The Book “8 Ball Chicks” Essay Example

future. All they knew how to do was survive. So all of them turned to gangs. When a girl was initiated into gangs they had a couple of choices, get “jumped in” ( beat up by x amount of girls for x amount of time) or in an example, for Part II the girl would roll dice and whatever number the dice amounted to was the number of guys the girl would have to sleep with at once. They would call it a “train”. Most girls would choose that option. Once in a lot of these girls who joined gangs were viewed as sex objects. These girls would end up pregnant at a young age. They were raped and beaten by their boyfriends.

The abuse was endless, violence was just a way of life for them. By the end of the book, some or most of these girls quit these gangs due to motherhood or the desire to want more. Here is one of their stories. TJ was a member of the Lennox gang and the “Play Girl Gangstas. ” When TJ was in the 9th grade, her mother moved to Lennox for cheaper housing due to her parent's split. TJ was a good student until she moved to Lennox, because TJ didn't like her new school her grades dropped.

When her grades dropped, she was put into lower classes. In these classes, she meet Lennox gang members and so became influenced by them. Soon some male gang members began to notice her because of her looks. She enjoyed the attention she received so soon enough TJ began partying and hanging out with the guys at night.

She

felt love in comfort with them. She met a guy named Shotgun ( who beat her up so bad once that she had endured a miscarriage), which in turn made her even more popular within the gang. As a result of her growing popularity, she had a choice either to join the "Play Girl Gangstas" or get beaten up. Soon after she was initiated she began breaking into cars, stealing, and doing pretty much anything that would build up her reputation within that gang.

Soon TJ became violent on account of the death of so many of her friends. In one part of the book, Sikes describes how in retaliation for the death of her friends Rosa’s little brother. TJ disguised herself as a man and went outlook for the boy's killer. When she found him or what she thought was him she killed him point-blank with a gun.

By the ending of the book, TJ ended up getting married and moving out of Lennox. She had a child at the age of 22. After she had her baby, her husband left her. TJ found comfort in the church.TJ realized that the life she led while living in Lennox was not one she wanted to continue. She said that wanted to educate her child and teach her about the bible.

TJ wanted to teach her child right from wrong and not let her end up the way she did. She end up working in a factory and also took herself off of welfare. She showed that through all she had gone through there was always a light at the end of the tunnel. A lot of the reason

why I believed these girls ended up like this was due to the fact of the poverty-stricken communities. Social Disorganization theory best describes this.

It states that delinquency occurs when the social control among traditional primary groups like parents, schools and the neighborhood breaks down because of the social disarray within the community. When this occurs girls and boys look elsewhere for acceptance and love. This is why most of them turn to gangs. Turning to gangs however seal some of its member's fates, such as death and jail. Another reason why I think these girls become delinquent or become involved in gangs is because of the Labeling theory.

People label them because they are poor or come from bad neighborhoods as bad kids. So eventually they just take that identity. I mean if you think about it if people keep calling you a bad kid over and over again after a while wouldn’t you just accept it because that is what people expect of you? This book was a very good read. It was very eye-opening. More than what I expected. It was a very well-written book about the hidden lives of young girls in gangs.

My heart went out to these girls. I could feel where they were coming from. I could see why they made some of the decisions that they made. I loved the way Sikes told their story the way it was. She did not sugarcoat it and showed you what it was like to be a young girl in a poverty-stricken part of society. One of my favorite parts is at the end of the book where TJ goes to Kiwanis’ Good

Friday brunch.

She goes up and speaks in front of everyone dressed in her gang attire. She gets on stage and takes out her arrest record and reads it out loud (which when she unrolled almost hit the floor). She talks about how everyone there has a perceived notion of her because of the way she was dressed. Then she goes on how to talk about how she found refuge in the church and slowly she begins to undress.

She shows that underneath her baggy gang attire she was wearing a nice burgundy pantsuit. At the end of her speech, she says “When you see a kid like me, don’t judge her by her clothes. There might be a child of God underneath. ” I love that part because it shows just because the person may be in a gang that does not mean that they are a bad person. It also shows that people can change.

One of the main issues that I found very interesting about how gang life and sexual abuse go hand in hand. Beforehand to reading this book I had no idea that girls in gangs were abused so badly by the men around them.How they would degrade them and use them as sexual objects. One part of the book that I found out which I consider highly disturbing was allegedly three girls had sex with a supposedly HIV-infected guy as a form of initiation, and how sex with multiple men was a normal form of initiation. Also, how do these guys expect this girl to have sex with them whenever they want and when they refused the boys beat them up and

then rape them. After a while, these girls just give in to these men because the fact to don‘t want to get beaten up.

One sad part is where you read about Alicia a 17-year-old girl who lived with her abusive boyfriend. One night after he beat her up she went to a friend's house to take a bath and on the way home, she cut through rival gang territory. While walking she was stopped by rival gang members one of whom she knew, Freeze. They huddled around her and called her names (mainly because she was in a rival gang) and then Freeze put a gun to her head and said she would have to pay. Then he raped her. That sad part about it was she never reported her rape because Freeze warned her if she ever told anyone and he went to jail he would have his gang hunt her down and kill her.

While talking to Sikes she pretty much played it off as a way of life around there. As a woman, I was repulsed by that because in my mind the worst thing you can do to a woman is rape her. She holds that for the rest of her life. The fact this book showed that sexual abuse is so common in gangs I think is a good thing. We need to know these things, because if we don’t hear these stories then really they are assumed to have never have happened. If you cant see it it never happened.

We need to find ways to solve this sexual abuse. For example by programs that reach out to these girls who

have been sexually abused by gang members and find ways to help them and get them away from that life. As a result of reading this book a lot of my views on gangs have changed. I don’t view gangs as just cold-blooded killers, drug dealers, or thugs. I now see them as lost souls who mainly join gangs on account of the fact they come from bad homes, neighborhoods, and schools just looking for a place to belong.

They just want acceptance for people to love them. Every human seeks out those feelings. They are just kids caught up in a wasteland with really nothing to turn to. In turn pressures of the street overcome them. We shouldn’t look at the kids as the problem but actually, the environment that they come from. Hopefully, on the day I will become an adolescent counselor. I have always wanted to reach out and help people, mainly kids. Reading this book has given me more insight into the adolescent mind. We all go through adolescence differently, and seeing from many different angles would help me in seeing why kids turn out the way that they do.

We need to study and understand their thought process and why they come to these decisions. Furthermore makes me want to learn more about the problems kids face today and what ways society as a whole can try to change these problems and help these kids so that they can have a prosperous future.