Exclusionary Practices and their Shocking Evolutions

A devastating legacy of the neoliberal practices of the seventies and eighties, the scale of privatization that we see today has had shocking consequences not only at the ethereal “market level” but at the very human “local level” as well. While large, for-profit organizations took the Regan years to consolidate their power and run out publicly-funded competition, the Boy Scouts of America (a private institution) was still busy taking a back seat to the segregation vs. integration argument.

Gene Demby, a writer for National Public Radio, sees parallels between this history of inaction on racial integration to the more recent BSA dealing of the repeal of its gay ban, writing that during much of “the early 20th century, the Scouts' national leadership did not endorse [either] segregation or discrimination but still gave wide discretion to councils to set their own racial policies… [which prompted] many chapters not to admit black scouts.” This practice bears striking resemblance to the federal government’s own handling of racial integration (i.e. let the states decide), which like the effects of the Boy Scout’s decision, often made living in the South as a person of color even worse. Demby writes that this backlash to integration would sometimes manifest as public uniform burnings “if black boys were permitted to wear them,” which persisted until 1974 when the last councils became formally integrated.

So what does this mean for the nineties? Exclusion from community groups such as the Boy Scouts led boys and young men of color to form their own groups and community bonds. Stacey Peralta, director of Crips and Bloods: Made in America, contends —with support from a variety of interviewees, including some members— that the creation of these new, primarily black-only “clubs” (the government and police called them “gangs”) such as the Slausons in the sixties and seventies, were the basis for what became the Bloods and the Crips. With the exclusionary practices of youth programs like the Boy Scouts, many black youth created their own clubs where other black youth could meet to feel a sense of community and togetherness. When police intervened in the creation and perpetuation  of these clubs, it proved to many youth that the problems of racism and physical violence their parents faced were still blatantly apparent, but ignored. The government and police backlash against their clubs and previously at their parents later prompted some to take to the streets with guns like the Bloods and Crips. It mirrors the criminalization of the Black Panthers who, despite being a community-based effort focused on assisting people of color in federally-forgotten neighborhoods, went on to be depicted as gun-toting “thugs” in mainstream discourse.

Bailey V.T.

Sources:
     Crips and Bloods Made in America: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdv08c0aiTE
     Gene Demby, NPR: https://www.npr.org/2013/01/30/170585132/boy-scouts-repeal-of-gay-ban-mirrors-its-approach-to-racial-integration