Hearing Planned on Gang Insignia on Clothing

By Sewell Chan
gang wearGang-related clothing items displayed in a news conference at City Hall today. (Photos: New York City Council)

Updated, Nov. 21 | Are apparel manufacturers and retailers deliberately selling sports-themed clothes with gang colors and symbols?

In August, Major League Baseball’s official cap manufacturer said that it would stop selling headwear bearing the colors and symbols of three gangs — the Bloods, the Crips and the Latin Kings — after advocates protested the sale of the caps at retail stores in East Harlem.

Two white Yankee caps made by the New Era Cap Company were wrapped with red and blue bandannas — colors associated with the Bloods and Crips — and a black Yankee cap was embroidered with a crown, symbolic of the Latin Kings. The Yankees said in a statement that they were unaware of the caps’ gang symbolism and had no influence on the design. “The New York Yankees oppose any garment that may be associated with gangs or gang-related activity,” the team said.

Councilman Leroy G. Comrie Jr., a Queens Democrat, said in a City Hall news conference today that he was not satisfied. “My office has conducted an investigation that has revealed the sale of gang-related apparel in New York City is thriving and parents should be wary of what they purchase for their teenage children this year,” he said in a statement announcing a hearing on the subject for Dec. 13. “Each day we read stories about gang initiation shootings, gang activity in our schools and youth involved in criminal enterprises. Its no wonder street gangs are on the rise — we live in a culture that blatantly glorifies street gangs in the name of profit.”

Mr. Comrie said that several of the caps were still available in various stores in neighborhoods like Flatbush, Brooklyn; Jamaica, Queens; and Harlem in Manhattan.

“They are knowingly selling this garbage and contributing to the dangerous culture of gangs in poor neighborhoods,” he said of the retailers selling the caps. “The caps are still for sale in legitimate businesses where unsuspecting parents may be inclined to pick up a holiday gift for their children — not aware that they may be putting their child’s life at risk. I’m even further outraged that Major League Baseball is in business with a company like New Era and would allow their logo to be imprinted on the back of these caps.”

Mr. Comrie said he did not believe New Era’s assertion that it was unaware of the gang connotations of the Yankees caps. Earlier this year, the company was accused of using printing gang monikers on caps sold in Cleveland, Mr. Comrie said.

New Era, based in Buffalo, did not respond to a request for comment today. On Aug. 24, the company did not respond to repeated requests for comment from The Times, but issued a statement [pdf] that said, in part:

It is our mission at New Era to create, design and market headwear that follows fashion trends around the world. Recently, it has been brought to our attention that some combinations of icons and colors on a select number of our caps could be too closely perceived to be in association with gangs. In response, we, along with Major League Baseball, have pulled those caps.

On Nov. 21, the company’s chief executive, Christopher H. Koch, said in a statement:

In August 2007, we alerted all our retail partners of a recall on a series of caps that were perceived to be gang-related. Recently, it was brought to our attention that these caps are still being found in stores. Any retail partner that has not returned the caps to New Era is essentially out of compliance.

Our position regarding this issue has not wavered and we’d like to reaffirm our ongoing commitment to get these caps off the market. Our continual efforts to implement more stringent policies, both internally and externally, and to take pro-active steps are all to ensure that there is no possibility that our products are seen as promoting gangs or gang related activity.

We understand the severity of this issue and emphasize that our attention to this matter is ongoing and immediate. We’re confident that our business partners are cooperating and have the same concerns.

Separately, Mr. Comrie’s aides also identified a brand of apparel called AKA Stash House. Mr. Comrie said the clothing line featured gang-related slogans like “Soldier For Life,” “Deal Or Die” and “Respect the Shooter,” accompanied by pictures of guns and gang colors. “The most notorious feature of the Stash House clothing line is a list of ‘street’ commandments imprinted on the back of each shirt, with the most alarming commandment being ‘never snitch ever,'” Mr. Comrie’s office said in a statement.

The clothing line was created by Kemistre 8 L.L.C., a Manhattan-based fashion company that runs the Akademiks clothing line. The company did not respond immediately to a telephone message left this afternoon.

Comments are no longer being accepted.

Michael DiPasquale November 19, 2007 · 9:39 pm

New Era is a great company with a long tradition of providing quality products. I don’t believe they are purposely creating gang related caps.
They made their feelings clear in the August press release.

Lisa November 19, 2007 · 10:55 pm

So let me get this straight….its not ok to wear gang related colors and logos on baseball gear in NYC, Its also not ok to hang a noose on someones door, but it is ok to wear and produce T shirts that say INTIFADA? Did someone say First Ammendment?

Kit November 19, 2007 · 10:58 pm

Fashion will use whatever is trendy at the moment. It’s all about appearances. New Era just wants to sell more hats and make more money. It’s the American way. — don’t let anything, even people’s safety, stand in the waay of making money.

willie mays November 20, 2007 · 12:59 am

1,2, and 3

None of you live in Flatbush, Jamaica, or Harlem, do you?

Take a train ride out here and look around. You can get hats with anything on them, including a white Yankees cap tilted sideways, with red streaks down the “NY.”

Nuff said

Mickey Rivers November 20, 2007 · 6:40 am

Sorry #4, other than trying to show off some sort of lame street cred, it is not really clear what you are trying to say.

Are you saying that there is so much variety that to call certain symbols “gang-related” is ridiculous? Or that there’s so much gang-related stuff that to single out a few designers is ridiculous?

Michelle Kohut November 20, 2007 · 7:38 am

anyone who doesn’t know that apparel and other types of companies (including phone and music companies) actively support gang-related culture is in denial (read the article in today’s science times). unfortunately, gang culture (including violence, misogyny and crime) has become mainstream to today’s young people.

Dale November 20, 2007 · 7:56 am

Red white and blue – colors of the Bloods and Crips. How appropriate.

George November 20, 2007 · 9:52 am

You people seem to trivialize the gang-symbols issue, but hey, put on one of the gang hats and walk into the wrong “gang territory”, find out then how serious of an issue it is……a deadly issue.

WD November 20, 2007 · 9:53 am

If you want to know why gang clothing and colors are so important, read the book “Gangs of Los Angeles”, a history of LA street gangs. Fighting over colors is just as important as fighting over dope cornes…

Nat Solomon November 20, 2007 · 9:56 am

Lisa is 100% correct. If you ban one product which is objectionable or provocative, then you have to ban them all.

However, the real problem may be that if you wear a New Era cap and you are not a gang member, you could very well be targeted regardless.

If New Era has a track record of marketing “gang color” products in areas where gangs predominate, then the company might be inviting a lawsuit, despite First Amendment guarantees.

On the other hand, if gang members really do wear these caps, wouldn’t that help the NYPD to target them?

Megatron November 20, 2007 · 10:13 am

Some of you appeared to be misinformed…

Dale(#7): White isn’t a color of the bloods OR crips.

Michelle(#6): Clarify your comment. Where is this gang-related clothing line that you speak of? Are there gang discounts?

Micky(#5): Poster#3 is speaking some truth, and I doubt he’s trying to show off “lame street cred”. What he’s trying to say is if you go to those neighborhoods where gang activity occurs, you can find those shops where people make the designs themselves, not the manufacturers. It wouldn’t matter if New Era or any other manufacturer for that matter stops making red or blue hats.

Willie(#4): Nuff said.

Lisa(#2): Do you really think it is okay to hang a noose on someone’s door, or anywhere else for that matter? If not, what does this have to do with the topic at hand?

dburt aka Afronerd November 20, 2007 · 1:05 pm

Well unfortunately this is the time that we live in. The general public has allowed a ghettoized (and gang-affiliated) cottage industry to flourish (excluding the Black media and fashion that engenders middle class values) with Black and Brown people and imagery to be decimated by it. It’s time (as these activists have done) to speak up and not tolerate this. It’s time for the focus to be taken off Team Justice (Sharpton/Jackson) relating to superficial racial matters and for the microscope to be placed on the internal strife that is really adversely affecting people of color. These corporate entities must be brought to task because they are complicit in these matters (as obvious enablers) and blood is on their hands on this as well…..Enough is Enough!

//www.afronerd.com

//www.afronerdradio.com

Robert November 20, 2007 · 4:58 pm

I am not well-versed in gang colors, or the effects thereof. However, it seems to me like a slippery slope to ban certain colors and designs because they are gang related.

Meech November 20, 2007 · 5:33 pm

I heard the spokeswoman from New Era this morning on WNYC and I was not impressed. Her response to recalling the products was insufficient and she seemed to take an “it’s out of our hands” approach — if the stores don’t bother to send them back then there’s nothing they can do about it. Her response was along the lines of “we can’t send a truck around to collect them all”.

Why not?

New Era has no problems getting the merchandise to the vendors so what would be so impossible for a group of company reps to visit the vendors to check their inventory and what’s on the floor.

Sure, visiting all the distributors would take days, even weeks. I can’t think of a better way for the company to show it’s concern and be upright in helping to fix it.

louminous November 21, 2007 · 1:25 pm

All of this sounds ridiculous… first off selling clothing with gang affiliation is not fueling the gang problem period!!! Its like trying to put a band-aid on a broken arm… like always we have cry babies running around cuz lil jimmy wants to wear a blue scarf on his head and some blue chucks. Lets go to the root and fix the gang problem… ask yourself a simply question, why do kids join gangs?

Yvette November 26, 2007 · 12:12 pm

#15

why do kids join gangs?

Because they’re scared to death, or scared out of their timberlands (if you will) of what will happen to them if they aren’t “protected”. In some neighborhoods, if you don’t have protection, you are as good as dead… their choices are an early death without protection or a slow death with protection. Either way they will die, but gang membership operates on the assumption that you’re “ass is grass” if you don’t join. If parents patrolled the streets as vigilantly as gang recruiters did, we just might be able to stop this mess, but everyone is too busy doing their thing and “getting theirs” to stop for a minute pay attention to what’s going on.

Bottom line is kids join gangs because they are forced to join. After all what other “protections” are we offering kids in impoverished neighborhoods these days anyway? Unfortunately education doesn’t protect you when it’s time to go one on one with an unrelenting gangster. Gang’s capitalize on fear, as long as the streets are unsafe, and there’s no real protection gangs will thrive in low income neighborhoods. Proof of this is that you don’t see gangs in the safe suburban middle to upper class neighborhoods. Why? Because their tax money pays for round the clock police “protection” and their salaries pay for afterschool nannies to keep close watch on their kids and afterschool activities to keep them busy and out of trouble.

#15
first off selling clothing with gang affiliation is not fueling the gang problem period!!!

I don’t agree. That’s almost like saying that selling clothing with Michael Jackson’s picture on the front of it doesn’t in some way fuel the hype about MJ… It’s a form of advertisement, and the farther the advertisement goes, the more affect it has on people’s behavior. If it wasn’t true then why is it that you can go anywhere in the world and show anyone a picture of the McDonalds golden arches and they will know that it is Mcdonalds.

Advertising gangster symbols/colors promotes gangsters and their activities. All big problems start out as small problems that go ignored.

74realg January 8, 2008 · 12:41 pm

#12 it is not just black and brown im white and knowledge but yall think u know every thing and #16 its not cuz where scared im 19 been in it since i was 13 luv it so stop all yalls hatin

Lewi G August 9, 2008 · 2:36 am

This won’t fuel the ‘gang problem’, stop trying to deny that gangs exist. Not everyone joins because they are scared as #17 points out. If you don’t like it, aren’t in a gang, don’t wanna get shot in the wrong area wearing it etc then don’t buy it, it’s simple.

.:S13epy:. September 25, 2008 · 12:58 pm

For one no one in here knows what its like to be in a gang and from what im readin’ all you know is from what you see. i know the true meanins and colors for the gangs and for what they do. im from south texas down with the Sur 13 and wishin that it wasn’t real. everyday is a day for celebration for me cuz im still alive. the colors have nuthin to do with the gangs. its who’s wearin the colors and how they wear it…

Akademilks November 25, 2008 · 9:12 pm

as everyone says… we don’t need to wear a gang cloths..with gang colors and symbols.but. in our generation some of us like to wear that cloths. for me there’s no problem because it’s depend upon the person who wear that.. if it’s fit to them why? not.. go ahead.
_sidney-

Medicineman December 1, 2008 · 1:20 am

16. I agree to a point: Parents need to be more involed in their children’s lives and make sure they have the protection you write about; however, there are other issues at stake here. Gangs are not the Mafia, and kids do not join them out of fear and need for protection. Kids join gangs because they feel respected and accepted without question, something they don’t get from anyone else. We treat our kids as idiots most of the time and gangs feed their ego by treating them as “adults”.

An important point you seem to ignore is that parents are not out there “getting their own”, most are out there trying to provide, as best they can, for their children. There is no easy solution to the gang issue.

This clothing issue is really an idiotic approach to it all, just like blaming television, video games, cartoons and music for our children’s behavior instead of our utter and complete failure as a society to provide meaning to our younger generations.

StoptheInsanity April 30, 2009 · 1:29 pm

Gangs exist.

Kids join gangs for many reasons. Sometimes to fill a void where a sound family structure does not exist; sometimes to seek protection; sometimes to feel a part of something; sometimes just to feel important or gain respect. The list goes on and isn’t the same for everyone.

Gang signs, clothing, colors, tagging all help to ‘market’ the gang (whether intentional or not). Internally, signs and markings are meant to help them identify other gang members, especially those outside of their local area. But those markings can be used for establishing territory or getting a certain message out. Many gangs use the Internet now to recruit or coordinate efforts.

Not all gangs are violent, though violence often creeps in regardless. Some gangs are tied to prisons, others to race or locale. Many believe in blood-in/ blood-out (you must kill or hurt someone badly to join and you will be hurt badly or killed if you try to leave), though not all current gangs follow that philosophy anymore.

Signs, designs, and marking will change if the gang feels that the police or other groups know of them or are targeting them.

The problem is systematic of our culture and society. Poverty, hoplessness, and dysfunctional families are probably the greatest enabler of the gangs, but they are far from the only contributors.

Addressing the clothing has some impact, but by itself, does virtually nothing. Get involved in the lives of your kids and the kids in your neighborhood. Be a good role model and be there when they need someone to talk to. Be someone they know will LISTEN to them if something is wrong or they feel confused. Because if you aren’t, someone else will. And there is a chance that someone won’t have the same good intentions.

Gangs are just ONE of many concerns you should be aware of.

Change can happen in any neighborhood if the people who live there truly want to see change happen and give the time and effort to make it so.

Our society can evolve.