Abdoulie Faal
April 9, 2020
PL346
“Covert Action” Assignment
There was an agreement from the United States polity in the 1980s that Latin America
needed a regime change. This regime change would come from coups supported by the United
States that would replace left-wing leaders with ring wing leaders to promote American business
interests in the region and prevent the spread of Communism. To do this our government utilized
covert action as it would not be right to blatantly support change in a region that they are not a
part of. To do so they needed funding for their logistical support and thought through selling
drugs in the 1980s as well as firearms that they could get this done. To reduce the risk for
themselves they utilized the gangs at the time to generate domestic discord in South Central Los
Angeles to gain more wealth albeit through completely illegal means. Resulting in increased
gang violence in Los Angeles’ South Central region and mass incarceration of African
Americans.
The topic of this paper will be how America has utilized Covert Actions to generate
domestic discord between the Los Angeles gangs of the Bloods and Crips. The two gangs
originate from the 1970s with the Crips hailing from West Los Angeles and the Bloods hailing
from East Los Angeles in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement. During the movement,
the two respective bodies were used as neighborhood watch units but as the government saw the
rise of the black panther party and the fervor around it, they wished to stomp out all its influence
and these two gangs were poised as such. The Crips and Bloods had seen what the government
was doing to the black community and seeks to be a stand-in for older male figures but this
would soon all be foregone in exchange for power and money due to the inclusion on drugs into
the area in addition to unemployment, poverty, and racism.
The Crips were started in 1969 by Stanley ‘Tookie’ Williams and Raymond Washington.
The name originally was an acronym from the Civil Rights Movement which stood for Common
Revolution in Progress and as mentioned above was a neighborhood watch program of sorts as
they would protect teenage members of the African American community during the Civil
Rights Movement who were being assaulted by white teenage gangs. The group in 1969 started
as an imitation of the Blank Panther party and was formed from two different gangs. Tookie was
leadings the Crib while Raymond led the Baby Avenues and they dressed just as the Panthers did
in black leather jackets, earrings in the left ear, and carried canes. The gangs would join together
to fight other gangs within the area to address all the gangs in the area and cleanse the area of
them. This, however, would all come to nothing due to the insertion of drugs in 1970s Los
Angeles which would turn the Avenues into the Crips. The name crips come from the street
slang term Crippin which meant to rob someone as the members of the gangs turned to rob
