What is a gang?

When people talk about gang violence, they talk about the Bloods and the Crips. They talk about teenagers from ghettos killing each other on the streets with illegal guns. People always mention drugs like cocaine, talk about prostitution and teen pregnancy and drive-by shootings and death. People think about movies like Freedom Writers and Take the Lead. They think of black kids and Mexican kids and all kinds of kids fighting to survive in a world gone to hell, kids struggling to survive the war of the streets.

We had gangs in my school, but that's not how it worked.

None of us came from the ghetto. I doubt anyone owned a real gun - maybe a hunting rifle, but that's it. We didn't kill each other - at least, not outright. There were no drive-by shootings or rapes or kids beating each other up over territory. We had something way, way worse.

Geneva Carson and Lily Whitmoor.