LOS ANGELES TIMES INTERVIEW : Stanley ‘Tookie’ Williams : The Crips Co-founder Now Realizes Violence Does Not Solve Anything

When Stanley (Tookie) Williams’ face appeared on a huge screen in a hotel ballroom at the recent Los Angeles Gang Peace Summit, an audience of some 400 people froze. The 39-year-old Williams, co-founder of the Crips, was addressing the group from San Quentin’s Death Row. His videotaped message condemned urban violence and promoted gang peace. When he finished and the screen went blank, people leaped from their chairs, cheering and applauding.

Until that event, Williams hadn’t uttered a public word in 14 years--not since he was jailed and convicted of murder. Yet, his reputation in the ‘hood continued to grow: Williams has earned his “props”--his proper respect--because he has taken his years in prison like a man, not snitching on or complaining to anyone.

Williams was nicknamed “Big Took” because his heavy weightlifting gave him Incredible Hulk-like proportions. Only 5 feet, 10 inches tall, his neck measured close to 20 inches, he flexed 22-inch arms and he weighed nearly 300 pounds. His mythic status in the community is based on stories, told and retold, of his exploits. For example, he never bought tickets to music concerts; instead, he would approach a locked entryway, grab the knobs and rip out the doors.

Twenty-two years ago, it was Williams’ “heart”--his courage to do as he pleased--that prompted Raymond Washington, 18, to pursue him. Washington wanted his followers, young men from South-Central’s eastside, to form an alliance with Williams’ westside recruits so they would not be overrun by other local gangs. Williams eventually saw the potential and agreed. Their alliance became the Crips.

Washington was murdered by a rival gang member in 1979.

These days, Williams no longer identifies with the “Big Took” persona. Nonetheless, he cuts a powerful figure, even though handcuffed at the waist and ankles and allowed to wear only blue, prison-issue clothes. Now slightly less muscular (18-inch neck, 19-inch arms, 250 pounds), Williams moves with such precision and purpose that he appears to be traveling in slow motion. His voice reflects the same restraint--he speaks softly, each word considered.

Only his left leg betrays excitement, twitching throughout our conversation, particularly when he discusses his twin passions--a children’s book series and the memoirs he is now writing. These are projects he hopes will aid in reversing the legacy of black-on-black violence the Crips helped create.

Question: When you first heard about the gang truce, what did you think about it?

Answer: I was somewhat skeptical. I’d heard about certain things like that in the past which had failed. So I wasn’t too enthused about it. I just didn’t think that it would work because of the level of violence that was out there now. But I got a new perspective after the April rebellion.

Soon after the uprising, I was down in the Los Angeles County Jail on an evidentiary hearing. So I had a chance to talk with a lot of individuals who had been arrested. I had a chance to hear their views, to find out how they felt about certain things. And it was amazing to see individuals from different gangs talking to one another like they’d been together for many years.

Everywhere you would go, you would see things written on the walls, stuff like “Crips and Bloods Together Forever.” Now that was in the County Jail. But it was also written on the walls in the court holding tanks. I’d never seen that before in my life. So seeing all those things helped me to develop an entirely new opinion about the truce. . . . So I started thinking about what I could do to help black youth.

Q: Are you surprised by the way the Crips turned out?

A: Oh, quite naturally, yes. Initially, Raymond and I started the Crips for protection. There were so many gangs prevalent during that era, and in our neighborhoods, that we had to band together against them to protect each other and to protect our family members, our loved ones. See, these other gangs were attacking people--robbing and stealing and jumping on individuals.

So in 1971, I met Raymond Washington at school (George Washington Preparatory High School). As a matter of fact, he came looking for me. I’m not sure how he managed to know my name, but he did. We got a chance to sit down and talk and eventually we created an alliance so that we could combat gangs on the eastside, where Raymond lived, and on the westside, where I lived.

So we started off combatting the other gangs in order to create an atmosphere in our communities where it would be safe for all of us. And, in the beginning, we were doing a pretty good job of it.

Q: How did you go about “combatting” the rival gangs?

A: We fought them--using force and violence. We didn’t have any peace treaties back then. We weren’t involved in situations where an individual could come and sit down and hold a pow-wow or a colloquy and expect to establish some type of understanding. Back then it wasn’t about talking, it was about using your fists. I’m not talking about bullets and weapons, I’m talking about hand-to-hand combat.

So we started off as the individuals who protected everybody. But eventually we gravitated into the realm of gangsterhood. We became something else that we really didn’t plan to become. We became what we were attacking.

Q: How did that happen?

A: Slowly but surely. . . . The violence is something that was necessary at that particular time in order to uphold a sense of calm and safety. So we had to use it, there was no other way.

But when you compare the way we started to the violence that was used later, that violence was used randomly and was more rampant. Crips violence had run amok. It was more about flexing your muscles to show who was the toughest of all. But now I see that what we were doing was wrong. We were hurting our own kind.

Q: How close or how far are today’s Crips from what the Crips had evolved to by the time you left the scene?

A: Well, let’s face it, we were in a different era. So the action that was warranted then to be a gangster is quite different than now. So I can’t say that the individuals who are gangbanging now are acting worse than we were, because it doesn’t matter whether it’s worse now or then. The fact is we all committed violations against our own race.

So I can’t sit here and lambaste the hell out of the individuals who are participating in gangs now, I can’t look down upon them, because both eras were wrong. Period. And that’s the way I look at it.

Q: Why is gang participation so appealing to South-Central youth?

A: The favorite, commonplace stereotype for why so many black youths join gangs is that street life and gangsterism has a so-called “aura of appeal.” I consider that explanation to be a misinterpretation of what’s really going on.

A black youth may participate in a gang because of his or her need to vent anger, or the need for love, protection, retaliation, a sense of security, recognition, discipline, psychological comfort, financial gain, sex, drugs or the desire to have a surrogate family. Also, a black youth may join a gang because his or her relative is a member. So that individual just gravitates to it automatically, because the individual grew up into it.

But of all the possible reasons for gang participation, I can readily identify and empathize with a black youth’s desperate need for psychological comfort. And gangs provide that by providing a vehicle--gang membership--that allows him or her to feel that finally that youth really belongs to something, or is a part of something.

In other words, there is a “place” for a black youth in this country when he or she joins a gang, as opposed to that youth feeling left out in a white-dominated society. I really believe that’s the underlying current for all gang participation. In fact, I believe that need, the need for psychological comfort, cuts through every other reason why gangs are so popular among black youth.

Q: Why, then, do you think that so many young black men harm and kill each other?

A: I believe the core of it is an embedded sense of self-hate. What I mean by that is, an individual who has been spoon-fed so many derogatory images of his race will, after a period of time, start to believe those images. The images I’m talking about are stereotypes that depict the majority of blacks as being buffoons, functional illiterates, violent and promiscuous, welfare recipients, indolent criminals . . .

Unfortunately, too many black people have been brainwashed into believing these stereotypes. And when an individual gets to believing such things, that individual gets to believing, “Well, hell, if it’s true, then I must be just as disgusting as those images that are being depicted.”

So you end up lashing out at the individuals (other gang members) that you consider to be part of those stereotypes. In desperation, you’re trying to obliterate that negative image to rid yourself of this self-hate monster that subconsciously stalks you. In a sense, you’re trying to purify yourself, your environment, your race.

Q: How did you purge your self-hate?

A: I learned that basically all the negative stereotypes about black people aren’t true. Those stereotypes aren’t applicable to the whole race. There is no stereotype that can depict a whole race.

So, after I studied and learned about the great individuals there are in my race--both men and women--I woke up. Plus, I started acknowledging my own abilities to achieve minor things--self-accomplishments like being able to read well, to articulate well, to be disciplined, things of that nature. Nothing spectacular, but still they were self-accomplishments. So my feelings of self-hate gradually changed. It didn’t happen overnight, it took some time and effort on my part.

Q: Given your view of what causes black self-hate and black-on-black violence, how do you explain the gang truce?

A: There’s a new awakening occurring. Individuals are becoming more ethnocentric, more focused on the betterment of their race. Blacks are realizing that we’re not benefiting from all this violence; it’s only destroying blacks. And individuals are becoming tired of that. . . . I applaud all the peacemakers . . .

And I also want to help them--even from Death Row. That’s why I agreed to videotape a speech for the Gang Peace Summit that Hands Across Watts recently put on. (Hands Across Watts, a nonprofit group, was founded last summer by two leaders of the Crips-Bloods gang truce in Watts, Tony “Bogard” Thomas and Tyrone “Ty-Stick” Baker.)

I actually felt that I could do some good by participating in that summit . . . I want to help black kids not get involved with gangs.

Q: Clearly, you’ve done an about-face regarding your outlook on gangs. What changed you?

A: Maturity has something to do with it and the gaining of knowledge. I’ve been studying a lot since I’ve been in prison--economics, politics, black history, math, English, philosophy, psychology. And what I’ve learned has taught me to appeal to logic. If something’s counterproductive, I don’t want to have anything to do with it. If it’s for black betterment, then I’m all for it. Period.

So my present attitude about gangs was an easy choice for me. It wasn’t something that I had to sit down and say, “Should I, or should I not?” It wasn’t that difficult. In fact, it wasn’t difficult at all.