The Greensboro HIVE

By Jeri Rowe | News & Record

Pat Callair wants us to learn a thing — or two — from a gangbanger named Bone.

She’s brought his words and work to places across Greensboro because she knows we can’t arrest ourselves out of the gang problem worrying our city.

In South Carolina, she’s worked with death row inmates as a social worker. Today in Greensboro, she works with at-risk kids and teenagers as a therapist. She knows the terrain.

But she also knows the possibilities. And she wants something done.

“The problem is bigger than a bunch of kids acting bad,” Callair, who teaches at Bennett College, told me Monday. “It’s about social justice and race and poverty. There’s a lot going on, and it’s affecting the kids in our community. It’s affecting everyone in our community.”

You see that in Bone’s documentary, “Bastards of the Party.” It’s a strong piece of work.

Bone is Cle Sloan, a longtime gang member turned filmmaker from Los Angeles. He joined the Athens Park Bloods at age 12. He’s now 38. He’s been shot at four times, spent time in jail and buried, by his estimation, at least 100 friends.

He talks about all that in “Bastards of the Party,” an award-winning documentary he produced with Antoine Fuqua, the director of “Training Day,” and spent nine years putting together.

He digs into the historical roots of L.A. gangs and shows how these groups arose after World War II to combat white racists and corrupt cops before they fought for black empowerment and community rights.

Out of L.A.’s black activism sprouted two gangs that have struck sadness, anger and downright fear among many in Greensboro: Bloods and Crips.

Maybe you’ve seen the graffiti. Or maybe you’ve been to a community forum, talked to your kids, or attended a funeral last year where someone not even 20 was shot down for some gang-related thing.

I’ve been to two. I don’t want to go any more.

In late August, at Greensboro’s Piedmont Cemetery, I watched a woman — really a girl, no older than 18 — bring her baby boy to see the father he’ll never know.

Like Callair, Bone offers no solutions. But he brings to the table the voices we need to hear and the problems we need to understand.

He gives the gangbangers a human face, and through interviews and historical footage, he shows how the lack of jobs, the breakdown of families and the alienation felt by people of color lead to gang violence in L.A.

Sound familiar? That’s what I heard Thursday night at the community space on Grove Street known as the HIVE.

At least 130 people came. Black and white, young and old, working class and middle class, even a church youth group and the History Club from N.C. A&T. They stood close and sat everywhere to watch “Bastards of the Party.”

Afterward, the comments flew.

A young African American woman talked about having seven of her friends killed by gangbanging, and a young African American man, a single father of two, quoted his grandmother who raised him in Hampton Homes:

“I’m going to break you of who you want to be, so you can be who you need to be.”

Our city leaders have begun to tackle our gang problem with a new gang unit, new recreation programs and a task force that will involve a constellation of churches.

But Thursday night’s discussion offered other tangible possibilities. Even if it’s simply bringing more people to the table, those conversations can help find potential solutions that can repair the lives of young men before they lie 6 feet below ground.

Consider last year’s numbers: Six teenagers — ages 16 to 19 — were killed by someone with a gun, and two teenagers — 17 and 16 — and two juveniles have been charged in connection with three unrelated homicides.

Callier will continue screening the documentary for whoever is interested. She sees the information as too important. As Bone says in his documentary, “Do something … if you only spit.”