Gang Mentality
Writings on the wall @ Highschool we recently visited...
Every morning, as I rub the sleep out my eye and we make our way to
the first school of the day, “T” breaks down to us the size of the
school and the teacher’s comments on what some of the issues facing the
female students might be. One theme keeps arising…BULLYING. I’m no stranger to the concept and to be quite honest I’ve been on both sides of the fence.
At my high school there were a lot of foreign exchange students and
often the students would think I was an ESL kid that didn’t speak any
english. As a result, I could understand everything mean thing that was
said about me. Meanwhile the “bullies” had no idea that I could
understand every word that was said. I stayed very low key, and just
enjoyed hanging out by the Art Room and ended up spray painting my name
across the back of the art room as a school project before leaving that
school. After class and on the weekends, I hung around girls that lived
in East Vancouver…many of which were in female gangs. I never jumped
into a set (though I was offered many times) and Hiphop seemed to give
me a neutral status with many of the girls. I was affectionately known
as “Hiphop May” by many and they let me hang out because I always
brought the music and boogie. These cliques would do everything from
pick fights with other females at the mall, gossip and create terrible
rumors about one another and generally posture so everyone else could
recognize how big and bad we were. I noticed after a while that the
girls always got more brave when everyone in the gang was around, but
one on one, the girls were more sincere, open and sweet hearts! It was
as if we puffed out our chests to be big and bad in order to impress
one another. I have to admit, I enjoyed the feeling of being seen as
powerful or dangerous because of the crew I rolled with.
All Bgirls School Portrait photo by Che Kothari
Years later, after my move to Toronto, I was fortunate enough to help organize an event known as The M1 Academy: All Bgirls School (featuring
many talented women in the Hiphop Community like Lady Noyz, DJ LOQENZ,
Eternia…) I realized that many of the women in Toronto Hiphop could not
get the proper recognition they deserved. The talent ranged from
graffiti writers, singers, DJs and rappers. I also felt that our HERstories
(histories) as women in the culture of hiphop, had hardly been
documented. I gathered all the super women B girls to take a giant
famly portrait of women in Toronto Hiphop, and held an event to
celebrate the amazing contribution of these women to the Hiphop
community in Toronto.
Return of the Bgirl features a cast of talented young women
The All Bgirls School event was a success and we held the concert as
a series of annual events. As well, when it came time to film a video
for Return of the Bgirl, I already had an amazing cast of characters to
holler at! Only in hind sight I realize this – there is a difference
between GANG mentality and CREW mentality, although both involve
gathering together groups of potentially powerful young ladies. All
though I had my fun causing trouble with my clique in high school, we
accomplish very little and in the end everyone grew up and went their
separate ways. What I accomplished together with the CREW of ladies
gathered for the All Bgirls School, on the other hand, was quite
phenomenal. The women expressed ideas to one another, shared their
experience and traded services and talents for future projects. The
event was also a spring board for many female artists that had never
performed before and have since gone on to great things or become
ROCKSTARS! (Shout out to Isis & Zaki Ibrahim!)
The point I’m trying to make here is this: We can still empower
ourselves, bring groups of people together and create something
positive. Bullying or having a gang mentality when picking on someone
together is a waste of time and does nothing to create a foundation for
something greater. It is very much like a 15 minutes of fame. On the
flip side, get together your closest homegirls, agree on working on a
project together (whether it’s a dance routine, raising money for a
girl’s group or holding an event) and create something positive with
them. You will watch it grow…I promise you, it’ll be much more worth
it.
One Love
Masia.