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Abstract
The African American gang practice of writing while dancing is part of a non-standard gang written tradition that crosscuts multiple expressive media. In dance, feet become primary media of written production as gang members spell out affiliations, nicknames, enemies, and memorials to the dead. Because gang members integrate writing with ephemeral expression, gang literacy expands scholarly constructs of writing that rely on materiality, durable form, and a lack of sociality or context. In such performative media, gang members thus provide a novel frame for questioning how literacy constructs impact racial politics in the United States. [Keywords: Gangs, Dance, Writing, Literacy, Ethnography of Communication, African Americans, United States]
"Look, it's double Dutch."
"What?"
"It's double Dutch!"
"What?"
"Just look at it!"
"Oh...oh yeah!"
Thus ran the exchange between myself and a nine-year-old boy, one of five young men who introduced me to the Crip Walk, a gang-related dance, in November 2000. After making sure that I understood what he was saying, the boy ran to jump in with his companions. It was double Dutch. Two boys, one at either end, mimed the motions of coordinated jump ropes while three others hopped and jumped in between. Periodically the boys would switch, handing off invisible dueling ropes to continue the performance. At one point, their sync was disrupted by some negotiation about who was supposed to be doing what. One boy, then thirteen, pointed, motioned, and commanded, and the choreography was quickly again underway. Then the eldest, a tall fifteen, knelt to the ground, tracing letters with his index finger to spell out the names of the "homies that had been lost." "He's writing RIPs," the littlest boy had explained to me earlier (RIP is a common gang memorial saying based on the traditional "Rest in Peace"). The other boys soon joined him, each writing the names of dead companions, or sometimes crossing out enemies with mimed spray paint. Then they Crip Walked in miniature with two fingers, as if the dead continued to reside in the hands of those that remained (see Plate 1).
The unexpected presence of double Dutch jump rope and invisible written commemorations of the dead had come in the midst of a video taping session consisting of myself and five boys...