Blame the Ladder?: A Response to "The Crooked Ladder"

In The Crooked Ladder, Michael Gladwell's article in last month's issue of The New Yorker, Gladwell explains the injustices done to modern African Americans as one of their ladders of upward mobility has been kick out from under them: crime.

Gladwell cites Francis Ianni's 1974 book A Family Business: Kinship and Social Control in Organized Crime, and uses the book's crime family as an example of how some later generations of Italian Americans became "white" by using organized crime as a ladder to the middle and upper classes(Ianni changed the name of the names in his book to protect identities). He also claims that today, because of the intense police crackdowns on narcotics, that African Americans are denied the same advantage.

Gladwell also uses Alice Hoffman's  On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City to illustrate how life is currently for African American criminals who try to use crime as an elevator for upward mobility. Hoffman, who lived among the subjects of her book for six years, paints a picture of life in a low income neighborhood in Philadelphia.

I understand the message that Gladwell is trying to get across in his article: why should one ethnic group be able to climb out of poverty through crime, and why should another be condemned for it? In comparing the Mafia with modern black gangs, Gladwell is making glaring generalizations. Besides the historical differences between the two groups that Gladwell mentions in his article, there are several major factors that divide the two criminal organizations:

1.) Violence

One of the major differences between the Mafia and the African American gangs that operate today is violence.

This past month in New Orleans there was a shooting in which two gunmen opened fire into a crowd of mostly women and children in the lower 9th Ward. The drug dealer, who police believed was the target, was killed along with a sixteen year old girl. Five other bystanders were wounded, including  a 4 year old who is now blind, and his two year old brother who has brain damage thanks to a shot in the head.

Also this month a trial started in which Dedmond "Little D" Sandifer , a member of the New Orleans street gang 110ers, was accused of a quadruple shooting. Sandifer later returned to the scene of the crime where he took photos of himself brandishing a revolver and posing with gang signs. Sandifer also uploaded the pictures to Instagram.

During the writing of this response, a news story broke that eleven people were shot overnight in Chicago. The week before, seven people were murdered in Chicago, and 29 were wounded.

The drive by gang shootings that plague Chicago, New Orleans, and several other cities in America, are very reminiscent of Prohibition-era Chicago; where a war between Al Capone and the alliance of Mafia leader Giuseppe Aiello and North Side gang leader George "Bugs" Moran turned the streets of Chicago into battlefields.

But as violent as Chicago was during the Prohibition-era, there were less murders than there are today (1).

As well as the body count being less, it also seems that most assassination attempts were more targeted, with less innocent people being shot in the crossfire. Of course, innocent people were injured and killed. In one particular assassination attempt on Capone, an innocent family was shot. After Capone escaped unscathed from the assassination attempt, he ran over to the Freeman family car, and discovered that Mrs. Freeman had been shot. Capone insisted that he pay for the family's medical bills (2).

Even the 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre, one of the largest and brutal gang shootings in the history of the United States, no innocent civilian was killed. Granted, not everyone who was gunned down in the Chicago warehouse that day was a gangster, but they knew they were taking part in a criminal enterprise.

I'm not trying to say that the Mafia has never killed an innocent person. It has. The Mafia just realizes that when innocent people die, it attracts attention. Both from the cops and the public. And it's the public who is going to be sitting on the jury.


2.) Organization

During the closing days of prohibition, organized crime was re-organized. To avoid the violent prohibition-era clashes in the future, the Mafia in New York organized "families", carved up territories, and formed a national commission. And for the most part it worked. The majority of Mafia violence after prohibition has been internal, within the Family(3). Rather than two families going to war with each other. 

For the most part, the Mafia commission avoided bloodshed and brought out the democratic side of organized crime. One example is with the New Orleans Mafia. In 1947,  New Orleans mob boss "Silver Dollar" Sam Carolla was deported back to Italy. Instead of passing on his title to his son, Anthony Carolla, he named up and coming mobster Carlos Marcello as his successor. Carolla thought he was entitled to a larger share of the New Orleans Mafia, and also he should be named Marcello's successor. One would expect the passed over mobster to assassinate Marcello and take over the New Orleans rackets as his birthright. But that didn't happen. Carolla took the issue to the commission in New York. The mobsters met and came to an agreement. The issue obviously being resolved at another venue: Marcello, Carolla, New Orleans underboss Pete Marcello, New Orleans Capo Frank Gagliano, along with Tampa Mafia boss Santo Trifficante, Jr., and other New York mobsters met for a late lunch at La Stella restaurant. All of the men there were arrested for associating with one another, and were soon released on bail. The meeting has been dubbed "Little Appalachian."(4)

But that is just one major example of how the ruling body of the Mafia works.

At this point in time the Mafia should even be considered more of an institution. There are clear hierarchies and lines of succession within the Mafia. When a boss or major figure dies, someone moves up.

That is what some modern African American gangs lack: organization. Some street gangs have a limited organizational structure and fade in and out of existence depending on membership (5).

Other, multi-generational, African American organized crime groups have imitated some of the same organizational techniques that has made the Mafia successful. The Bloods and the Crips are divided into "sets", and each is run independently from one another. While this can extend membership, the problem is that it isn't uncommon for these sets to rival one another, leading to violence(6). Fighting over territory or more often over a perceived slight, the Bloods and the Crips lack the tight organizational structure the Mafia has(7).

In Chicago, a more developed organizational structure has taken place. Two coalitions of street gangs have formed alliances against one another. Mostly African American and Latino gangs make up both the Folk Nation and the People Nation. Because of this coalition alliance, this make the membership structure for these two organizations far more complicated.

A great example of this structure can be found in The Street Gang Identification Manual, which categorizes a four-way breakdown of Chicago gang membership:

"This member is from the Disciples street gang.
1) Immediately he or she is listed under the Folks nation.
2) The next heading would be under the generic designation of Disciples.
3) The faction would now have to be listed, for this example I will make it Spanish Gangster Disciples.
4) Finally, the sub faction would have to be addressed (the exact location). We will make this person a member from the sub faction located at 88th and Houston streets, an area that is known on the street as the “danger zone”."(8)

While this is somewhat reminiscent of the Mafia Commission, the present gang violence in Chicago may suggest these alliances may be more geared towards conflict rather than diplomacy.


3.) Opportunity 

If there is one advantage that the Mafia had over modern gangs, it was alcohol prohibition. The prohibition on alcohol changed the Mafia from the street gangs that it once was to the highly organized criminal syndicate that it developed into. While there were African American organized crime groups during the Roaring Twenties, they were largely subservient to their European counterparts (I wrote a film theory paper on colonialism in The Cotton Club (1984), which touches on this).  The current prohibition of narcotics, though even more profitable than the prohibition on alcohol, is not nearly as tolerated by the public or the government. 

The Mafia also had the luxury of its existence being denied by the Federal Government until 1957 (9).

This is the main point in which Gladwell's article touches on. Since Italian organized criminals were able to climb the latter of upward mobility through alcohol prohibition, Black organized criminals should be able to do the same with drugs.

The problem with comparing the two substances is that one is much more tolerated by society than the other. To quote documentarian Ken Burns:

"Comparing alcohol to today’s illicit drugs is something of an apples-to-oranges analogy. “It’s such a stupid parallel to draw,” insists Ken Burns in an interview. “Drugs have always been parts of some very rare subcultures, but every culture drinks alcohol as fermented or distilled spirits.” Opium, for example, has a long history of use – and opiates certainly have a place today as a viable medical treatment – but it has never been integrated into the daily life of healthy humans in the way that alcohol has. Scientifically, too, alcohol and other intoxicants are just not the same. Unless you’re a recovering addict, a glass of wine per day is absolutely not going to hurt you, and we've even seen evidence of minor medical benefits from light drinking. The same cannot be said with illegal drugs—imagine having a little bit of heroin each night with your dinner!"(10)

Burns makes a solid point. Since alcohol is consumed by society more than narcotics, wouldn't it make sense that society would be more tolerable of breaking its prohibition, thus more tolerable towards the criminals that do so?

This would be the reason that law enforcement was more tolerable towards the Mafia than organized Black gangs today. It's not so much the race of the criminal, rather the product they are peddling. The Mafia didn't get the same tolerance from law enforcement in the 1970s and 1980s, when drug dealing was common within the Mafia. The problem became so bad, that most Mafia families in New York banned selling drugs, the penalty being death.


4.) Legacy and Culture 

The Godfather (1972) destroyed the Mafia, but also acted as its savoir. One of the worst things it did for the Mafia was make it popular. Audiences everywhere were exposed to a highly exaggerated version of the Mafia . The outlaw and gangster have always been in American cinema, but this was the first time a film has strictly portrayed Italian American criminals and their criminal organization. Italian Americans were so offended by the film, even Colombo Crime Family boss, Joe Colombo,  protested the making of the film (11).

Though all the bad it did for the Mafia, The Godfather, and its two sequels, are probably the best PR campaign the Mafia ever had. Unlike real Mafia bosses, Don Vito Corleone, boss of the Corleone Crime Family, is portrayed as a moral, wise patriarch. The Godfather also portrayed Mafia members of men of honor and respect. Men with a code of honor that separated them from society.

African American gangsters have no such luck with such PR in cinema. Hoodlum (1997) and more recently American Gangster (2007) have both portrayed African American gangsters Bumpy Johnson and Frank Lucas in a positive light, more like Vito Corleone than Michael Corleone, but neither of the films will ever be as big as a hit that The Godfather was.

Washington Post Article 

In Alyssa Rosenberg's Washington Post article Michael Brown's Death and the Shrinking of the American Dream, a response to The Crooked Ladder, Rosenberg whines about racism in the article and brings up the crooked ladder in the death of Michael Brown. One particular area that struck me is when she compares Michael Corleone from The Godfather to Frank Lucas from American Gangster.

Rosenberg says:

"If Lucas were white, he might have become Michael Corleone, unhappy but solidly entrenched in both the U.S.  economy and the hierarchy of the Catholic church. But because Lucas is black, he redeems himself in prison, collaborating with the police to dismantle his own operation."

To me it is unfair to compare the two films in this argument. The reason is that Michael Corleone is a fictitious character, whose fate is written anyway the author desires it, and Frank Lucas is a real person. Michael Corleone, more specifically the Corleone Crime Family, didn't sell drugs, while Lucas built an empire out of it.

A more fair comparison can be made with Henry Hill from Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas (1991). At the end of the film, Hill, a real Irish-Italian mob associate who was arrested for selling narcotics, is forced to betray the lifestyle and people he has known since he was a kid. While Lucas and Hill both cooperated with police, Rosenberg claims that Lucas is redeemed by cooperating with authorities. There is no redemption for Hill. Only exile and a life looking over his shoulder. Where Lucas's sins are washed away with cooperation, cooperation is Hill's ultimate sin. Rosenberg's unwarranted cries of racism in cinema should be quickly dismissed.


Conclusion

The ability of the Mafia: to use limited and targeted violence, to have a tightly organized and strict hierarchy, being able to take advantage of alcohol prohibition, and having penetrated popular culture is why it was the successful organization that it once was. Modern African American gangs will never be as successful as the Mafia , not because of race, but because of this set of particular circumstances.

The reason why the police are so successful in suppressing the evolution of organized crime in America today, is because they use the same laws against African American gangs that were used against the Mafia. The RICO (Racketeering Influence Corrupt Organization) Act was established in the 1970s to dismantle the Mafia. While the Mafia survived the legal onslaught, it was permanently crippled. Now the RICO Act is used against criminal organizations of all races.

Soon after the Patriot Act was signed into law, it has been used to combat drug dealers more than it has terrorist. Using the reasoning that selling narcotics can be one of the ways terrorist organizations are funded, is making the legal consequences of selling drugs even more dire.

The largest Mafia bust in American history was just two years ago.

It's a bad time to be a criminal, no matter what race you are.


Notes
(1) http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/Lets-Make-Chicago-As-Safe-As-It-Was-During-Prohibition-163189636.html
(2) Bergreen, Laurence. "Chapter 5: The Return of Al Capone." Capone: The Man and the Era. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. 206. Print.
(3) See: The Banana Wars (Bonanno Crime Family) , Joey Gallo's Revolt (Colombo Crime Family), John Gotti's Rise to Power(Gambino Crime Family) 
(4) Davis, John H. Mafia Kingfish: Carlos Marcello and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1989. 356. Print. (5) http://www.jurispro.com/uploadArticles/FrankPetroneArticleStructure.pdf
(6) http://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/poverty_prejudice/gangcolor/lacrips.htm
(7) http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704115404576096392318489246
(8) http://www.jurispro.com/uploadArticles/FrankPetroneArticleStructure.pdf
(9) Southwell, David. The History of Organized Crime: The True Story and Secrets of Global Gangland. London: Carlton, 2006. 38. Print.
(10) http://www.phoenixhouse.org/news-and-views/our-perspectives/prohibition-not-repeatable-but-not-a-failure/
(11) http://www.shortlist.com/entertainment/films/the-mob-vs-the-godfather

The Resurgence of the New Orleans Mafia?

Its been over three months since Joseph Gagliano and Dominick Gullo were both arrested in Metairie, but the incident is still making news. The pair were arrested in May after a .22 caliber sniper rifle, with silencer, was found in the back of a van they were driving. The back of the van also had two dining room chairs sawed off at the legs in the back, along with the rear outfitted with custom sliding windows. If that wasn't bad enough, a fuse capable of of detonating an explosive device was also found inside the van. The police pulled over the vehicle in the first place because it had a stolen licence plate (1). 

While this is Gullo's first known run in with the law, Gagliano, and his family's, reputation are firmly established in the New Orleans underworld. Gagliano's father, Frank or "Fat Frank" Gagliano, was the underboss of the New Orleans Mafia in the mid to late 80s. At this time the New Orleans Mafia was an organization in decline. Since the imprisonment of Mafia boss Carlos Marcello in the 1983 from the BRILAB investigation, the Mafia in the big easy began to crumble.

Sure, go ahead. Come on in. You won't get any heat from the Marcellos. They're finished. They don't mean nothin' around here anymore (2).

That's what "Fat" Frank Gagliano said to Philadelphia Mafia capo Albert "Reds" Pontani when the Mafia families from New York and Philadelphia started to extend their business interest to New Orleans. When Marcello was in charge, he was so strict on denying other families from gaining a foothold in New Orleans, that mobsters in New York would rarely vacation there.

But it was Gambino capo Joseph "JoJo" Corozzo and soldier Johnny Gammarano who set up the most lucrative business venture in New Orleans in the fall of 1991. In a scheme to take advantage of the newly legalized video poker industry in Louisiana, the New Orleans Mafia was hoping to regain some of the power lost with Marcello's incarceration with allowing Corozzo and Gammarano coming into the city (3).

The New Orleans Mafia and the Gambino crime family would work together to skim profits off of a video poker distribution company. The FBI caught wind of the scheme when a French Quarter apartment, which housed the Gagliano's sons illegal sports betting ring, was bugged. Ever since the decline of Marcello, the FBI had been keeping tabs on Carollo and the Gaglianos. The news of the New Orleans Mafia silently entering the video poker business, led to the FBI bugging Frank's Deli (today, known as Frank's Restaurant)(4).  When catching wind of the mobsters complaining about their profits not being as enormous as anticipated, the FBI established an investigation into the Mafia's infiltration of the Louisiana gaming industry. Operation Hardcrust (named because of the stale crust on the sandwiches FBI agents ate while getting a layout of Frank's Deli)(5) would eventually end with high ranking mobsters and their front men in prison, along with being forced to pay enormous restitution to the gaming company they were attempting to defraud (6).  

One of those men was Joseph Gagliano. Not soon after he was charged with the video poker case, Gagliano was identified and indicted as part of a crew that scammed a Biloxi casino out of $500,000 (7). When Gagliano left federal prison in 1999, he was forced to pay $250,000 to Bally Gaming. Currently, Gagliano has only repaid $4,000 of his debt. His financial situation is so dire, that the government is trying to garnish the wages of his wife, who is an instructor at Delgado Community College(8). 

Operation Hardcrust landed the top echelon of an already struggling New Orleans Mafia in jail. Though their sentences were short, the extreme amount of restitution to be paid more than likely left the organization crippled. Now, with Carollo and Gagliano Sr. long since passed, who, if anyone, has taken control over the New Orleans Mafia? If there are any remnants of the New Orleans Mafia left, and more than likely there is, this incident is probably not an indication of the organization's resurgence. Using sniper rifles in Mafia hits is next to unheard of. If Gagliano still has any ties to organized crime, this incident proves that he is on the lower end of them. Just maybe this is personal instead of business. 

Shifts in the underworld, not just in New Orleans, but in all over the United States, power seems to tilt from the Mafia to the South American Cartels, the Russian Syndicates, the Japanese Yakuza or the Chinese Triads. The world becoming a smaller place, transnational organized crime seems to be the way of the future. But in New Orleans the exact opposite seems to be true. A majority of the the street crime in New Orleans seems to be perpetrated by low level, barely organized street gangs. Men like Telly Hankton seem to have replaced men like Carlos Marcello running crime in New Orleans. 

UPDATE: 7/26/14 - A federal magistrate denied a request proposed by Gullo to have him transferred to a medical facility. Gullo (72), reportedly suffers from a brain tumor, heart disease, and blood disorders (9).

UPDATE: 8/11/14 - Gullo's laywer, Patrick Hand, Jr., has filed a motion to suppress evidence in the upcoming trial. Hand claims that the police violated Gullo's 4th Amendment rights by searching every "nook and cranny" in the van for over an hour, without producing a warrant. Police did obtain a warrant the day after they searched the "assassin van", but did not have one when they started the search. As stated above, police found a .22 caliber sniper rifle, with a silencer in the van. Along with the rifle, police also found a fuse capable of detonating an explosive device. The trial, which was scheduled to start on August 18th, has now been pushed back to the 21st (10). 

UPDATE : 8/13/14 - New arrest in the Biogenesis Scandal. In 2013, an investigation began looking into allegations that Biogenesis of America, a Florida based rejuvenation clinic, was selling performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) to several members of Major League Baseball (MLB). It turns out that the allegations were true: Biogenesis was disguised as a health clinic, the real purpose of the clinic was to prescribe illegal drugs. Players were suspended, and lawsuits against the clinic erupted. Last week Biogenesis founder Tony Bosch, and several of his associates, were arrested by police. This past Monday (August 11th, 2014), three more men were arrested. One of those men was Frank Fiore. Fiore has not only been accused of selling hardcore steroids to players, but also: cocaine, Xanax and Viagra. Fiore is also being arrested for trying to pass off counterfeit drugs and money. It was revealed that Fiore shares two corporate bank accounts with Joseph Gagliano, son of former New Orleans Mafia underboss Frank Gagliano, and one of the two men who were stopped in the "assassin van" back in May. Fiore claims that he once had a legitimate business relationship with Gagliano, and the accounts in question are now inactive. Gagliano, who is still currently in prison for weapons charges, declined to comment. It will be interesting to see how far this goes as both trials start. If organized crime from New Orleans was involved in selling illegal PEDs and narcotics to MLB players, both Gagliano and the New Orleans Mafia may have more sway in the underworld than previously thought (11).

UPDATE: 9/3/14 - The motion put forward by Gullo's lawyer last month, making everything found in the van admissible in court, has gotten a response from prosecutors. A ten page response argued that police had the right to search the van after Gullo was unable to produce insurance or registration after being pulled over by police. Because police had to tow the van, an inventory of its contents needed to be taken. Prosecutors also added that searching the vehicle helped prevent a violent crime, as the van had been outfitted for assassination (12).

UPDATE: 9/6/14 - Deputy Lamar Hooks, the Jefferson Parish officer who conducted the traffic stop on the "assassin van" back in May, testified in court that both the search of the van was legal and that it had been outfitted for assassination. FBI agent Jim Bernazzani commented: "They're not hunting deer, this is a classic unsophisticated vehicle that can be used for assassination." Judge Eldon Fallon hasn't ruled if the evidence should be thrown out. Trial is set for November 3rd (13).


UPDATE: 9/29/14 - Joe Gagliano, free after paying a $50,000 bond, will be able to await trial under home detention. Now out of prison, Gagliano will be required to wear a monitoring device and is unable to leave his home, except for church and court hearings. Several members of Gagliano's family put up their houses as collateral to secure his bond. While Gagliano is free, the driver of the van, Dominick Gullo, still remains in prison. In July, a judge denied Gullo a transfer to a medical facility because of his numerous health problems. Gullo's lawyer, Patrick Hand, Jr., said "My client has worse health issues than Gagliano." (14)

UPDATE: 10/1/14 - U.S. Magistrate Judge Daniel Knowles granted a bond for Dominick Gullo, the driver of the sniper van that was stopped in Kenner last May. Gullo will stay with his son in Florida until his trial starts in November (15). 

UPDATE: 10/7/14 - U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon decides that, even without a search warrant, the Jefferson Parish deputies who search the "assassin van" were within their rights. All the evidence taken from the van, including a 22. caliber sniper rife with silencer, will be used as evidence in court(16).

UPDATE: 1/30/15 - Both Joe Gagliano and Dominick Gullo pleaded guilty to federal weapons charges. Gagliano pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession a firearm, and both men pleaded guilty to possession of an unregistered silencer.  Gagliano could face 20 years in jail, and Gullo 10 years in jail(17).

UPDATE: 2/8/15 - Sentencing in the Biogenisis Scandal. Frank Fiore, owner of the Havana Nights Cigar Bar in West Palm Beach, Fl, was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison for conspiring to traffic counterfeit drugs and illegally distributing steroids. Fiore was trafficking Cocaine, Xanax, Viagra, Cialis, and steroids out of his bar. Fiore was caught in the Biogenesis investigation when he was selling hardcore narcotics and steroids to Major League Baseball players. Fiore also shares two corporate bank accounts with Joe Gagliano, son of former New Orleans Mafia underboss Frank Gagliano, and one of the two men who were stopped in the "assassin van" back in May(18).

Notes
(1) http://theadvocate.com/news/neworleans/neworleansnews/9755746-123/a-van-made-to-kill
(2) Davis, John H. Mafia Kingfish: Carlos Marcello and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1989. 593. Print.
(3) http://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/04/us/video-poker-in-louisiana-is-mob-target-inquiry-says.html
(4) Bridges, Tyler. "Operation Hardcrust." Bad Bet on the Bayou: The Rise of Gambling in Louisiana and the Fall of Governor Edwin Edwards. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2001. 170-94. Print.
(5) Bridges, Tyler. "Operation Hardcrust." Bad Bet on the Bayou: The Rise of Gambling in Louisiana and the Fall of Governor Edwin Edwards. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2001. 170-94. Print.
(6) Bridges, Tyler. "Operation Hardcrust." Bad Bet on the Bayou: The Rise of Gambling in Louisiana and the Fall of Governor Edwin Edwards. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2001. 170-94. Print.
(7) http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2014/07/sniper_van_found_in_metairie_b.html
(8) http://theadvocate.com/news/neworleans/neworleansnews/9755746-123/a-van-made-to-kill
(9) http://www.theneworleansadvocate.com/news/9826491-171/driver-of-purported-jefferson-murder
(10) http://news.gnom.es/news/authorities-lacked-warrant-to-search-sniper-van-lawyer-says
(11) http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/i-team/arrests-made-connection-biogenesis-doping-scandal-article-1.1899690
(12) http://theadvocate.com/news/neworleans/10110445-148/prosecutors-defend-search-of-sniper
(13)http://www.kptv.com/story/26453926/jp-deputy-testifies-about-van-apparently-rigged-to-kill
(14) http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2014/09/sniper_van_suspect_gets_bond_c.html
(15) http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2014/09/sniper_van_driver_to_go_free_o.html
(16) http://www.bayoubuzz.com/louisiana-news/new-orleans-news/item/757588-judge-allows-evidence-from-sniper-van
(17) http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2015/01/metairie_sniper_van_defendants_plead_guilty_to_gun_charges.html
(18) http://www.local10.com/news/havana-nights-cigar-bar-owner-sentenced-to-prison-for-trafficking-counterfeit-drugs/31120044

Why your fleur-de-lis tattoo is (kind of) stupid.

In South Louisiana, the fleur-de-lis is everywhere. From the symbol of the New Orleans Saints to the Bourbon flags seen waving in the French Quarter, it is impossible to walk down any street and not encounter it.

But there is one location where the fleur-de-lis can be seen more than anywhere else: on someone's body.  In several different designs and styles, fleur-de-lis tattoos are proudly shown off all over Louisiana.

But what does this symbol mean?

The origin of the fleur-de-lis is a highly debated one. In several ancient civilizations, flowers were used to signify royalty and high status. French naturalist Pierre Augustin Boissier de Sauvages wrote:


"The old fleurs-de-lis, especially the ones found in our kings' scepters, have a lost less in common with ordinary lilies than the flowers called flambas, or irises, from which the name of our own fleur-de-lis may derive. What gives some color to the truth is this hypothesis that we already put forth, is the fact that the French or Franks, before entering Gaul itself, lived for a long time around the river named Luts in the Netherlands. Nowadays, this river is still bordered with an exceptional number of irises - as many plants grow for centuries in the same place - these irses have ellow flowers, which is not a typical feature of lilies but fleurs-de-lis. It was thus understandable that our kings, having to choose a symbolic image for what later became a coat of arms, set their minds on the iris, a flower that was common around their homes, and is also as beautiful as it was remarkable. They call it, in short, the fleur-de-lis, instead of the flower of the river of lis. This flower, or iris, looks like our fleur-de-lis not just because of its yellow color, but also because of its shape: of the six petals, or leaves, that it has, three of them are alternatively straight and meet at their tops. The other three on the opposite, bend down so that the middle one seems to make on with the stalk and only the two ones facing out from left and right can clearly be seen, which is again similar with our fleu-de-lis, that is to say exclusively the one from the river Luts whose white petals bend down too when the flower blooms."

Legend tells that Clovis I (481-511 AD), the Frankish king who united all of the Franks, upon his baptism, was handed a fleur-de-lis by a vision of the Virgin Mary.

When Pope Leo III crowned Frankish King Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor in 800 AD, he received a blue banner with golden fleur-de-lis on it, which may have given birth to the legend of the Virgin Mary appearing to Clovis. Charlemagne's coronation crown had fluer-de-lis added to it a few hundred years later.

Eventually, the future French monarchs would adopt the fleur-de-lis on their coat of arms as a symbol for the conversion of Clovis. From then on French Kings would plaster the symbol on scepters and rings, signifying their rule.

The fleur-de-lis would not just appear on the French coat of arms, but would make an appearance on the English coat of arms as well. King Edward III (1327-1377 AD), who believed he had a claim to the French throne, added the symbol to the English coat of arms, where it would appear off and on until the 19th Century.

Eventually, as French settlers moved to the New World, the fleur-de-lis followed. In French Canada, the fleur-de-lis became a popular symbol, but it eventually found its way to the city where it would be most associated with : New Orleans.

Fast forward a few hundred years and now the fleur-de-lis has become corporately prostituted. In 1967, the New Orleans Saints were founded. They needed a symbol; they picked the fleur-de-lis. Now hordes of Saints fans brand themselves with the team's emblem in a show of support. It currently seems that everything that the fleur-de-lis stood for has now been engulfed by black and gold.

But these Saints fans are just posers. Rewind a few hundred years back and there was another group of people being branded with the fleur-de-lis in New Orleans: slaves. New Orleans was one of the largest slave ports in the Antebellum South. Slaves who were to be punished, especially ones that were guilty of illegally gathering in crowds, were first whipped and then branded with the symbol of the fleur-de-lis.

Now I'm not saying that people shouldn't get fleur-de-lis tattoos because slaves were branded with them back in the 19th Century. That would be foolish. I just think it's funny that a few hundred years ago, having a fleur-de-lis tattooed on your body was a sign of punishment, now it just means you either really like New Orleans or its football team. But symbols change over time; like the swastika for example. A symbol that was once synonymous with many ancient civilizations has now been stigmatized with being associated with the Nazi Party. Or Guy Fawkes, the English Catholic fighting to overthrow one theocracy just to install another, is now remembered as a hero and a champion for personal liberty.

And I'm also not advocating that you don't get a fleur-de-lis tattoo. If you have one, that's great. Good for you. I just find it a little silly that a symbol that once appeared in paintings with Charlemagne, is now associated with something as historically insipid as the term "WHO DAT."

Why Valentine's Day is the Best Day of the Year!

I know what most of you are thinking at this exact moment: “100% of women would rather be operated on by an abortionist with Parkinson’s disease before spending a minute in the same room with Dexter, why would he enjoy celebrating Valentine's Day?”

Well, it’s not to increase abortion rates (well OK, maybe it is).

Here's why, and to appreciate it, a brief history of the Chicago underworld is necessary.

In the early 1900’s James "Big Jim" Colosimo, former Precinct Captain of Chicago's First Ward, established himself as “boss” of Chicago. Colosimo and his wife ran a chain of brothels that earned more than $600,000 a year. This made Colosimo the perfect target for the infamous Black Hand extortionist that plagued Italian immigrants during the early years of the twentieth century. 

You also must keep in mind that this was a time when the Mafia wasn't like the Mafia we are familiar with. It wasn't until 1931 that the Mafia was reorganized and took the shape of the national crime syndicate that we all recognize today. Before prohibition, the Mafia wasn't even the dominate criminal force in the American Underworld. Several other Italian gangs (like the ‘Ndrangheta from Calabria, and the Comorra from Naples) rivaled the Sicilian Mafia for underworld dominance in America. Not to mention the hordes of native and Irish gangs that also stood in their way.

Anyway, by 1909, the threats of the Black Hand extortionist had become so dire, Colosimo’s wife asked her nephew Johnny “The Fox” Torrio to travel from New York to Chicago to help them solve their problem. Johnny Torrio had been a member of the Five Points Gang and the James Street Gang, alongside with future Mafia bigwig Charlie “Lucky” Lucaino.

The solution to Torrio was simple. He just hired two New York thugs to murder the extortionist when they showed up to collect their money. Colosimo was so grateful he made Torrio number two in his criminal empire, which mainly consisted of prostitution and gambling.

Things had been going so well for Torrio that by 1919 he brought over a young, violent hoodlum by the name of Al Capone to help him in his business ventures.

The 18th Amendment was passed on January 16, 1919. This made the production and consumption of alcohol in the United States illegal, causing organized crime groups like the Mafia to profit greatly from both political and religious fanaticism.

As many other leaders of various organized crime groups, Torrio saw this as a perfect business venture to save his organization from extinction. Colosimo didn’t agree. Colosimo forbade Torrio to bootleg any illicit liquor to the various speakeasies that were sprouting up all over Chicago.

Torrio knew that if he wasn't going to dominate the new bootlegging business in Chicago, somebody else would. That’s why Torrio allegedly had Colosimo assassinated on May 11, 1920. This betrayal would be a prelude to the violence generated by organized crime for dominance over the bootlegging racket in Chicago.

With Colosimo out of the way, Torrio took control of his new empire with Capone second in command. With Torrio at the helm, and Capone making sure that speakeasy operators were purchasing their beer, the Torrio/Capone organization took control of most of the South Side of Chicago.

Trying to avoid the bloody turf battles that were about to be unleashed on Chicago, Torrio met with various leaders of bootlegging organizations and carved out territories for them to operate in. Torrio would take the South Side. Dion O’ Banion, leader of the predominantly Irish North Side Gang, took the North Side, and the Sicilian Genna Brothers would take Chicago’s downtown region.

Clashes soon started happening between the Genna’s and O’ Banion. The Genna brothers wanted to have O’ Bannion assassinated, but since they were Sicilians, they would have to get the permission of the governing Mafia body in Chicago before they could make the hit.

The governing Sicilian Mafia body at the time was known as the Unione Siciliana, an organization originally set up to help Sicilian immigrants get settled, but now had become corrupted by Sicilian gangsters and was a front for what was then the American Mafia. Again, at this time, before reorganization in 1931, you must have been a full blooded Sicilian in order to be a member of the Mafia; other Italians could not be a part of the organization. Capone was denied membership because his background was Neapolitan, not Sicilian.

The man in charge of the Unione Siciliana at the time was Mike Merlo. Merlo abhorred violence and denied the fearsome Genna brothers permission to have O’ Banion assassinated. While being alive and in control of the governing Mafia body in Chicago, Merlo was able to keep the peace between the various criminal organizations.

Mike Merlo died of cancer on November 8, 1924. Two days later the gangs of Chicago broke into open warfare.

The assassination of Dion O’ Banion on November 10, 1924, by both the Genna brothers and Torrio’s South Side gang, triggered a series of events that would eventually crescendo into the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

The death of Mike Merlo meant that someone else would have to take leadership of the governing body of the Mafia.

Angelo Genna, the youngest and most volatile of the six Genna brothers would take Merlo's position as president. Capone, desperate to dominate the organization, had a close ally, Antonio Lombardo, that he would have liked to have seen as head of the Unione.

This plan made by the Neapolitan Capone didn't sit well with the Sicilian Gennas, who, as members of the hierarchy of the Unione, saw the position of president as one of prestige and honor among their Sicilian brethren. The brothers quickly rallied and pressed hard to put Angelo in as the next president. Capone, unhappy at the turn of events, bided his time under the patient leadership of Torrio.

O’Bannon’s death would soon be avenged. In January 1925, a retaliation from the North Side gang ended up with the attempted assassination of Johnny Torrio. While Torrio survived the ambush right outside of his apartment, he retired from the soon to be bloody streets of Chicago, and left his underworld empire to Capone and moved to Italy. Torrio would later return to the United States and would be a key player in the reorganization of the American Mafia in 1931.

His rule lasting a little over five months, in May, 1925, Hymie Weiss , now leader of the Irish North Side Gang, dispatched assassins that chased down Angelo Genna in a high speed car chase and then shot him to death. Angelo's death and the loss of leadership of the Unione Siciliana were the least of the remaining brothers' worries. Soon after Angelo’s murder, two of the six brothers: Mike and Antonio Genna were also murdered. In a period of 44 days, three of the Genna brothers were killed. The remaining Genna brothers: Peter, Sam, and Vincenzo fled to Sicily, leaving Capone in control of his new empire to take over their rackets.

With Angelo Genna being dispatched so quickly, the Unione Siciliana needed yet another leader. Capone still pushed for his faithful ally, Antonio Lombardo, to become president of the Unione, but lost again to a man by the name of Samuel Samuzzo Amatuna. Unfortunately for Amatuna, his reign would just last a week shorter than Genna’s, thanks to assassins quickly dispatched by Capone.

With the death of Amatuna in November, 1925, Al Capone was finally able to place his own man, Lombardo, into the leadership of the Unione Siciliana. It was not an easy task. Opposing the Capone interests was Giuseppe Aiello, one of the nine members active in the Unione. Aiello also desired the seat of power for himself.

While trying to dominate the local Mafia, Capone’s relationship with the North Side Gang continued to sour. On September 20, 1926, Capone was having lunch with bodyguard Frank Rio at the Hawthorne Hotel when a caravan of cars cruised past the building and riddled it with hundreds of sub machine gun bullets. Hymie Weiss, then leader of the North Side Gang, and a bodyguard were later assassinated on October 11, 1926, in a hail of gunfire while crossing the street, leaving George “Bugs” Moran to take control of the North Side Gang.

Desperate to defeat both Capone and Lombardo, and secure his influence over the Unione Siciliana, Giuseppe Aiello turned to Bugs Moran and the North Side Gang for assistance. After several months of “peace”, assassins of Moran and brothers, Frank and Peter Gusenberg, gunned down Lombardo in a busy Chicago street on September 7th , 1928.

With the assassination of Lombardo, the Unione needed yet ANOTHER leader. Aiello was yet again denied leadership and another Capone ally, Pasqualino "Patsy" Lolordo, took the position. Shortly after, on January 8, 1929, "Patsy" Lolordo was shot to death in his house by an unknown gunman…..but you could probably guess who he worked for by now. And guess who still didn't get to be President of the Unione? That’s right! Joseph ''Hop Toad'' Guinta took over leadership of the Unione Siciliana.

It didn't take long for Capone to figure out that the demise of both Lolordo and Lomardo were carefully orchestrated by Giuseppe Aiello. Capone was planning, along with one of his top triggerman, "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn, a damaging retaliatory response that would be remembered throughout history as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

The plan was fairly simple. While Capone was away on vacation at his Florida estate(in order to have a solid alibi), assassins disguised as cops would be waiting outside one of Moran’s garages. When Moran would enter, the “police” would barge in on them, stage a raid, and then shoot Moran and his men.

At around 10:30 a.m. on February, 14, 1929, the Moran gang had already arrived at the warehouse. However, Moran himself was not inside. One account states that Moran was supposedly approaching the warehouse, spotted the police car, and fled the scene to a nearby coffee shop. Another account was that Moran was simply late getting there.

The lookouts that Capone had placed across the street to insure that Moran himself was inside the garage mistook one of Moran’s men for Moran himself. Thinking that Moran was inside the garage, Capone’s lookouts signaled for the assassins to enter.

Witnesses outside the garage saw a Cadillac sedan pull to a stop in front of the garage. Four men, two dressed in police uniform, emerged and walked inside. The two phony police, carrying shotguns, entered the rear portion of the garage and found members of Moran's gang. The killers told the seven men to line up facing the back wall. There was apparently not any resistance, as the Moran men thought their captors were the real authorities. Then the two "police officers" signaled the pair in civilian clothes. Two of the killers started shooting with Thompson sub-machine guns. All seven men were killed in a volley of seventy machine-gun bullets and two shotgun blasts, according to the coroner's report. To show bystanders that everything was under control, the men in street clothes came out with their hands up, prodded by the two uniformed cops.

The seven men that were killed that day were: James Clark, Frank and Pete Gusenberg(brothers), Adam Heyer, Johnny May, Dr. Reinhardt Schwimmer, and Al Weinshank. All of these men had a position in Moran's criminal operations, from button men to front men.

When Moran heard about the massacre, he checked himself into a hospital. The press eventually found him and when asked who could have done such a thing. Moran responded with: “Only Capone kills like that.”

While Moran himself wasn't killed in the incident, his gang was annihilated.

The North Side Gang eventually lost control over its rackets to the Capone organization, leaving Al Capone completely in control over Chicago. The rest of Moran’s criminal career amounted to nothing more than petty thievery. Moran was arrested in 1946 for robbing $10,000 from a bank messenger. He was convicted and sentenced to prison. Moran later died of cancer on February 25, 1957. He was given a pauper's burial outside of prison.

With virtually every other obstacle out of his way, Capone was in complete control of Chicago. But his plan eventually backfired. The public had grown tired of the gruesome violence in Chicago generated by prohibition. While the St. Valentine's Day Massacre was successful in removing any business opposition from the Capone interest, it had also made national headlines. Finally answering the cries of an outraged public, the Federal Government planed to put Capone behind bars.

Even though Capone was successful in defeating Bugs Moran and the North Side Gang, he still had the treacherous Giuseppe Aiello organizing assassination attempts against him. Capone’s uncanny ability not to get shot, even though several dozen assassination attempts were put in motion against him, forced Aiello to turn to two of Capone’s own assassins to help murder him. Albert Anselmi, John Scalise, as well as the new head of the Unione, Joseph "Hop Toad" Giunta, met with Aiello, who proposed that if Capone was assassinated they could take control of his empire for themselves.

In April 1929, after getting wind of the plot, Capone beat them to the punch and had the three men killed, dispatched with a beating from a baseball bat, followed by a gunshot to the face to finish the job (the scene famed by a number of movies in which Capone murders associates with a baseball bat at a banquet is based on these killings). All three of their bodies were found in an abandoned automobile several days later.

With the death of Joseph "Hop Toad" Giunta, Giuseppe Aiello was finally able to take control of the Unione Siciliana. While Aiello was coming into power, Capone was going to jail. Capone served a one year sentence in prison for carrying a concealed weapon.

While in jail, Capone learned of plans that Aiello again was trying to assassinate him. Capone, finally deciding to assassinate Aiello, bided his time in prison.

On October 23, 1930, with several of his lieutenants being murdered in the previous year, Aiello was making plans to permanently leave Chicago. Upon leaving a local building, a gunman in a second-floor window across the street started firing at him with a submachine gun. Aiello toppled off the building steps and moved around the corner, out of the line of fire. Unfortunately for him, he stumbled into the range of a second submachine gun nest on the third floor of another apartment block. Aiello was taken to Garfield Park Hospital, but was pronounced dead on arrival. The coroner eventually removed 59 bullets from his body.

While Capone was yet again victorious in getting rid of another underworld nemesis, it would be law enforcement that would be his downfall. Elliot Ness(who gets far too much credit for putting away Capone) and his team of “Untouchables” impacted Capone's operations, but it was income tax evasion that was the key weapon. In a number of federal grand jury cases in 1931, Capone was charged with 22 counts of tax evasion and also 5,000 violations of the Volstead Act. On October 17, 1931, Capone was sentenced to eleven years, and following a failed appeal, he began his sentence in 1932.

With prohibition ending, along with a major Mafia revolution and reorganization underway, Capone found himself behind bars.

He would be eventually transferred to Alcatraz prison, where the isolation from the outside world didn't help the syphilis that was slowly eating away at his brain.

After his release, Capone’s mental health had greatly diminished. He often raved on about communists, foreigners, and George Moran, who he was convinced was still plotting to kill him from his Ohio prison cell. On January 21, 1947, Capone suffered a stroke. He regained consciousness and started to improve but contracted pneumonia two days later. Capone then suffered a fatal cardiac arrest the next day at his Florida estate.

Sources:

-The Gangs of Chicago-Herbert Asbury

-The Outfit-Gus Russo

-Capone: The Man and the Era-Laurence Bergreen

-The History of Organized Crime : The True story and Secrets of Global Gangland-David Southwell.

-Organized Crime : An Inside Guide to the World's Most Successful Industry-Paul Lunde.