The peacemaking producer of LA: Negotiating and representing gangs on reality TV

Metcalf, Josephine

Abstract

© Josephine Metcalf and Will Turner and the contributors 2014. Though the Los Angeles (LA) riots of 1992 have been extensively documented by news media, pop culture, and critics alike, the gang truce that succeeded the chaotic aftermath of the uprising has generally received less attention. As city, state, and federal officials scrambled to make sense of the unrest, African American gangs in Watts were quietly celebrating a previously unforeseen truce, which in fact was sanctified the day before the city exploded. Malik Spellman, a gang intervention specialist and high school youth counselor, was heavily involved in that first major armistice in LA. Spellman-who had known Ice-T for some years-approached his friend to be involved. As Ice-T recounts: “Malik came to get me cause he’s like, ‘Man, we need some high profile people, Ice. You know, these kids’ll listen to you. …' So he took me into Watts and I was embraced over there.”1 Watts residents have debated the success of the 1992 truce and Ice-T reflected on the difficulties inherent in such a venture in his collection of essays The Ice Opinion: Who Gives A Fuck?, written in 1994: “People have got to understand that gang warfare is not something that should be treated like some minor problem. It’s gonna take a big truce. It’s gonna take negotiation.”2.

Citation

Metcalf, J. (2016). The peacemaking producer of LA: Negotiating and representing gangs on reality TV. In Rapper, Writer, Pop-Cultural Player: Ice-T and the Politics of Black Cultural Production (201-230). London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315603612-21

• Acceptance Date: Feb 1, 2014
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2016
• Deposit Date: Feb 26, 2020
• Publisher: Routledge
• Pages: 201-230
• Book Title: Rapper, Writer, Pop-Cultural Player: Ice-T and the Politics of Black Cultural Production
• Chapter Number: 9
• ISBN: 9781317071501; 9781472418357
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315603612-21
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/3446162
• Publisher URL: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/mono/10.4324/9781315603612-21/peacemaking-producer-la-negotiating-representing-gangs-reality-tv-josephine-metcalf-turner