NO Ashley Williams, you are NOT a Superpredator

[Kind of Blue]

25. I agree about not understanding the consequences

of the law. If I were omniprescient I'd certainly would not have been for it in the least. One must have lived in the barest of integrated places or born way afterwards not to realize that gang meant al kinds of people, including the police.

When we emigrated, we lived in Newark, NJ, where I first heard of grown-up gangs, the Chingalings, a Latino group, besides us kids referring to each other as "my gang" or "your gang." They were a bunch of cool dudes, always throwing block parties and such. My bestfriend in the neighborhood and Catholic school was a Puerto Rican girl whose dad and uncles were Chingalings. So I at least knew some were just a club and diverse in nature and others were nefarious. And see, I knew of no white gangs except West Side Story but understood they existed, besides the Italian mob.

So to think by the '90s, saying super predators meant black to me is ridiculous when even the Russian and Italian mobs were in on the action. Different times and different perspectives. I, like you, trust mine