“I work in a very shitty part of Tucson. I’ve come across, on more than several occasions, guys in Circle K with ‘13,’ ‘XIII’ and a few other distinct tattoos associated with MS-13. They don’t bother anyone. The only reason rural white people were familiar with them before Trump is because they watch Gangland or History Channel documentaries on them. Otherwise they wouldn’t know they exist. Shit, Sureños have been up and down California for decades yet no one brings up how scared they are of Sureños. Mostly because they have know idea who they are. Republicans have invented things to be scared of for years and it almost always revolves around POC.”
—Jason Nimrichter
“A majority of people who voted for President Donald Trump consider criminal gang MS-13 a threat to the United States, a new poll finds, indicating the Trump administration may be succeeding in inflating the perception of the gang’s national risk … The gang is less a sophisticated international organization than a collection of cliques engaging in violence, small-scale drug-dealing and other crimes.”
—Dana Liebelson and Ariel Edwards-Levy, Huffpost
“I was born in East LA and grew up with actual cholos. I’m more scared of ‘Gucci Gang’ than I am of any actual gang.”
—Jason Rico
And now I’m thinking of Cheech’s song.
MS-13 isn’t a threat to you.
They aren’t coming to your crappy dead eyed suburb.
The aren’t DACA recipients.
They don’t exist in most of the country.
They don’t *want* to exist in most of the country.
Their victims are most often and nearly always hispanic teens in places you’ll never ever go.
You just needed a socially acceptable way to openly hate Hispanic people and this is what the Dumbfuck Mediasphere has told you is a way to do it.
Your dumbass arsenal isn’t going to protect you from the scourge of brown hordes that was never coming in the first place nor will it fix your flaccid middle-aged despair.
—jason malmberg
Flommist Jason Malmberg is a simple man who believes in brown liquor and small dogs. He also makes art sometimes. Copyright © 2018 Jason Malmberg. Photo by Adam Hinton, from The Gangs of El Salvador, The Guardian, 4 September 2015; MOR + a short film at his website.
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