Times have Changed

Otter, don't know how old you are but in North Jersey, from Patterson to Newark the ethnic tensions existed into the 1960s. I was a young kid but the reality of street gangs, the Mafia and other sociopathic phenomena was part of growing up in and near NYC. I actually was present at a couple of "rumbles". No guns but a bicycle chain across somebody's face in some ways is worse.
The original West Side Story was a work of genius ..at the time it was composed it was not just entertainment of a world gone by. It was still daily news in the NY Daily News, the Star-Ledger and other media. The world kids are growing up in today there is no chance they know the reality of street gangs unless they are inner city working class. Gangs are so different as well. I worked for a number of years on the Northside in Chicago with gangs (Latin, white and mixed) and had great friends in one of the Southside's premier Chicano gangs at the time (however the Latin Kings extinguished most of the other Latin gangs not long after). That was 40 years ago...today they are sophisticated criminal enterprises. Even then the days of rumbles and switchblades was passe. Are there even any "white" gangs left in the big cities ( though even in Chicago back then there were always whites and/or blacks in Latin gangs and vice versa)? Of course no one in gangs acted like those gay dancers. However the ethnic tensions tensions, the sad stories , loss to families, wives, children, girlfriends ....those were the reality. Today with clubs like MS-13, Crips, Bloods, etc. the promise of death , prison and rarely money is all you can count on. As long as the few wealthy control the economy, the government, our culture ...as long as profit is more important than people, inner city wars as well as European wars will continue.