truth 2 Power Media in order to bring people together at the intersection of community, education, and film. The team’s first fictional film, Mountain Lion — produced in association with the Sand Hill Band of Lenape & Cherokee Indians of Scheyichbi — will screen at the Massachusetts Independent Film Festival on Fri. April 25th (5PM) at the Wellsworth Conference Center in Southbridge.