come an equal opportunity alternative, the employer of last resort in many of Los Angeles poorest neighborhoods. Gang members capitalized this market and sold crack as many car salesmen sale cars. Competition was fierce and violence was used at ones leisure even if it meant betrayal of a fellow gang member. The neighborhoods of South Central Los Angeles wore scares of the 1980s crack era and the evolution of area gangs. The old rules did not exist where you did not shoot children or somebodys mother, nor did you fire on cemetery, hospital or church. When fights were fought with muscle not with military weapons. Drive by shootings claimed the lives of many young and old. Children at play or home watching television were prey to the violence on the street gangs of Los Angeles. Those who escaped the drive-bys were sucked into a demise of addiction to crack cocaine. As California replaced Florida as the chief import for the Colombian cocaine cartels, drug distributions trigged violence; violence caused the destruction of families and claimed the lives of many. The community would not recover from the violent introduction of crack cocaine. Los Angeles dubbed the City of Gangs has earned its reputation. Gangs which were organized as a form of community protection between black males evolved to criminal orientated profit making units. Old fashioned codes of ethic were replaced with the views of capitalism. The American dream seemed attainable to many by any means necessary. The author used Keith Cardell Thomas as an example of the old generation of Crips versus the new capitalist Crips. Thomas also known as Stone clung to the old fashioned ideas which controlled gang violence. Violence escalated after the introduction of crack cocaine. Many older members known as O.G.s questioned the violence involved in the distribution of crack cocaine. They all witness the rocked monkey create a monster which rocked the fragile foun...
