It`s 9:30 a.m. at Rich East High School in Park Forest and Tom Fleming already has confiscated a star earring-a gang symbol, outlawed at the school- from a male student.
Fleming, an off-duty police officer, spends a lot of time these days watching for such symbols. And even though south suburban Rich East has only the mildest of gang problems, there`s plenty to see.
That`s because it`s not just gang members wearing today`s gang symbols:
the overalls with one strap down, the black and silver, red or blue color combinations, the caps turned to the side and the jewelry with stars, crowns and pitchforks.
Many young people today are wearing fashions inspired by the streets, spurred, in part, by mass marketing of what once was considered purely gang symbolism. Yesterday`s gang emblem becomes today`s mainstream fashion statement, thanks to television, movies and music videos.
”People are just trying to be hip. Very few are involved in gangs,”
said Dan Spayer, 17, a senior at Rich East, where overalls and black-and-red or black-and-blue jackets are in vogue.
”Ninety-five percent of the kids playing gangbanging in the suburbs and wearing the clothes do it because it`s chic,” agreed Fleming, an expert on gangs. ”They`re just mirroring something they`ve seen.”
The problem, anti-gang activists say, is that at a time when schools, towns and even some malls are outlawing gang-linked clothing in an effort to halt the spread of gangs, youths are seeing the same clothing promoted everywhere: on rock, rap and sports idols, at the movies and even in the malls they frequent and advertising circulars they read.
”It`s a marketing double standard,” said John Fallon, dorm supervisor for the Thresholds Loren Juhl Young Adult Program, an adolescent rehab program in Chicago. ”We try to teach adolescents about the dangers of gangs and that gangs are wrong and yet . . . we allow those symbols to appear on role models all the time.”
”Suburban kids don`t see the violence or the funerals or the grief that comes from gangs. They have a glamorous one-sided view, and for marketing people to promote that is dangerous,” added Dr. Anthony Moriarty, a gang expert and assistant principal at Rich Central High School in Olympia Fields. Ads for several major retailers feature kids with sideways caps or youths dressed in the silver-and-black clothing-the kind most in vogue with gangs, who adopted the colors from the Los Angeles Raiders and Kings sports teams.
”We`re just reflecting lifestyle and fashion trends,” said Kim Phillips, a spokeswoman for Venture, the Missouri-based discount chain. Recent store circulars showed one youthful model with his blue cap turned to the side and another with one strap on his overalls unbuttoned.
Phillips would not say whether Venture knew its models might be displaying gang signs. But ”we have no intention to relate them to gangs,”
she said. ”They`re just relaxed, fun, casual looks.”
Even the companies that manufacture sports merchandise have been altering traditional team colors to black and silver to take advantage of the trend, which is evident in the windows of nearly any sporting goods store.
River Grove-based Wilson Sporting Goods Co. will come out with a new design of Atlanta Falcons shorts this summer that alters the team`s traditional red, black and white scheme.
Kevin Murphy, a merchandise planner for Wilson, said Falcons officials told him that ”whatever we do, get rid of the red. All they want is black and silver. It`s more marketable.”
”Everybody`s jumping on the bandwagon,” Murphy said. ”It`s no coincidence that the White Sox changed to black and silver.”
Asked about the advisability of adopting colors tied to gangs, Murphy said, ”We just think it`s an unfortunate coincidence.”
Anti-gang activists, however, including Frances Sandoval, the president of Mothers Against Gangs in Chicago, don`t buy that.
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”Most of (the marketers), about 95 percent, are fully aware of the dress codes and what the signs mean,” she charged. ”They have decided that no matter what the consequences are, what they`re about is making money.
”The time for (pleading) `I`m naive,` is over. We`re telling our children this is not acceptable, and then they go to the store and it sends the other message.”
Elgin Police Sgt. Scott Davis, however, isn`t quite as sure manufacturers realize what they`re selling.
”When the general public buys into that product, manufacturers don`t necessarily understand it`s a `gang-recognized color,` ” said Davis, commander of the department`s gang unit. ”But let`s face it. (Merchants believe) if there`s money out there to be made, why not make it?”
Part of the problem, Sandoval, Davis and other experts say, is that parents are far less savvy about gang clothing than their children and often end up inadvertently buying something that could put their children at risk.
Sandoval tells the story of a Chicago mother who, when told her daughter`s crown-appliqued sweater marked her as a gang member, broke down in tears.
”She said, `Why are the stores selling them then? She got it at the mall, and there were over 50 on the rack.”`
”I don`t think parents know what`s going on,” said Steven Rhoads, the police chief in Calumet City, where at least two youths have been beaten for inadvertently wearing the wrong colors. ”They buy their child an L.A. Kings jacket and then they`re surprised to think their children could be involved.” Teenagers say they also get confused.
Tony Medina, 18, of Aurora, for instance, noted that while Charlestowne Mall in St. Charles has rules forbidding gang dress, sporting goods stores there feature some subtle gang colors in their windows, including black-and-red jackets on one side of a doorway and black-and-blue jackets on the other. Other stores sport black-and-gray shirts underneath overalls, albeit with both straps up.
”Here they are bustin` the colors and selling them too,” Medina said, while sipping a drink in the mall`s food court. ”Either you`re with it or you aren`t.”