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

Abstract

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. 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. Yanomamo 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. 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 . . . young people in some of our urban subcultures are so alienated from the larger society that they have reinvented tribalism—and the warrior culture that is often associated with tribalism.