VIDEO: The trailer for Crips and Bloods: Made in America
If halfpipe god Stacy Peralta's debut 2001 skate documentary, Dogtown and Z-Boys, attested to how sweet it can be to grow up young and blond in Los Angeles, his new Crips and Bloods: Made in America suggests how frightening it is to be born black and eight miles off the Pacific coastline.
This movie is a racist's nightmare; through extraordinary context and a score of moving interviews, Peralta shows how the blood of the 15,000 slain in the vicious 40-year cycle of South Central gang violence stains the hands of apathetic, oppressive, and even downright bigoted authoritarian structures.
Bloods and Crips won't be seen by nearly as many people as heard N.W.A's epic breakout, Straight Outta Compton, but the message is the same: Los Angeles police and politicians are ruthless and unscrupulous scumbags whose inaction has created four generations of kids who just don't give a fuck.
