Hyper-criminalization and the normalization of violence was an integral aspect of Robert Weide's formative years growing up in Los Angeles in the 1980s and 1990s, where Sureno, Crip, and Blood gangs maintained a precarious coexistence, often punctuated by racialized gang violence. His insider status informs Divide & Conquer, which considers how the capitalist economy, the race concept, and nationalist ideology have made gang members the instruments of their own oppression, resulting in racialized sectarian conflicts spanning generations between African American and Latino gangs in Los Angeles...

Hyper-criminalization and the normalization of violence was an integral aspect of Robert Weide's formative years growing up in Los Angeles in the 1980s and 1990s, where Sureno, Crip, and Blood gangs maintained a precarious coexistence, often punctuated by racialized gang violence. His insider status informs Divide & Conquer, which considers how the capitalist economy, the race concept, and nationalist ideology have made gang members the instruments of their own oppression, resulting in racialized sectarian conflicts spanning generations between African American and Latino gangs in Los Angeles...