On gangs
I spent today in Berkeley before heading off for the next bought of travels, and had to do some errands. One entailed going to a store two towns north of here, in Richmond, which used to be "the murder capital of the United States." There was a group of youths standing outside the entrance, in gang attire, and one had a tear drop tatoed on his face, a sign he had killed someone. I walked right through the middle of them, because, as a matter of fact, I spent one summer hanging out with some gang members in Southern California. They stole cars and I think dealt drugs, one of them is serving a life sentence for being an accomplice to a murder. Of course, Orange County gangs are not like LA gangs, but still it occurs to me, I would never had had this chance to broaden my cultural horizons, had I just lived in Iceland my whole life.
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