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About Inside the Crips
The situation with the birth and launch of Inside the Crips is so complicated and dramatic it deserves a book on its own. My agent put Colton Simpson and me together to write his story. So why did I, a white, middle aged, middle class, woman living in middle America write a book on the life of a black gang member? I thought we would be able to bring light and curtail the continued inner city black on black violence, racism, the problems of our prison and justice system. I looked forward to the challenge of writing as a black man. Colton hoped to use the book as a launching pad to help stop gangs.
Unfortunately, Colton was charged with a crime that occurred a quarter of century after the misdeeds detailed in our book. His trial was set for a week after publication and, worst of all, the book was admitted as evidence. I tried to stop what seemed to me a breach of our constitutional rights and loss of freedom. But energies were being consumed by the Patriot Act.
The trial was delayed until shortly after the publication of the paperback. I was subpoenaed and testified for a day and a half. Colton was sentenced, unbelievably, to 126 years to life in prison. Colton's case remains on appeal.
If you want to learn more, click here and you will go to the chapter I wrote for the paperback edition of Inside the Crips.
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Synopsis
Beginning at the tender age of ten in the mid 70's, Simpson's world was defined by war. The son of an alcoholic mother with a sadistic streak and a professional baseball player father who could not be there for him, his grandmother raised him at the edge of Los Angeles's South Central. Simpson didn't turn to the streets as much as be engulfed by them. His induction into the Crips involved running down an alley while the members opened fire on him and then soldiering against the enemy-the Bloods. By the time he was fourteen, Simpson was a jewel thief earning over $100,000 a year and a stalwart soldier in the continuing and increasingly violent war.
But a Crip's life involves death or incarceration and Simpson did 16 years in the California prison system which is marshaled into gangs which have become captive criminal nations complete with a structure and complicated political intrigue. He discovers mentors who point him in the right direction and manages to teach himself to read proficiently and, through writing, begins examining his life, dealing with his remorse. "The institution simply taught me carnage," Simpson writes, "and reinforced the violence taught by [ my mother, stepfather),by the Bloods. Instead I learned what I needed from the rare man able to rise above the hellhole circumstances."
It's impossible not to care about the youth Simpson was, or about his fellow gangbanger Smiley, or Gina, the long-suffering friend, who married Simpson while he was in prison. Inside the Crips, is an intimate look at gang life in the 1970's- 1990's at the same time a story of both buoyant camaraderie and devastating loss. It places the reader in the center of the rush that comes from being a part of gang violence and puts the extraordinary life and times of one Crip into a larger context.
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Reviews
"There once was a time when the terrorist threat against America came from within, when L.A. street gangs were one of law enforcement's top priorities. Cotton Simpson, who says he's the son of an absent major-league baseball player and an abusive mother, chronicles a good chunk of that time in his arresting memoir, Inside the Crips (authored with Ann Pearlman). In search of family bonds, Simpson joined the Crips when he was 10 (the year he killed his first man). Within five years, he was sentenced to the first of several stints in jail. The book's most revealing passages recount his 12 years in prison, when (he claims) racist guards antagonized inmates as a precursor to beating them. Simpson, now 40, mostly avoids the urge to glamorize his gang years, offering a sometimes boastful but ultimately regretful tale of a life half wasted. Grade: B+" Entertainment Weekly
"...Simpson shows us exactly how and why a bright, personable kid comes to join a gang and why that same kid would choose to stay despite the lethal risks, the constant soul-battering violence and the inevitable incarcerations...Simpson also documents urban warfare with
unflinching intensity... "Celeste Fremon LA Times, 8 28 05
"Simpson's book paints a stark portrait of life in prison as the conflict between the Crips and its rival gang, the Bloods, is magnified by the claustrophobic surroundings." John Pomfret Washington post march 2, 2006
"After being physically and emotionally abused by his mother and her live-in boyfriend, Colton Simpson moved in with his grandmother. She took care of him and brought him to church, but Simpson still became Li'l Cee. This was his name among the Crips, and on the night he was initiated into the gang-the same day that he hit a home run in Little League-he shot two men at a gas station. He was ten years old. In this often enthralling and emotional memoir, Simpson takes readers inside his life with the gang, from the time he joined through his 16-month prison sentence and to his leaving the Crips. Some passages are quite graphic and can drag on a bit too long, and some of Simpson's turns of phrase can seem a bit awkward or overdramatic. ("The tumbling dominoes of my life events lose their velocity.") But the world Simpson evokes with Pearlman's help is fascinating, and his narrative is clearly heartfelt. For those readers willing to look, the book provides a window into an often misunderstood way of life." Publishers weekly
"Though gritty, Simpson's story is by no means hopeless. "Life is something to live and do, not to verbalize," he says shortly before signing off with "In Struggle, Little Cee (Loc, no more)." This unvarnished portrayal of gang life is enlightening and even inspiring about a subject badly in need of illumination." Mike Tribby Copyright American Library Association. All rights reserved
"A raw account of Los Angeles gang underworld and his life as a thief, thug and triggerman in the bloody battle between the Crips and the Bloods." Calgary Herald
"This book tells the story of Simpson's life, from his childhood to his adulthood. It covers abuse at the hands of his mother; his induction into the Crips, the notorious Los Angles-based gang; and his time in prison. It's brutal and filled with dramatic, nearly unbelievable, scenes. " the Ann Arbor News
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Excerpt
New Folsom opens in August 1986. The worst of the worst are sent there from all over the state of California. At twenty-one, I'm one of them, sent on the second bus. My cell's concrete walls are so thick my own voice bounces around and returns to me in a slight echo. The door is made of steel, six and a half feet high with a small Plexiglas window. It's electric, with a pressure controlled mechanism. Fresno Shorty moves in my cell the next week and with his property in the cell, voices no longer echo. Since Shorty is a Crip associate, we know
some of the same men. He's finishing up the last four months of a three year bid, sentenced for dealing crack and then for a SHU program.
True to his name, he's short, about five feet, two inches and stocky. No scars. No tattoos. He's brown skinned, hair corn rowed. He breathes with his mouth open and, in between his words, I hear rattles in his chest, bubbling up his throat. "You have asthma?" I ask.
"How'd you know, cuz?" His cheeks are puffy.
"You sound like my brother. He has asthma."
"Yeah, my medicine's in the gun tower." He jerks his head toward the tower, then picks up a stack of pictures and starts showing me his collection of women.
Shorty and I create a routine, exercising every morning, studying, writing letters and reading until dinner time. After dinner, we practice our Kiswahili and share old war stories. I can do my own cornrows, but Shorty's fingers fly through my hair. We're allies so we braid each other's hair as we tell stories. Mine are about my exploits with Huckabuck. As I talk the reality of his murder dims. It's just like it always is when I'm in prison, except I don't get his letters. Shorty's war stories are invariably about women who initially aren't interested in him, but because of his flashy lines, creative tales, and persistence inevitably succumb to his charms. And just as he gets them, trouble starts. An ex, crazy mother, or collection agency. Some of his stories are hilarious, some have a moral at the end.
One night, we're watching TV, a preview comes on for New Jack City, and there's IceT. "Hey. Look. There's Tray. Ice T. He's my homie."
"Hey, I know him," Shorty's breath rasps.
I'm not shocked to see him on TV. "He always had so much talent," I say. "Him makin' it, feels like all of us have made it."
Shorty watches the preview and nods.
At eight pm, it's time for Shorty's medicine-his usual pills and the inhaler. An MTA,- Medical Technical Assistant -- Sam, arrives with his pills. The inhaler, encased in an aluminum canister, is a security risk housed in the guntower under the watchful eyes of the pigs. When the pills don't keep his breathing easy, we bang on the steel door for his inhaler. Some officers come quickly and respectfully give him his medicine. Others refuse to be bothered. Then, we bang on the door for hours. Peering out the small window, we see them look at us like two animals in a cage and fall out laughing. It's hilarious to them, but not to Shorty whose wheezing deepens. One night, he falls on the floor and pleads, "Please man. Please. I can't breathe."
"Shut the fuck up and go to sleep," the officer, Randolph, screams back.
The pigs target Shorty because he stabbed a White boy. Shorty had been talking on the phone and the White guy, waiting his turn, disconnected the line and called Shorty a bitch. Shorty retaliated by stabbing him four times with a nine inch piece of steel. But that's inmate prison politics, and should not involve the officers. Racial identity takes precedence over status, I guess. Every morning, Sam, who's White, about forty-five and a happy-go-lucky sort of guy with a tentative smile and a huge potbelly, brings Shorty his medication. Sam and I usually have an extensive conversation about sports. One day, I complain about the guards in the guntower.
"I can't do nothin' 'bout them," Sam shrugs. "Don't worry 'bout them, they'll get justice in the end," he adds.
"Life ain't like that," I tell him.
The next morning, Sam brings Shorty an inhaler to keep in his cell. "Tired of your complaining," he says as he tosses it to him.
To keep the guntower sadists from becoming suspicious, we continue our ritual of pounding on the door. They point at us, continue laughing and joking. They don't know the joke is on them.
Prison politics shuffles the security of our routine. The unity between the White pigs and the White prisoners is destroyed when a White pig manhandles a White Aryan Brotherhood shot caller. War is declared which escalates to the point that the pigs beat Blue, the leader of the A.B.s and kill his second in command. The A.B.s strike back by shooting a correction officer on the highway. The pigs then pass out false passes, ducats, to the dentist and law library. Once the prisoner is outside of the building where there are no witnesses, the officers tasor him and beat him bloody. White men refuse to leave their cells.
The pigs retaliate by searching cells. Everyone's cells. One night, Shorty and I are cuffed and ordered out of our cell. Officers completely trash our personal property. Shorty's color television is smashed; my new radio is broken to plastic shards under the heel of a boot. Most unfortunate of all, they find Shorty's hidden inhaler and confiscate it. I write Gina and she sends money for a new radio, which I order immediately, but don't receive for three weeks. Shorty has only three months left and decides not to order another television. He's more concerned about his health than his entertainment.
Everynight, we have to pound on the door for Shorty's medication, his wheezing increasingly frantic. Meanwhile, the anger between the A.B. and the officers spreads to all of us. Since everyone's property was trashed, no one has the materials to make a piece. We begin saving plastic ice cream cups, which can be melted and crafted into a shank. The pigs pillage our cells again and the plastic cups are seized, the man holding them written up for conspiracy to manufacture a weapon.
We protest our treatment by flooding our cells and dayroom with water from the toilets. In response, they cut off the water. We refuse to eat and throw our food trays on the building floor, walls, everywhere we can. They end our protest by forcing us to lie on our bunks, face down. Then they open the tray slots and toss sack lunches inside the cells.
We're in a no win situation so we let things slide back to normal. The pigs still ransack our cells. For Shorty and me, eight pm is banging on the door time.
One night, Shorty rehearses his lines to use on women when he's released. He picks up his stack of photos, remarkably intact in spite of the persistent destruction of our property, and points to a White woman and says, "She didn't wanna go for me. But I brought her 'round. 'You never had a man like me,' I tol' her. 'Don't know what men can be til you have me.' I guess it worked 'cause it got her curious. She'd never been with a brother before." He flips to another one, a brown skin woman with a Jeri Curl. "Your father musta stolen the stars from the sky when he made your eyes."
We both bust out laughing and he falls to the ground. I figure he's playing. "Come on man, get up from the ground."
"Bang on the door."
I pound the door, the steel resounds with thuds that start to echo a chime, but terminate in dullness.
Shorty rolls on the ground, wheezing.
"He needs his inhaler. He's having an attack," I yell.
In the guntower are Randolph and a new officer. Maybe the new man will respond. I bang faster.
Shorty starts coughing like a child in a house fire. I kick the door as hard as I can and shout, "Hey my cellie's dying in here, man! Please man, he needs his inhaler."
Randolph rises from his seat, walks over to the control panel and cracks the door. I prepare to exit the cell and walk to the tower. He slams the door shut and busts out laughing. "Fuck off," he screams.
I increase the tempo of my hammering, hoping he'll show some compassion, but he ignores me. Shorty's sweat leaves dark spots under his arms, on his chest. Drops bead on his forehead, his upper lip as he gasps, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. "You alright, homie?"
Strangled by his coughs and rumbly gasps, he whispers, "I can't breathe."
"Help. Help." I pound on the door, keep pounding on the door. I search for something harder than my hand to hit it with, but there's nothing. Shorty lies on the floor. I beat it for three hours. Finally four officers come to the door. "What's wrong?"
"My cellie's having an asthma attack. He needs his inhaler."
One of the officers notifies Sam who brings his medication, but Shorty's condition worsens. Sam says he's too far into the attack and needs a different medication.
I resume hitting the door. Finally, the pigs return. They make me stick my hands through the tray slot and cuff me. I move to the rear of the cell before they rack the door. They pick Shorty off the ground, tussle him onto the stretcher, manhandling him. They cuff him to the stretcher.
Shorty's talking crazy, crazy partly 'cause he's so hard to understand between the wheezes, the gasps, the sucking of air in the middle of a word. "Whats'all. Let me. Die. In here?" He pants.
A pig tugs at the cuff fastening him to the stretcher.
Shorty takes in all the air he can. "You guys going to let me die in here?"
An officer grabs him by the throat and starts choking him.
"Shut the fuck up."
"I got asthma," Shorty wheezes.
One pushes his shoulder as they start carrying him. I watch as they lug him out of the section door.
The guntower C/O looks down at me and grins.
"Po-lice killer muthafucka," I trumpet back at him.
I lay on my bunk, but can't sleep. Instead, I toss and turn thinking about Shorty.
The next morning, I hear a voice through the vent. It's the Mexican guy in the next cell who always treated me like a person. "Ey, Cee."
I'm not supposed to speak to members of the Mexican Mafia, but I get off my bunk and stand on the toilet so I can talk into the vent. "Whassup?"
"Hey, homes. I'm not trying to get in your business or nothin' but wha's goin' on?"
"Hear us banging?"
"For hours, homes. I'm not wishing nothin' bad, but, I saw how the Hotas did your homeboy last night. Last time I saw something like that it was my homeboy they dogged out. Took him out of the cell after midnight and never brought him back."
"What you mean?"
"He died, man. They killed him. They took him out real late. He was having a seizure, transported him to the hospital. He never returned. Heard he was killed by the pigs for assaulting a cop, the case that sent him to the 'Pen.'".
"What? Shorty gonna be alright. He just has asthma."
"I'm not wishing nothing bad on your cellie, homes."
I push away his warning as paranoia and then hear sounds of jangling keys as doors open and close and prisoners are escorted to the yard. I start my push-up burpy routine. The pigs make it to my cell and inform me I'm on CTQ. (Confined To Quarters.)
"Why?"
They shrug and walk away.
"You punk bitches. Stupid red necks. Tell me why."
"You'll get ten more days CTQ for that."
"Fuck you and CTQ," I shout.
I finish my burpy routine and do some additional push-ups. I'm calm now and figure I'm CTQ for trumpeting "Po-lice killer" at the guntower the previous night.
The following morning, I wake to the sound of "Pill Call" announced over the P.A. Shorty has not returned from the hospital. Somethin' ain't right, I think. An hour later, the lieutenant comes to my door. "Hey. Simpson. Do me a favor."
"What's that?"
"I need your cellie's phone book. He got a phone book in there?"
"I think so."
"I need you to get it."
I start searching through Shorty's property.
"Why? What happened?"
"He's going to be alright. You might as well roll it all up. He's going to be alright."
I roll up Shorty's property, taking special care with his gallery of women and hand it to the lieutenant.
That night, Sam walks right by my cell and I call his name. He backs up. "You alright, Simpson?" His face is serious as he crosses his arms over his belly, his legs slightly spread and his demeanor withdrawn and cautious.
"Why'd you ask me that?"
He closes his eyes and grimaces and starts to walk away.
"Where you goin', man?" I say it with a pleading tone in my voice.
He returns, his face now very pale, looking over his shoulders to see if anyone watches him. "You didn't hear what happened? No one tell you?"
"Whadaya mean?"
He twitches like he wants to run and says, "I'll let the officers tell you."
"Fuck all that shit. I ain't no muthafuckin' kid. You tell me."
"Calm down. Calm down." He places his finger to his lips. His hair is a fringe above his ears.
"You gonna tell me what's up?" But my voice is low now, almost a whisper that comes out as a hiss because of my coiled anger and fear.
He stands close to the door and whispers. "You didn't hear this from me, Simpson. Your cellie died yesterday. You saw the officer choke him. By the time the ambulance got to the prison, your cellie was dead."
"What?" I shout.
"Calm down. " Sam steps back from the cell, faces his palm toward me. "I didn't have anything to do with it." He marches down the tier, looking back and forth over his shoulders as if I could open my cell and chase him. All I can do is sit on my bunk.
Shorty dead. Gone. He was so close to freedom. He only had a few more months. I hear again the soft, helpless sound of his wheezing, his chuckles while telling about one of his girlfriends. His voices surround me in our cell as I stare at the wall. I cry for all he didn't get to do. And cry for myself that I'll never see him again. They killed him. But I don't think it with anger, just loss.
Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice is on my bookshelf. I grab it, absentmindedly, and as though a message to me, it opens to page sixty-nine. There I read James Baldwin's quote... the white man is himself in sore need of new standards, which will release him from his confusion and place him once again in fruitful communion with the depths of his being.
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