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• "Stacy Peralta Dresses Up to Interview L.A. Gang Members in 'Made in America'"
• Crips and Bloods: Made in America
• Mr. Peralta's bio

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Award-winning director explains why the situation in South L.A. has been overlooked. (1:44)
 

Full interview. (22:08)
 

Tavis: "Crips and Bloods: Made in America," tells the story of the 40-year battle between two of this country's most notorious street gangs and their impact on life here in L.A. This acclaimed documentary made its debut last January at the Sundance Film Festival and is narrated by Oscar-winning actor Forest Whitaker.

For more on this compelling movie and the issue of gangs I'm pleased to be joined by the film's producer, NBA all-star and current L.A. Clipper B-Diddy, Baron Davis, plus the director of "Crips and Bloods," filmmaker Stacy Peralta. And this last guy - yeah, always nice to see him - the mayor of the City of Angels, Antonio Villaraigosa.

Before we get into this conversation, here now a scene from "Crips and Bloods."

[Clip]

Tavis: Baron, let me start with you and let me start by saying congratulations on a fine piece of work.

Baron Davis: Thank you.

Tavis: This is a tough issue to try to tackle, and certainly in a set time frame. It's not like you're doing a whole series here, it's a lot to squeeze in, in a short period of time.

I want to start by asking you, though, why you wanted to do this, and put another way, what you thought you could tell about this story of Crip against Blood that we know so much about in this city.

Davis: Well, first and foremost the reason why I wanted to tell the story was because this is the environment that I was raised in. This is the place that I made it out of. And to have an opportunity to have a voice on a national level and a voice that people respect, I wanted to basically re-pose the question of what does it take to help our kids in the inner city, because like on the tape he says his destiny chose him.

But we have to get these kids to choose their destiny, so my whole purpose for doing this was to be able to reach back in the community and inspire kids to want to dream and make it and let them see other success stories.

Tavis: The easy answer, before I even ask the question, is that basketball is what allowed you to get out. Beyond basketball, what aids and abets Baron Davis getting out?

Davis: Well, I think being able to make tough decisions and have a great support team around you. My grandmother, my sisters, they were always around to supply me with great advice, and also to help me to make the right decisions. I think a lot of times our kids in our communities don't have those decision-makers or those elder statesmen who can they can basically rely on to guide them through life and share in different experiences.

I was fortunate enough to have that in my home as well as to be able to seek that when I went out about in the streets and not get tied up into any mayhem.

Tavis: Stacy, as a director - I want to go inside now - as a director, how do you go about telling this story in a way that is compelling and yet not a story that we have seen before, because we've seen so many depictions of the Crip versus Blood fight.

As a director, how do you tell the story uniquely different and in a compelling sort of way?

Stacy Peralta: Well, we tried to balance it between the first person narrative from the gang members themselves, and we tried to also balance by showing a perspective of history. Because as the more we got into the story on trying to tell the story of how these young men ended up where they are today, you have to understand the history and so many of the conditions that led up to this that very few Los Angelinos understand.

I can't tell you how many people in Los Angeles that I talked to about this film had no idea that there were real estate covenants preventing Black people from moving out of South Central Los Angeles, all the way up to almost the early '60s. So they were forced to stay in neighborhoods that were beyond their economics. If you could afford to move out, you were not allowed to move out.

And so these are small little things, but if you take them in the aggregate and you look at all of them, they add up to something and there's constant conditions put in place. And so we have a situation now in America where American teenagers are killing one another, and that, to me, just does not seem right. And the reason I wanted to make the film is because I feel that if it was affluent White teenagers in Beverly Hills who were arming themselves with AK-47s and killing affluent White kids in Brentwood, then we would have an issue on the table and our government would step in and say, hey, this cannot happen.

But yet it happens for four decades in South L.A. and we still have it and it continues on and on.

Tavis: I don't ask this question, Stacy, out of any naiveté, but you're right about the fact that were these White kids something would have happened on this long before now, this 40-year saga that is still taking place as we speak.

I guess the question is beyond airing it on PBS, which means a whole bunch of White people get a chance to see it - I do this every night, I know these things - so a whole bunch of White folk going to see this because it's on PBS.

Beyond them seeing it, how do you get traction on an issue like this, because at the end of the day, let's be frank, these aren't White kids.

Peralta: Well, the whole purpose of making the film was trying to search for a human face. That's the whole purpose of this, because the fact of the matter is our evening news and our newspapers help encourage us to look at these young Black men and these young Latino men as monsters, and we are encouraged to demonize them.

They're scary-looking, they have guns, they look strong, they've got tattoos. But these guys are actually human beings that have gone wrong. They're not sufficiently educated. Most of them, we talk about the broken home? These kids are born into non-homes. Most of the young men I met were born to unwed teenage mothers who were born to unwed teenage mothers. There's no home in the picture at all.

You combine that with the fact that there's an unsafe street where they can't walk safely, there's no prospect of jobs, the education system is failing them. They have so many pillars at a young age where they're running up against and so we have a situation that needs fixing.

But we on the outside must look at it differently, and if we don't look at it differently I don't think that a gentleman like him will ever have the power he needs and the resources to fix it because we as the country have to look at it differently.

Tavis: That's a great segue to the mayor; I will take that in 30 seconds, after I go back to Baron first. Then I'll come to the mayor here.

As I'm sitting here listening to Stacy, Baron, I'm thinking of what Stacy suggested a moment ago, which is how we get people to connect to the humanity of the characters we see in this film. I've always believed, and I think we all have to believe that the story of America is if you can get Americans to connect to the humanity of other Americans then you're off and running here.

The question is whether or not Americans en masse can connect to the humanity in their brothers in this movie. They can connect to your humanity because you're a successful basketball player. They pay tons of money to come see you every night. They can connect to my humanity. I'm non-threatening, I'm on TV, talking to you; radio, talking to you. You don't have to confront me. They can connect to the humanity of Barack Obama. We all celebrate that. A whole bunch of White people voted for this brother to become president.

Can they, can Americans, that is, connect to the humanity in these characters, these persons?

Davis: I think so. I think that what the characters in this movie, who they are are they're people who are looking to help another generation. So when you look at the film, it's more of the quote, unquote, "oh, gee" speaking, and speaking for the last of resources that the kids are getting.

And if we can supply these kids with resources in our communities, then that's going to give them a little bit of power to encourage those kids to go to school and to turn the other cheek and go more so a safe route than a violent route. Because in this film, a lot of the older guys, they say that hey want change and they want to be involved with change and they want to help, and they want to help raise a generation of kids because these are 30, 40-year-old guys and the problem is still perpetuating itself within the younger generation.

So we have to find the human face and we have to look to these people to do it because they've been through it and then they can connect to these kids because they're there with them every day.

Tavis: Mayor, thanks for your patience, Mayor Villaraigosa. We all know in this city, of course, you've just been given by the voters a second term as mayor, so congratulations - second term as mayor of the City of Angels.

Let me take you back, though, four years ago, five years ago, when you were running, when you won for the first term, and I want to go in retrospect because I'm trying to - I want to ask how you wanted us, on what basis you wanted us to hold you accountable as the leader of this city on this particular problem, and whether or not it's even fair, given what we see in this film, to hold you accountable for it.

In your mind, what did accountability look like for you four years ago on this particular issue?

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa: First of all, let me thank Baron and Stacy for putting this film together, this documentary. I think it's an important one that talks not just about two gangs and their history here in Los Angeles; as you know, they're now transnational and certainly across the country.

But they're emblematic of the lack of investment in young people and particularly young people of color who grow in poverty all across the country. That could have easily been (speaks in Spanish) in 18th Street. I grew up here, so I wasn't surprised. I'm not one of those Angelinos who was surprised. In fact, I grew up in a neighborhood not too different from South L.A. on the east side, where we've had our own share of gang violence for generations.

How I should be held accountable on this issue? I say we should all be held accountable, beginning with me. Early on, back to the campaign, really in the first campaign in 2001, I said that a great city is a city where we're growing and prospering together. That we can't leave whole communities behind like we've left South L.A. behind for more than 50 years and expect that you're not going to have many of the problems that you see here in that part of the city.

I think it starts with investing in families. I was listening to those young men talk about their families. I grew up in a home of domestic violence and alcoholism. I saw my mother beat by my father. I know what it is to grow up in a household like that. I was lucky I had a mom. Some of these kids didn't have a mom or a dad or a home, as Stacy said. I think we've got to protect the safety net, do a lot more to protect and preserve families, to invest in prevention and intervention.

We went from $18 million in one of our toughest budget years to $23 million, but still a drop in the bucket when you look at what, for anti-gang services; a drop in the bucket in terms of what we should be spending.

We got together with a lot of the anti-gang folks, including Connie Rice and a whole broad cross-section of folks and said, we've got to do things smarter. We can't just invest in growing our police department, but also prevention, intervention, re-entry, job training programs.

We've developed 12 GRYD zones, gang reduction and youth development zones, in the city where you have four times the gang violence than the rest of the city, and we're focusing prevention, intervention, re-entry and suppression all together.

When you look at gang violence and how I should be evaluated, gang homicides were about - 57 percent of all homicides were gang-related three years ago. Two years ago, that number was 47 percent, and now it's about 41. Gang violence and violence overall is down dramatically in the city. Over a six-year period it's down more than 50 percent. In Watts in the last three and a half years, part one crimes, which are violence crimes primarily, are down more than 50 percent.

And yet tell that to a mother who just lost her child to the random gun and gang violence.

Tavis: And that's where I wanted to go - whether or not with all that you have said and the numbers at the moment that you've quoted pointing in the right direction, whether or not this problem is so big and so out of control now that it's impossible for us to get our arms around it.

Villaraigosa: Yeah.

Tavis: I'm not -

Villaraigosa: It's not.

Tavis: Okay. I'm not a pessimist, but is it that big? Is it that bad?

Villaraigosa: We spend more on prisons than we do on education. When I got elected to the assembly in 1994, we had roughly 72,000 people in prison. We have more than 170,000 people in prison. We're incarcerating more people per capita than at any time in our history. Only as I understand it China, Russia, and South Africa, on a per capita basis, incarcerate more people.

We need to re-look at how we're addressing our penal system. We've got to invest more in kids. We've got to give kids the skills they need to have alternatives; we've got to preserve families. Many of these families, as was mentioned, need support. Education's critical. It just is.

Tavis: I was thinking, Stacy, when the mayor made that powerful point, the numbers notwithstanding moving in the right direction, tell that to a mother who's just lost her baby. Perhaps the most powerful scene - people have to make their own judgments, but perhaps one of the most powerful scenes in the movie - mayor's agreeing already and I ain't got it out yet, so we're on the same page. High five to the mayor. (Laughter)

We agree on the powerful nature of this scene. You know what I'm talking about. Explain it - the scene with the mothers, man.

Peralta: Yeah. Why do we do it?

Tavis: Yeah. I want you to explain for those who didn't see it or may not see it, explain what the scene is and then tell me, as a director, why you did it.

Peralta: I asked Vicky Lindsey, who runs Project Cry No More, who is a mother who lost her child to gang violence and turned her life around by starting a group to help mothers, I said, I'd like to feature about 15 mothers in this film to represent the mass who have lost their children. And we simply put the camera on a track and sat the women down and just said, "Look at the camera for about three minutes, and all I want you to do is think of your child."

And we did that, and a lot of these women just cut loose. We didn't ask them to, but it's a very moving scene and it was a very, very inspiring day to be with these mothers. That these women, who have lived through the death of their children, not through natural death but through murder, can still to this day stand up and go forward in their lives.

And now they're trying to help other mothers. And we felt that we see gang members being killed and dead in the street and pictures and things like that, but we forget that they do leave behind other people. Other people pay a huge price for this, and the mothers and fathers are paying the greatest price of all.

Tavis: You're sitting at a distance from me, Baron, as the audience can see, and yet I could not only see you but I could feel you violently shaking your head when I asked the mayor whether or not this problem was too big for us to get our arms around. So obviously, you have something to say about that particular question.

Davis: Well, I think that like the mayor said, we're all a collective unit and we all have to collectively attack the situation, and not by trying to put our arms around it but try to get into the core and unravel the roots and to pay more attention to the education. Because if you're learning and you have the support of people around you, then that's what's the most important thing to you as a child.

I know that was for me growing up in Los Angeles in even worse conditions than there were. I grew up in the '80s, so it's pretty much the same thing that's going on, and having education, having support, having after school programs keeps the kids active.

Tavis: Let me challenge you on that. If for a lot of these cats involved in this the end game is money - and I don't begrudge them that because we live in a culture now where everything you look at tells you that you are or you are not based upon what you have or what you don't have, so the game is about money. I want money, you want money, we all want money.

If the game is about money, then don't talk to me about education, Baron. Don't tell me that the answer is -

Davis: Well, in order to get money - in order to get money -

Tavis: Don't tell me the answer is educating the kids, don't tell me the answer is (unintelligible) playground on. They want cash and there's cash in the game.

Davis: Yeah, true, but for more kids, the more kids you educate and the more kids that you give an opportunity to go out, the more people go back to their community, like I did, and put resources and begin to implement systems working with the mayor program and with everything that they're doing, to give jobs, to give people an opportunity to have money.

So now you can go work, you can make $9 an hour instead of 15 cents every (unintelligible).

Tavis: And that's where I was going to you, Mayor, what I wanted to get to.

Villaraigosa: One of the most powerful scenes was when the father talked about how his son watched him selling cocaine and realized that's how he got his money, and when he realized that his son knew how he got his money he said, "I've got to change my ways for my son."

And the key to having the skills to get a good job is an education. And also in that movie there were folks who talked about how, particularly in the '70s and early '80s there weren't enough resources for a lot of these kids - the park space, the programs - that there were no alternatives but to be out in the street. So those are all issues. It's not an either-or.

You're right, it is money, but you've got to have skills and education. It's taking care of families, it's giving kids alternatives. It's tough love, really being straight with kids, and when two of us grew up in neighborhoods like that, we turned our life around and recognized that there were other options.

So it's a lot of things but what it's not is a failure to recognize that there's a problem and the lack of resources that's coming from the federal government, from all levels of government, to address this.

Tavis: How do you fight this, though, Mayor, in an economic downturn? And I was obviously - this is what I do, I'm just playing devil's advocate. I believe in education as strongly as anybody on this panel. That's why I sit here today. But once you get an education, we're making the assumption there's a job at the end of that education.

How do you fight this problem in an economic downturn like the one we're in now?

Villaraigosa: It makes it tougher, there's no question about it. I'll tell you something - when you see an unemployment rate that started at 8 percent in October, 10 percent in January, 12 percent today, and in South L.A. probably closer to 20 percent, we're in a crisis and we've got to - that's what the President Obama stimulus package is all about.

But we need beyond that. We need companies to relocate in South L.A. and gives these kids a shot at a good job.

Peralta: One of the problems - it's about perception. In Los Angeles, because we are so segregated, South L.A. is a complete island unto itself and it's bordered by freeways. So those on the outside never have a reason to go in there, and so people pretend as though it doesn't even exist.

In fact, the DP that shot my film bought a plastic map at a gas station of Los Angeles. He opened the map up and the legend was over South L.A. So the map was just assuming well, you're never going to want to go there, so we're going to put the legend right there.

So Los Angelinos have no reason to go there. They hear about it and they think, well, that's their problem. But it's our problem. It's our city, and this is going on for four decades.

Tavis: But Stacy, if for four decades, 40-years, and even now, if that problem stays contained - and I was laughing internally; I used to work for, as Mayor Villaraigosa knows, I worked for our former mayor, Tom Bradley, before I started doing radio and television, so I've dealt with these issues inside of the mayor's office in this city.

And I always laugh because the definition - I should say the parameters of South L.A. have grown over the years. Anywhere something goes wrong, they label South Central. So it grows every year in the city. So it ain't just freeways, it's anything south of Wilshire, these days. But that's an inside L.A. joke, for those watching around the country.

The question is as long as it stays in this area, to your point, on that map, as long as it stays contained, as long as the folk in this city or any other city never have reason to go into that area, how do you get them to be sensitive to what happens inside that area?

Peralta: Is that the way we are supposed to behave as Americans?

Tavis: No, it's not the way we're supposed to, but it's the reality.

Peralta: Well, that's the problem. There again we have to look at these kids - are they American children? Are these kids American children? And I believe they are. They were born on this soil; their parents were born on this soil.

Look, we defeated Nazi Germany and Japan in a single war in less than a decade and we can't solve this in four decades? To me, what it says is that we're valuing children by color, differently. We're rating them differently. And we must take a hard look at the way we perceive this, because that's the only way he's ever going to get the power and Jeff Carr's going to get the power to fix this is we have to change our perception. And they are our fellow Americans.

Tavis: I think Stacy's right. Love means that everybody is worthy - my own definition - everybody's worthy just because. No matter who they are or where they live, they're worthy just because. And if we love these kids, we're going to have to do something about the issues that we are grappling with in this city and indeed, increasingly, as the mayor said, across the country.

Peralta: It's spreading across the country.

Tavis: Yeah. Let me thank Baron Davis from the L.A. Clippers - B. Diddy, the producer of this, Stacy Peralta, the fine director of it, and the mayor, again, for the city of L.A., Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Thanks for all coming on. Good to talk to you.

Villaraigosa: Thank you.

Peralta: Thank you.

Davis: Thanks.

Tavis: Thanks.