Stanley “Tookie” Williams, Gangbanger Autobiography, and Warrior Tribes

Abstract

There are three kinds of gangbanger autobiography: those told from inside the life, those told from outside the life, and those told by those who are outside the life but whose sense of self is still inextricably connected with gangbanger deeds and the respect/status won by those deeds. Stanley “Tookie” Williams's autobiographical writing provides a telling example of the third kind. To understand Williams's autobiographical writings we need to look at them in relation to the whole range of gangbanger autobiography – and the wide range of autobiographies that come to us from tribal warrior cultures.