Sociology

Gini Sikes 8 Ball Chicks A Year in the Violent World of Girl Gangsters is a provocative look at girls in gang life.  The author, a one-time Mademoiselle Magazine contributor, spent a year hanging out with girl gang members in San Antonio, Milwaukee and Los Angeles, learning details of their complex lives and sharing them with the world in her disturbing, yet emotionally gripping, 1997 narrative.

In many ways, 8 Ball Chicks speaks to a universal theme that goes way beyond the topic of girl gangs. Like Sanyika Shakurs enormously successful memoir about gang life, Monster, Sikes book addresses the desperation, fears, social conditions and very human need to fit in.  The need to belong is a theme which especially resonates here, because it is a need which affects every gender, every ethnicity, every social class and, indeed, every age.  However, there factors which make particular individuals especially vulnerable to these feelings, since the very details of their identity (i.e. being female, young, poor, or of an ethnicracial minority) make them feel even more marginalized and shut out of the world.   It is no wonder then, that Sikes sassy, attitudinal and often aggressive subjects in 8 Ball Chicks (i.e. the memorable Shygirl, SadEyes, TJ and Coco) often reflect the pain of not belonging.  Like Lucia and Celia, the edgy protagonists of Loca, a novel about gang violence written by Yxta Maya Murray, the adolescent girls of 8 Ball are perfect candidates for gang life because the details of their very existence causes them to feel ostracized and often, deeply isolated.

Where would a young girl turn if she felt alone in the world For many of us, the horrific and bloody realities of gang life make it almost incomprehensible that anyone, especially a young girl,  would willingly sign up for such an experience. Who in her right mind, we wonder, would want to live a life of murder and mayhem, carry razor blades in her mouth and a gun on her person  Who would willingly want to have to deal with looking over her shoulder for the next bullet and worry if the next drive-by shooting would leave her or her child in a grave  The realities of gang life for girls, which Sikes illuminates in 8 Ball, realities which include the heartbreak of abortion, gang beatings, sexual violence and teenaged pregnancy, hardly make it seem like an appealing life choice.  But, when youre talking about adolescents, like the ones Sikes interviewed for her powerful narrative, many of whom come from homes with missing or no parents, the deep need and longing they feel to create a sense of family becomes a little more easy to comprehend.  The need for love and a sense of belonging is one that is central to humanity and, if your circumstances are such that this need is not readily met, you are going to find a way to seek it out, no matter what the cost.  

Sikes clearly blames, at least in part, societys glorification of gang culture saying, Known for setting many of the countrys trends, perhaps no California cultural export has found greater success than ganger-inspired clothes, music, slang and graffiti, moving beyond the ghetto and into the suburbs. (Sikes, 1998, p.4). It is a common argument that Sikes is making here.  Any time the subject of children and violence comes up for discussion, there are often whispers about rap music, rock n roll music, hip hop culture and the influence of music videos on the bad behavior of our youth.  If little Billy acts up in class or starts mouthing off to his parents and teachers, somehow artists like rappers Kayne West, 50 Cent, Snoop Dogg or Eminem make their way into the conversation. The argument may be a little too easy. So many interwoven and complex social factors go into influencing an individuals behavior that its hard to tease out something like a rock song using a few profane words and point the finger at the culprit. However, although pop culture cannot take all the blame, Sikes argument, however clich, seems to have at least some merit. When Sikes first travels to South Central Los Angeles to meet with a girl gang-banger named Coco, she comes face to face with a sweet, tiny pigtailed girl (Sikes, 1998, p.6) named Tasha who is singing along with Snoop, lyrics tumbling out of her ice-cream-rimmed mouth about doing it doggy style (Sikes, 1998, p. 6).  At the very least, anecdotes such as this, a story which we all can relate to, gives credence to the notion that our young, impressionable children are being highly affected in a detrimental way by the images and messages they are seeing in movies, hearing on the radio and emulating from popular music videos.   We know that, in addition to highly sexualized images of young women, strong, often corrupt messages about violence and wealth are also coming through these various media.  It is difficult to image that a child in todays society, even one with the most protective parents, would not somehow be harmed by some of the sexist, racist violence-glamorizing messages in pop culture.  Again though, Sikes argument here doesnt tell the whole picture.  Yes, the story she shares about 4-year-old Tasha quoting dirty Snoop Dogg lyrics is an upsetting one, but it definitely doesnt tell the whole story about pop culture.  If the risqu lyrical messages of an artist like Snoop Dogg can influence a young girl in this way, who is to say that she couldnt also be internalizing many of the positive messages from songs and videos out there  Songs like Alicia Keys A Womans Worth and Superwoman are also a part of todays pop cultural landscape that Sikes is taking to task here, and they promote uplifting and empowering messages that many young girls like Tasha and her mother, Coco, could also be internalizing.

But, in fairness to Sikes, she doesnt hold pop culture exclusively accountable.  Mostly, she is suggesting that the society at large has much to answer for when it comes to the fate of the young girls in 8 Ball.  It isnt Snoop Doggs fault, for example, that many of our nations schools are failing our children and teenagers.  Speaking about the educational system she has witnessed in  Los Angles, Sikes argues, In some schools, where spending for education has fallen from first to forty-second in the nation, children practice duck-and-cover drills to protect against gunfire from other children. (Sikes, 1998, p. 4). In the preceding quote, Sikes invites us to question where the fault actually lies.  Shes not even really blaming the schools themselves, but focusing on the lack of spending for education.  The implication is clear. The reader must ask herself, as a member of the society which is breeding these girl gangs, How am I contributing to this problem

If there is any real criticism to be made about the book, it is this  that the portraits of the young women are often too sympathetic.  On the one hand, it is commendable that the reader is given so much detail and insight into the struggles and the dreams of these young women, but one cannot wonder if they are judged less harshly than their male counterparts, by both Sikes and the reader, because of their gender.  It is a societal assumption, one which Sikes seems to have also bought into, that women and girls are, by nature, good. Although, the tragic details of the trauma in the lives of the young women of 8 Ball are sometimes incomprehensibly heart-wrenching and key to understanding their decisions, barely any suggestion is made that there could be young women attracted to gang-banging for less noble reasons than looking for love and belonging. Could there not be some female gang members who prime motivation for joining gang life is that they actually enjoy violence, enjoy inflicting pain on other human beings, enjoy the power it gives them without an underlying motivator of feeling disempowered.  Sikes touches upon the power issue, at times, but ultimately 8 Ball seems more of an apologia for young women in gang life, an argument which, in large part, excuses their heinous behaviors because they themselves were the victim of pain. Sikes work might have been stronger if she placed more emphasis on the idea of accountability.  Even with such tragic life circumstances, personal choice plays a major role in the acts committed by these young women. Portraying them as mostly victims of circumstance, in fact, robs young women readers of a more empowering interpretation where personal choice holds more sway.