Richard Cabral Quotes

I was in middle school right around the time the Bloods and the Crips started taking root in Compton and a lot of the other neighborhoods around me. I saw way too many of my peers - smart, kind, good kids - who got drawn into gangs and violence, and their futures were going to be forever scarred by that.

The reason most of the children are having problems in any inner-city neighborhood is because they don't see enough positive role models in their own environment.

I definitely had a gang influence with friends and family growing up in South Central, and people might think that Beverly Hills definitely shielded me from some problems. But in actuality, it only opened up a whole new can of worms.

Growing up in Flint, Michigan, I saw so many kids from my school end up in jail or unemployed, and gangs would hang out and cause trouble in my neighborhood. I had to learn how to protect myself, because it didn't feel like anyone else was protecting me.

Gangs are a part of living in Los Angeles, but you can exist in Inglewood or Culver City or anywhere else, without joining one.

I grew up playing with kids from Hurt Village, playing with kids from other housing projects, Lamar Terrace, because my grandmother lived in that particular area. So, I always wondered how I would have turned out if I would have lived in that particular given circumstance.

Gang violence in America is not a sudden problem. It has been a part of urban life for years, offering an aggressive definition and identity to those seeking a place to belong in the chaos of large metropolitan areas.

I've never been in a gang. None of my friends have been in a gang. I've never rolled around with big entourages.

People have to see that there is a high degree of complexity about belonging to a gang. It's a symptom, not a problem.

I know people in gangs; I could have went down that route.

Gangs are born of a lethal absence of hope, and hope has an address: 130 W. Bruno St. in Los Angeles, CA 90012.

Growing up in bad neighborhoods, you see and experience a lot.

I went to Locke High School in Watts towards the end of the super gangbanging era.

The truth is that those who join gangs - more often than not they are young men in their later teens - often do come from the most difficult family backgrounds, from an environment where they feel neglected and unwanted. Gang membership can bring a perverse sense of belonging which they may not have ever got at home.

Part of the reason young people are getting involved with gangs, leading to the use of guns and knives, is not the lack of stop and search but the individualistic, consumerist society we live in.

I wanted the attention I missed at home, so I became the leader of a gang. That way, I got attention and was recognized as being important. It wasn't a bad gang - you know, in poor districts in New York, there's a gang to every block. We never robbed at the point of a gun; we'd steal potatoes from a grocery store, or crackers.

For thugs from the ghetto, violence is a way of life - it's what helps you survive.

I was never a 'bad' kid, but I did get into minor juvenile trouble. Look, I grew up in Brooklyn. This was the '60s, and the neighborhood was rapidly changing and not without its problems. All the kids of the neighborhood 'did their thing,' breaking windows and the like. I was no different.

The murder rate in Chicago is skyrocketing, and you see who's doing it and perpetrating it - they all look like Chief Keef. When it comes to the point that, you know, that kids who are doing the killings, and they're kids 13 to 19 years old, and you can replicate that in New Orleans, you can replicate that in Oakland. All the kids look the same.

I have never seen a hopeful person join a gang.

I was a gang leader. Although, it was a gang for defensive purposes. It was not a gang to sell drugs.

I work with youth offenders in LA, I've heard them speak and see how music manipulates them.

I know two L.A.s. Half my life was around the house my folks had for 46 years at 3rd and Norton. The other half was in Boyle Heights on the Eastside, working with gang members.

Now we just showin' and provin' that there's a ghetto everywhere you go.

I'm from Long Beach - not the best area in the world - and I had a lot of ghetto friends growing up.