In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

American Literary History 12.1&2 (2000) 158-186



[Access article in PDF]

The Gangbanger Autobiography of Monster Kody (aka Sanyika Shakur) and Warrior Literature

H. David Brumble

Figures

As an undergraduate I took a course devoted to Beowulf. The poem--that tale of honor, courage, and slaughter--made a deep impression on me. But some of my most vivid memories of the course are of the professor. He was a small, tweed-clad man of about 60. His salt-and-pepper hair was close-cropped. He sat at a table alternately reading and interpreting. He was a captivating teacher. The poem was very real to him. I remember that he would sometimes grind his teeth as he read the bloodier passages. His interpretations were vivid. And it seemed clear to me that this small man's heart beat in sympathy with the poem, that his vitals yearned for a more muscular age, that in his eyes Portland was but a poor, soft place in 1965. I wondered at the time if he was aware how casually Beowulf or Achilles would have burned his house, taken his Chevrolet and his daughter, and eaten him for breakfast.

It seems to me that some of the recently published gang autobiographies might have served as a tonic for my professor, because these autobiographies take us into the mind and the territory of tribal warriors who live just down the block. 1 Beowulf and Achilles live at a safe distance in time. Piegan, Crow, Sarsi, and Sioux warriors are closer--but they are bathed in the light of a glorious sunset. Yanomamö poisoned arrows are confined to the jungles of the Orinoco basin. But just take the wrong bus, and you end up in Monster Kody's 'hood--every suburbanite's worst nightmare: alone, after dark, in "the wrong part of town," warrior territory. 2

I am not writing metaphorically. I am convinced that young people in some of our urban subcultures are so alienated from the larger society that they have reinvented tribalism--and the [End Page 158] warrior culture that is often associated with tribalism. 3 Monster Kody's Los Angeles in particular has a long history of racial intolerance and segregation--de jure (which lasted until 1948) and now de facto. And as the Los Angeles economy has become ever more suburbanized and more internationalized, decent jobs are ever more difficult to come by in South Central L.A. Those who do find middle-class employment are likely themselves to flee to the suburbs, usually one of the black suburbs, Inglewood or Carson, say. In the city itself, in the 1980s, when Kody was growing up, black youth unemployment hovered up near 50%--and the dropout rate in inner-city high schools was 30-50% (Davis 304-07).

The result is a degree of alienation that is unusual even by American standards. And so, while the South American Yanomamö and Shuar warrior cultures are close to extinction, warrior culture is thriving at the asphalt center of L.A.--and as of the early 1990s in some 750 other US cities (Klein 91). I think that I can make this point by calling attention to the many features that Kody's autobiography has in common with narratives from warrior cultures. I will be painting here with a broad brush--but I do not mean to imply that warrior cultures are ever and always the same. 4 Still, what follows is, I think, sufficient to suggest that we live considerably closer to a living warrior culture than most had imagined. I think that what follows also provides a useful (if imperfect) lens through which to view other warrior narratives.

Kody certainly thinks that he is a warrior. Writing under the name of Sanyika Shakur in Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member (1994), Kody often refers to himself as a warrior (e.g., 27, 216, 220). After one of his murders, he says, "I felt like a Native American on horseback retreating back to my camp after slaying the enemy&quot...

pdf

Share