“Indians Wear Red”
Colonialism, Resistance, and Aboriginal Street Gangs
Elizabeth Comack
Lawrence Deane
Larry Morrissette
Jim Silver
With the advent of Aboriginal street gangs such as Indian Posse, Manitoba Warriors, and Native Syndicate, Winnipeg garnered a reputation as the “gang capital of Canada.” Yet beyond the stereotypes of outsiders, little is known about these street gangs and the factors and conditions that have produced them. “Indians Wear Red” locates Aboriginal street gangs in the context of the racialized poverty that has become entrenched in the colonized space of Winnipeg’s North End. Drawing upon extensive interviews with Aboriginal street gang members as well as with Aboriginal women and elders, the authors develop an understanding from “inside” the inner city and through the voices of Aboriginal people – especially street gang members themselves.
While economic restructuring and neo-liberal state responses can account for the global proliferation of street gangs, the authors argue that colonialism is a crucial factor in the Canadian context, particularly in western Canadian urban centres. Young Aboriginal people have resisted their social and economic exclusion by acting collectively as “Indians.” But just as colonialism is destructive, so too are street gang activities, including the illegal trade in drugs. Solutions lie not in “quick fixes” or “getting tough on crime” but in decolonization: re-connecting Aboriginal people with their cultures and building communities in which they can safely live and work.
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Elizabeth Comack
Elizabeth Comack is a distinguished professor emerita in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Manitoba. Comack’s work in the sociology of law and feminist criminology has been instrumental in setting the course for Canadian scholarship. She is a member of the Manitoba Research Alliance, a consortium of academics and community partners engaged in research addressing poverty in Indigenous and inner-city communities. Comack is the author or editor of 13 books, including Coming Back to Jail: Women, Trauma, and Criminalization; “Indians Wear Red”: Colonialism, Resistance, and Aboriginal Street Gangs (co-authored with Laurie Deane, Larry Morrissette, and Jim Silver); and Racialized Policing: Aboriginal People’s Encounters with Police.
Lawrence Deane
Lawrence Deane is an associate professor in the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Manitoba, where he teaches in the Inner City Social Work Program. Lawrie has worked in community development for over twenty years, first in India, then in Winnipeg’s inner city, and more recently in China. He is the author of Under One Roof: Community Economic Development and Housing in the Inner City
(Fernwood 2006).
Larry Morrissette
Larry Morrissette is the executive director of Ogijiita Pimatiswin Kinamatwin (OPK), an organization that works with Aboriginal street gang members. He also teaches in the Inner-City Social Work Program at the University of Manitoba and the Department of Urban and Inner-City Studies at the University of Winnipeg.
Jim Silver
Jim Silver is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Winnipeg who has written extensively on poverty and related issues, including public housing and low-income rental housing, community development and education, adult education, and Indigenous street gangs. He is a founding member of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives–Manitoba and played a key role in the establishment of Merchants Corner, a University of Winnipeg off-campus site in Winnipeg’s low-income and racialized North End.
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