*The Chinese are the smallest group (in number, lol) and stay, almost to the one, within their racial group. They murder, rob, extort, gamble, pander, prostitute, sell drugs, etc., within their own community, venturing into other Oriental groups occasionally.
The other Oriental groups are even smaller but exist mostly in the 'burbs.
*The African-American gangs are shrinking, as the African-American population shrinks. Before WWII the city has about 3 black families. After WWII the 5000 African-American families brought in to work the Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard stayed and flourished until 18% of the city was African-American (1979).
Said population is now down below 8%. Those original families have gotten old and their homes are being sold by their kids. Those kids can't afford to stay in the city, so they sell and move on, move out. The gang numbers have shrunk too, but sometimes the Oakland (over 50% African-American) gangs visit the city and all heck breaks loose.
*The Hispanic gangs have increased in number and ethnic diversity. We used to have mainly Mexican gangs...no more. Lots of other Latino gangs have appeared. The notorious M13(?) has even crawled out from under its L.A. rock and moved north (probably to be closer to their friends in San Quentin, which, by the way, is in loverly, Sierra Club home, fancy-schmancy Marin Country. Harhar, Beamer Country.)
It's all about drugs, but also, in a minor way, about extortion, prostitution, pimping, robbery, burglary and just plain angry, poor, mean, stupid, fatherless, dyfunctional, uneducated, untrained, hopeless young men....and the equally (Repeat adjectives.) women in their lives.
Please, Libertarians, spare me the standard lecture rant about how legalizing drugs will make the drug problemo disappear. That happens only in NeverNeverLand, over the rainbow in dreamland.
There are only 750,000 people in the city; it's a small city and the numbers of gang members is really small compared to, say, Los Angeles.
But, since all the gang members are minorities, there is a HUGE effort to get this problem off the front pages. It's downright embarrassing to the minority advocates. After two generations of liberal, money-solves-everything-strategy, gang membership, percentage-wise, is the same.
Imagine that. Thugs still insist on being thugs. Broken homes, fatherless young men, drugs, single motherhood by minor-age teens, prostitution, promiscuity, HIV/AIDS, sky-high drop-out rate....JUST like it was 20, 40, 60, etc., years ago among some people.
Whites, er, I mean, non-minorities, simply aren't appearing in gangs. They aren't ALL rich or middle class. We even have poor, struggling, blue-collar, entry-level education whites, er, I mean, non-minorities, in the city who DON'T become gang members, drug addicts, prostitutes, pimps, single mothers, HIV/AIDS infected and/or high school drop-outs.
Can you IMAGINE!?!?
If you want to see the down and out drunks and drug addicts in this, you need only look on the street. They are almost all white, er, I mean non-minority. The homeless shelters are comprised of and run by minorites. There are very, very few women and children there. THEY get first dibs at real housing (as they should). White, er, I mean non-minority men are simply not welcome in the homeless shelters. Yes, I have seen it with my work with St. Vincent de Paul, which runs all but one of the shelters. There ARE pockets of minority drunks/addicts but that is only because they refuse to sober up/get off drugs even for the time it would take to get into a shelter, where they can then take drugs and get drunk. [Needless to say, I stopped working for St. Vincent de Paul because there was total denial about what was CLEARLY obvious racism in the shelters. One only had to open one's eyes to see who was IN the shelters and who was NOT. Sad.]
Now why, oh why, is this racial/ethnic figure so skewed? It has the non-profits, minority advocates and such, in a real tizzy.
Free, unlimited housing, education, welfare, scholarships, grants, counseling, detox, rehab, child care, before/after-school programs, weekend camps, summer schools/camps have been available to ALL minorities for decades, but things simply won't change!!! Zillions and zillions of donated and tax dollars have been spent on these problem folks, with bond after bond after bond being proposed, voted on and spent on said problems....but what to do, oh, what to do? The problems just won't go away.
Obviously it's racism on the part of the whites, er, I mean, non-minorites, and they are evil, mean-spirited, right-wing-fanatic-GOP-Bush-Halliburton-lovers and racist, but HOW to solve it? It just won't go away.
Thank you for the graphic, Fintan. 