“Once disorganized and lacking both the leadership and resources, the gangs of today are organized, are goal minded, and well equipped with weapons, vehicles, electronic gadgetry, and fat budgets. The gangs of today whether they realize or not, are becoming business majors. They are involved in merchandising, franchising, retail and wholesale sales, and market expansion. Their product is illicit drugs, and the rock cocaine is the flagship of their line.”
Testimony from Lieutenant Larry Carter, Inglewood Police Department, to the California State Task Force on Gangs and Drugs (Final Report, California Council on Criminal Justice, Sacramento, California, January 1989.
“To poor people, prisoners, slaves, and the disenfranchised everywhere—through faith and theories put into practice, you can bend the most oppressive circumstances to your will, to make the impossible possible." -- Stan “Tookie” Williams’ Opening to Blue Rage, Black Redemption (2004).
Attribution: Goodman, Amy (Host) and Democracy Now. (2005, November 30). A Conversation with Death Row Prisoner Stanley Tookie Williams from his San Quentin Cell [Radio program] In Democracy Now