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White Gangsters in San Andreas


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MODERN (UPDATED) NOTE as per 2020: This guide is rather outdated as many circumstances have changed in real life in the CDCR prison system, and was a forewarning I do refer broadly to the general conditions of the gang-based political nature inside Californian prisons. These prisons are dominated by racial politics, so in this guide "whites," "blacks," and beyond are used to describe racial groupings. Keep in mind this is of course a very general guide, but this is quite literally how these gangs are structured in real life. I also moved the RP warning and rewrote some of it to better describe IFM's stance on these kinds of groups.

 

Please note: I get fucking paranoid about registering to sketchy forums to find some of this info so you don't have to!!

 

 

FOREWARNING:

 

Before anything else, understand one thing - we are portraying white gangmembers, some of which are white supremacists. White gangs in California inherently have a racial aspect due to the nature of historical prison segregation. Before you approach this brand of roleplay, I HIGHLY recommend you leave any actual real life biases at the door, otherwise you will mix IC and OOC and not create a realistic character. Just as an actor portrays a character in a film, we are portraying a character in the context of a videogame. If this sort of thing is uncomfortable, you obviously can entirely avoid this brand of roleplay, but we are trying to mimic a criminal underworld which exists in the penal system of the United States and in the streets of California. "Peckerwood" gangs and skinhead gangs inherently have a very dangerous racial element to them due to the historical context of the locations they spawned in, and on a psychological basis, they use this racial element as a recruitment tool. This means that these characters can be racist and hold extremist fringe views. IF YOU HOLD THESE VIEWS IN REAL LIFE, DO NOT USE THIS AS A PLATFORM TO LIVE OUT YOUR POWER FANTASY. Not only is it inaccurate, you're probably mentally unhealthy, and mixing IC and OOC. There's little point to me listing the numerous reasons that Neo-Nazism or far-right ideologies are bad, if you're a believer in one of those ideologies then you shouldn't be present at this diverse community in the first place.

 

At the end of the day, this is a videogame and a hobby - while the nuances of white gangs is exceedingly interesting due to their use of insane outdated racial ideology as a recruitment tool, it is NOT something that should be praised, and you can easily compare these messages to the same sort of recruitment strategies used by groups like ISIS. Far-right terrorism is described by the FBI as one of the most significant domestic terror threats in the United States for GOOD reason. Just like you would portray a ruthless orc in a game of DND, a peckerwood gang member is a VILLAIN.

 

Anyone high-up in this line of roleplay are here to play a game. We don’t condone racism. Emphatically, Neo-Nazism is wrong, it is a detestable ideology and there is no place for it in the modern era, and white supremacism is not the focus of this roleplay.

 

AND FINALLY, DON'T BE THAT IDIOT REPLYING "KEEP IT WHITE" or "THAT'S WHITE" TO A FACTION THREAD!!! You're literally spouting racist nonsense on an OOC basis because of characters interacting. You're mixing IC and OOC.

 

San Andreas, based off of California, is on an in-character basis home to one of the most diverse communities in the United States. While basing our community's efforts on portraying Los Santos as Los Angeles, there's many open opportunities for gang roleplay. However, one part about all California gangs one person should understand is that many of these gangs are part of a large hierarchy that has tentacles stretching down from the highest security prisons in the state. Organizations like the Aryan Brotherhood, Nuestra Familia, Mexican Mafia, and Black Guerrilla Family all have varying degrees of control over street gangs within the state of California. These structures are insidious and organized. Therefore, it is sensible to represent this on an IC basis in our server. This guide is dedicated specifically to white gangsters, so we'll only touch on that branch.

 

WHITE GANGMEMBERS IN CALIFORNIA

 

White gang-members throughout California can be classified into two branches - peckerwoods and skinheads. Often times there's no distinction, but many white gang-members are not white power skinheads, and many white power skinheads would consider being called a "peckerwood" an insult.  Peckerwood is an archaic slur from the South for white-trash poor whites. It has survived to the modern day in referring to any unaffiliated prisoner within some penal systems in the USA, and outlaw biker organizations also use it.

 

Here's a great writeup from Wikipedia about white gangs within California:

 

Quote

 

The peckerwood subculture has established street gangs that mix elements from white power skinhead culture and conventional street gang activity, such as illegal drugs. These "Peckerwood" street gangs generally form in lower-income white neighborhoods. These gangs are the manifestation of a modern "white power" subculture that combines the elements of California Latino culture, extreme sports and cannabis subculture.[6][21] Stylistically these gangs combine elements of Latino gang culture (Pendleton flannel and baggy pants) and skinhead culture (Doc Marten boots, bomber jackets, and shaved heads).[22] As well, Peckerwood gang members identify with the color white and are known for wearing white caps and handkerchiefs.[23] The most common gang sign for Peckerwoods is forming the thumb, index finger and middle finger of the right hand to form the letter "P," and the four fingers of the left to form the letter "W".[24] Many of these Peckerwood gangs in California are subservient to the authority of Nazi Lowriders, which includes the punk gangs Vicious Circle and La Mirada Punks, as well as Insane White Boys, Independent Skins, Orange County Skins, and a rigid alliance with Southern California Skinhead Alliance (SoCal Skins).[25] Leading the alliance with Nazi Lowriders, the Peckerwood gang Public Enemy No. 1 (PEN1) was established in Long Beach, California during the late 80's, and known for recruiting middle-class "latchkey kids" within the Southern California punk scene. PEN1 also known by its derivative Peni Death Squad, gained establishment as a Peckerwood gang in the late 90s in Orange County, being recruited by the Nazi Lowriders. Members of PEN1 also established a regional chapter of the straight edge street gang FSU (Fuck Shit Ups) in Huntington Beach as well.[22][25][26][27] In 1993, the gang Insane White Boys (IWB) was incepted in Orange County and came into prominence being recruited by the Nazi Lowriders as well.[22][27] The smaller gangs such as Public Enemy No. 1 and Insane White Boys are considered "kids" within the Peckerwood gang world, where as Nazi Lowrider groups are led by "seniors" who induct "kids" into membership. A kid can become a "junior", and a junior can become a senior if elected by three other seniors.[25] Within the U.S. court system, membership within a Peckerwood group has not always been accepted as indicating the existence of a larger Peckerwood gang. Peckerwood groups tend to lack a constitution, and to be more loosely organized than formal gangs. The Smalltown Peckerwoods, a gang of about a hundred members on the U.S. West Coast, was not ruled to be part of a larger Peckerwood organization in the 2008 People v. Williams case, as the main commonalities were ideology and the name, rather than organizational.[28][29] Peckerwood Motorcycle Club is also the name of a Santee, California-based outlaw motorcycle club formed in 1987. According to local police, the club's patches and clothing include Nazi imagery, and members have been associated with hate-crimes, although the club has denied that it is racist.[30]

 

As written, there is a clear hierarchical structure within the Californian system. There are independent, unaffiliated "peckerwood" gangs which do their own thing, and then there's specific groups attached to a statewide hierarchy.

Aryan Brotherhood

|

Nazi Low Riders

PENI

|

Affiliate Peckerwood Gangs (not all)

 

Who's at the top of this hierarchy?

 

The Aryan Brotherhood, a prison gang dominant inside of California's Department of Corrections and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. I'm not going to go into much detail about who or what they are, but it is roughly equivalent to the Mexican Mafia or Nuestra Familia in terms of structural power. Aryan Brotherhood members are inducted after a long-term prison sentence. Generally, their members are one of two things or a combination of the two things - hyperintelligence and ruthlessness. You can be very intelligent and make it to the top by ordering other people to do your dirty work and outsmarting competitors, or you can just kill your competitors. Or you can do both. That's how people make their bones and get into the Aryan Brotherhood. They run everything in prison, and therefore most white gangs or motorcycle clubs pay some form of taxes. Ironically, one can't really consider the Aryan Brotherhood to be a skinhead gang.

 

One caveat - not all peckerwood gangs abide to the Aryan Brotherhood. Some peckerwoods hate skinheads as well. Some peckerwoods are more closely aligned with Northern Mexicans and ally with them. A well known Louis Theroux documentary has a white Norteno part of the Northern Structure. Even in the Nazi Low Riders, there was a potential for a war with the AB and a faction of the NLR still dislikes the Aryan Brotherhood. This guide won't cover these special cases.

 

WHITE GANGMEMBERS - RACISM and MISCONCEPTIONS

 

Peckerwoods do not strictly follow any ideology and can be as insular or composed as they choose to be. Peckerwood gangs exist with black membership, some peckerwoods align themselves with many races. The only place race matters within the context of peckerwood gangs are self-avowed skinhead groups and prison.

 

White gangs are incredibly sophisticated but also have ample room for meth-smoking idiots who have had their brains destroyed by years of drug use. You could be a ruthless robber, a drug pusher, or a white-collar criminal with card skimmers. There's lots of open opportunities. And one key thing that separates white gangs from other gangs is their lack of territory. They are very mobile.

 

We'll touch on skinhead gangs and their racism.

 

Real life skinheads are a flurry of ideologies. The main focus of this guide, however, is criminal skinheads. Criminal skinheads are a distinct group separate from the more commonly associated political ideologues, the legitimate neo-National Socialists/fascists. Political skinheads are not gang-members and are motivated by racial hatred. They are the domestic terrorist types, the guys who post on Stormfront, members of the KKK or NSM. They aren't into crime or drug dealing. If you're looking to roleplay a political skinhead, white gangs are a horrible and inaccurate place to do it, and by extension it's against server rules. If your intent is to roleplay a meth-head criminal gang-member, white gangs are a cool place to develop a character.

 

Criminal skinheads have an attachment of hate, but most criminal skinhead gangs use race as a tool for recruitment or motivation. The context of white gangs within places like CA should be looked at within history - after the desegregation of prisons in CA, gangs of men coalesced into large racial groups, which in turn developed into prison gangs, which in turn brought street gangs up after many members left to the outside. Skinhead gangs established themselves in mainly heterogenous "transitional" areas. You can't find skinheads in Compton or Inglewood. You can find them in areas with a mixed demographic. The reason for this is simple - skinhead gangs, and many peckerwood gangs, recruit "latchkey" kids who are neglected by their parents or groom them for membership in the gang through parties and personal relationships. Gang recruiters are predatory and seek mainly the most vulnerable. Criminal skinheads are not inherently racist by themselves - although they use racist symbols, many members of skinhead gangs are don't necessarily care much about ideology. Keep in mind, it's California - incredibly racially diverse, regardless of the fact that there's a large white demographic in some places. The truly ideological skinheads that are part of skinhead gangs have been documented to connect with groups like the KKK, but this is a tiny minority and really only exists within a vacuum. Racism does exist within skinhead gangs for certain, but that racism is not fostered among the "latchkey" recruits until prison. Most skinheads don't care about racism outside of prison - the main drive for them is money.

 

Gangster skinheads have been documented to have Latina girlfriends, black "business" associates, and beyond. Money is the ultimate motivator. If you're not making much money as a low-level peckerwood dealer in a small gang of young dudes, you might be enticed while in county jail to do work for a skinhead gang. If you do work, you advance up the ladder and receive more money. As you go deeper, you develop a potential addiction to drugs. As you develop addictions to drugs, you do more crime to fuel your addiction. The crimes you're used to doing don't fetch enough money, so you do more work - the work becomes violent, things like robberies and home invasions. Soon enough you're in prison. There, the ideology is fostered - you are cordoned off into your own race by the rules of higher-ups, and you're with people from your county and locality. You make connections. When you're back out, you're doing drugs again - but the connections come in handy. The connections ask you to kill people, injure them. At that point, you're invited in. And things continue to sink. You will most likely end up dead or in prison for life, or, rarely, make enough money and have enough respect that you can escape the lifestyle through permissions of your higher-ups, albeit knowing they can call upon you at any time. Gangs are blood-in, blood-out, but people do retire.

 

Gang life is not glamorous. 

 

PRISON

 

A person who has been in county jail will go through their court case and ultimately be found innocent or guilty. Most of the time, you will be guilty - we don't have the luxury of portraying a county jail, so assume that your character has spent several months behind bars in county jail and received a basic primer about how San Andreas prisons work.

 

Prison in California, and by extension San Andreas, is divided by race. As mentioned previously, desegregation led to self segregation. Within the prison system, the hierarchy is most clear. It's where the racial politics are at their height. It's where racist ideologies are fostered. But money is still the same goal. Selling drugs in prison brings a massive profit, but you can't sell drugs without consent. And as a white prisoner, you must obey the rules set by shotcallers - members of the Nazi Low Riders and PENI. Gang modules separate individuals based on membership, and membership is ultimately race-based, but most prisons are so overcrowded that many races are together in one pod. 

 

When you first arrive to prison, you are separated based on risk and segregated based on sentence - levels advancing on a numerical basis separate inmates throughout the system. Level 1 and 2 yards are dorms due to overcrowding, and this is where low-level offenders or gang-member affiliates end up here. Level 3 yards are where intermediate offenders are placed with a cellmate in a cell. This is where inducted gang-members might end up on basic offenses or felonies. Level 4 is the strict "mainline" for murderers and heavy hitters. Prison politics are most clear here. Outside of this, "non-programming" yards exist for people who want to avoid gangs, of which you may consider Protective Custody such a case - that's where former COs, police officers, snitches, and sex offenders go. Gang dropouts also go there. PC also has gangs of its own. Then there's the SHU and ADSEG - the former is for permanent segregations, and that is no longer based on gang membership. Adseg is based on disciplinary actions. If you commit a violation of prison rules, you're sent to adseg after a rudimentary trial with the COs.

 

Shotcallers receive people coming from reception who have been placed within one of those levels based on their risk. They receive them by demanding their "paperwork" - a 128G is a form given to all inmates after they've been cleared from reception. The form, through the numerical classification system, indicates if the inmate is a sex offender or informant. All new arrivals must demonstrate they're neither of these by showing their form to the relevant keyholder for their county. At this point, they're given a rundown of the rules - everything is divided on race.

 

The basics are this:

 

Whites and Southern Mexicans are allies, their enemies are North Mexicans and Blacks. Neutrality is generally held with people in "other" races. You cannot affiliate, associate, or hang out with people who are from the "enemy" section, or even the neutral section. You must program with the whites. You cannot disobey orders given by your county car. Everything is political and must go through a shotcaller or keyholder. You need a greenlight prior to attacking someone, going after a debt, or sorting out racial issues. More often than not, politics is peaceful before becoming a war. Wars are fought with shanks and fists. But negotiations between racial representatives is almost always attempted first.

 

Juveniles are inherently separated within their own facilities.

 

PENI has been documented to run mainline prison yards in level 2, 3, and 4 facilities. Up until recently, this was always the case due to the fact that if you were validated as an NLR or AB member, you were in segregation. Due to a court case which judged segregation based on gang affiliation to be unconstitutional in California, Nazi Low Riders are now running a select few level 4 yards, although the majority are being put on isolated “special” yards. Even some AB members have returned to the mainline as a result, but the majority are still segregated due to crimes committed in prison.

 

ROLEPLAYING A WHITE GANGMEMBER ACCURATELY

 

 

Everything that you should know contextually has been laid out to some degree already. If it applies to California, it also applies, to some degree, to this brand of roleplay. Obviously we can't portray everything accurately. But we should aim to portray most of it.

 

If you're aiming to join a white gang, your best bet is to roleplay a local teenager or other white peckerwood. Locality is a key part of prison politics - almost all internal prison politics are based on an individual's home county. When you enter prison, you are subjugated to a "county car" which is a large body of people from your neighborhood and area. If you want to join Vespucci Skinheads, for instance, you shouldn't roleplay a guy from Paleto Bay. You'd be a Paleto Bay peckerwood, and you would associate with people from around there.

 

Be warned - if you approach a gang and roleplay someone from another location other than their own personal location with a clear intent to join, you will probably be taken advantage of. In prison, you should try to roleplay being from somewhere with an active gang population so you're able to clique up in the county car, otherwise you'll be the sole Blaine County guy there.

 

Your character shouldn't be from somewhere outside of San Andreas unless they moved as a child. You also wouldn't be sent to a San Andreas prison unless you were charged in the State of San Andreas. Some federal prisons turn felons over to state systems to serve the rest of their sentence if they have state charges, but you should avoid roleplaying this due to the complicated nature of federal prison, and your character would likely be in segregation.

 

Female membership in gangs is nonexistent, as they cannot be inducted, but they can be given power based on their significant other's status within the gang. Female gangmembers often are the conduits for drug smuggling, money transfers, and other assorted crimes. Powerful female associates do exist, but their power comes solely from someone they're with.

 

Drug use is ubiquitous in white gangs. If you're not using a drug, you're supplying it or rehabbing off of it - drugs are used prior to hits, attacks, robberies, and all assortments of things. Some stories have shown that many gangmembers are completely trashed on drugs outside of prison and very intelligent and squared away inside of prison. Meth is the drug of choice for whites.

 

I highly recommend you roleplay a young latchkey kid if your intent is to join on the outside, no younger than 15. Don't roleplay being older than the age of 40 unless your character has miles of development. If you're a random 40 year old trying to join a white gang, you should've already been in one or your character is a huge fuck-up and nobody will associate with you. As I said, people in this life have three routes officially, with a "special" one for dropouts. You can die, end up in prison for life, or VERY rarely retire.

 

If you're just getting into prison, there's more room to roleplay an unaffiliated peckerwood already involved in criminal affairs. If you want to jump in quick, this is a good route. Some people don't get involved in hardcore crime until prison.

 

 

CREDITS

 

The inspiration for this guide is from a multitude of guides from other communities, most notably written by Pie and Warren Borbeck.

 

Not everything that could be included is definitely included in this guide, but I will add on numerous other things as time goes on. Mainly, I was tired of people copying things from other communities, and wanted to see something written in-house used as a guideline. This is a good baseline for roleplay. If you're looking for information, I highly suggest looking for interviews of prisoners on YouTube. The CDCR has produced a number of videos. If you’re not familiar with the California prison system, ensure you read more about it.

 

Let me know if there's any errors or typos, I wrote this pretty quickly.

Edited by Bospy
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