As anyone who knows me will tell you, I live by the motto "I didn't choose the thug life, the thug life chose me." However, even I have my limits.

Gangs. They're an interesting thing, aren't they? They seem to just exist as part of our everyday existence, with there being an abundance of documentaries, films and computer games that not only explore the life of these criminal communities, but also glorify them.

But, what does it take to be a gangster? Do you just need to adorn a trilby hat and a suit, or is it simply that you need to get a tattoo on your face? Well, in all honesty, the reality is much worse.

The majority of gang induction rituals involve violence and scenes of a graphic nature and, in light of this, here are nine of the worst.

1. The Knights Templar

The Knights Templar are one of the most notorious and violent cartels in Mexico. They're known as one of the key players in the Mexican drug war and are notorious for their public decapitations and boiling their enemies alive. However, while their acts of violence against their counterparts are horrifying, their initiation process is even more gruesome.

In order to gain access to the cartel, the initiation has apparently developed from 'simply' murdering and dismembering a rival gang member to a wholly cannibalistic experience. New recruits to the cartel are expected to digest an entire human heart in front of their peers.

2. The Hell's Angels

The Hell's Angels are one of the most renowned motorcycle gangs in the world, with them not only being known for their racketeering, drug trafficking and murderous tendencies, but also being immensely marketable. Quite why anyone would want to join the Angels, I'm not too sure. But, if you are considering signing up, just remember this: in order to join the gang, you reportedly have to undergo an unhygienic baptism that involves having a bucket full of faeces and urine poured over your head. Nice.

3. Chinese Triads

One of the biggest umbrella organizations of the planet, the Triads are responsible for a wide range of illegal enterprises. The gang have been going for 3,000 years and are known for their sex trafficking, gambling, extortion and money laundering.

However, if one wants to join the organization, they are purportedly expected to drink from a goblet containing animal or human blood. On top of this, they must recount the following oath: "If a member of this society finds himself in difficulty, all will rush to his aid. If I, as a future member of this association, break this oath, the swords will descend and kill me."

4. Aryan Brotherhood

The oldest white supremacist prison gang was formed by bikers looking to protect themselves in a newly desegregated prison system. But, while that was back in the 1960s, the Brotherhood is still going strong and has over 20,000 members.

In order to join the gang, prospective members must apparently kill a rival gang member or correctional officer. The gang live by the motto, "blood in, blood out" meaning that when you leave, you die.

5. The Latin Kings

The Latin Kings are one of the oldest gangs in America, with their origins dating back to New York in the 1920s. They remain a violent and active gang, with there being around 25,000 members nationwide, who will all be draped in the gang's traditional black and gold colors.

The most common initiation scheme reportedly involves getting beaten up by your fellow gang members. However,  some claim The Kings also have a more heinous way in: offering up your girlfriend and allowing her to be gang-raped by four or more existing members.

6. The Numbers Gang

Based in South Africa's Western Cape prison system, The Numbers Gang consists of three groups: the 26s, 27s and 28s. According to some people, the gang go back to the 1800s and have a long legacy of violence and brutality. The gang are ranked by their thirst for violence, with the 28s being the most blood-hungry.

New recruits are purportedly given two ways of climbing the ranks, with the "Gold Line" being for those who are happy to draw blood from a correctional officer. The Silver Line, however, is reserved for those who are willing to be a sex slave for higher ranking members.

7. Bloods

One of the most infamous crime organizations in the US, the Bloods are a coast-to-coast gang that was founded in Los Angeles. Known to be clad in red, Bloods are famous for their drug dealing, racketeering and strong-armed business techniques.

Entry to the Bloods reportedly differs depending on region, but in New York, the ritual involves giving out a "Buck 50" to a rival or a stranger. The practice refers to slashing someone's cheek with a box cutter so that they require 150 stitches.

8. The Junky Funky Kids

One of many active gangs in Cape Town, South Africa, the JFKs seek supremacy in the country's drug trade and find themselves in violent and fatal confrontations with other gangs.

The initiation process for the gang apparently involves them going through a unique obstacle course. During the ritual, members stand in two parallel lines facing each other, holding belts, chains and wooden planks. Then, new members must run through the crowd and take any beatings that come their way.

9. Taitung Crime Syndicate  

In order to join one of the crime syndicates in Taitung, Taiwan, you purportedly have to undergo a bizarre initiation. The syndicates may adhere to standard hierarchal bosses and subordinates that you would see in mainstream corporations, but their hiring process is obscure.

The Taitung tradition, known as "Bombarding Master Handan," involves locals throwing fireworks at a shirtless man who is trying to enter the gang. The man will be dressed in a mask, with little other protection and the ritual is seen as a way for local crime bosses to weed to weak people out.

So, if you're thinking about joining a gang, you probably shouldn't. Not only will you more than likely wind up behind bars, but you might also have to have eat a heart, drink blood, have fireworks thrown at you and, worst of all, have poop poured all over your head.

This is Jesús Malverde: the patron saint of Mexican drug cartels - worshiped as a sort of Robin Hood demigod by the dealers, enforcers and suppliers of the cartels. To us, the idea of a saint of traffickers might seem surreal, even darkly comical, but in certain areas of Latin America it's just another part of cartel culture; one more aspect of a life lived through the looking glass. In some of the poorer, more remote regions of Latin America, the cartels represent the only form of infrastructure that the poor and destitute have access to. They provide schools for young children, places for the youth to be indoctrinated and then recruited, and narco culture now boasts its own multimillion dollar music genre, Narcocorrido, which is stylistically similar to gangster rap. Life lived under the rule of the cartel is akin to a dictatorship. The syndicates exercise complete control over those who live in their territory, and brag about the money they make and the drugs they smuggle with complete impunity. They're capable of brandishing weapons in the street (even though it's illegal to purchase guns in Mexico) and kidnapping people from public places in front of dozens of witnesses. In Mexico, the war on drugs is a literal campaign, a conflict of attrition with no end in sight, waged between the police and the gangs. Each side has access to military ordinance and commands swathes of territory, recruiting scores of soldiers from the local populace. They practice scorched earth tactics and drive armoured cars, wear body armour and employ heavy artillery. Yet, like a many-headed hydra, the moment one gang is eliminated, another three spring up in its place. The situation is downright hopeless. Everything has become secondary to the almost boundless profit supplied by meth, cocaine and cannabis. Rural farmers now forgo growing legal crops in favour of narcotics. Meanwhile, narcotics agents have sprayed pesticides, burned farms to the ground and sown salt in the ashes, all in a bid to restrict supply and halt production. The only clear result of these tactics have been widespread deforestation. A report by CountTheCosts states: "Drug cartels target areas for production that are remote, have little economic infrastructure or governance and suffer from high levels of poverty, so farmers have few alternative means of earning a living outside of the drug trade ... As a result, drug crop eradication threatens biodiversity, fuels deforestation, and drives illicit crop growers to pursue environmentally hazardous methods of drug production." [[heroimage||http://cdn.junglecreations.com/wp/junglecms/2017/08/rsz_2003-05-08t120000z_1659118492_rp3drinzdvaa_rtrmadp_3_crime-mexico-women-compressor.jpg]] Population centres have also been threatened as a result of the cartels' violent methods. Mexico's most bloody cartel, Los Zetas, once convinced the entire population of the small city of Ciudad Mier that they would meet with a gory, protracted death if they did not submit to cartel rule. All 4,000 inhabitants evacuated at once, leaving it completely abandoned. There are hundreds of other ghost towns like this dotted around Mexico. The cartels can arrive at any time. They can drive right up to your home in the middle of the night and snatch your family from their beds. They slaughter anyone they suspect to be an informant, and actively encourage an atmosphere of constant suspicion and surveillance. Gangs like the Zetas and The Knights Templar are notorious for running protection rackets against anyone, no matter whether they're capable of paying up or not. The cartels love to micromanage: they even have their own form of news on social media, where they post videos of gruesome beheadings, threats of attrition, and inform locals about curfews. Groups like the Templars have the power to inform people not to go out between certain hours, unless they want to be killed. In response to this, citizen militias have been formed by vigilantes, who are attempting to combat the gangs, and the autodefensas have managed to wrest control of approximately five per cent of Mexico from them. In Michoacán, a region renowned for its gang violence, approximately 25 per cent of the state is controlled by self-defence groups, which boast 25,000 armed members. But the cartels are here to stay, and no amount of police or military intervention is going to change that - the criminal economy supports too many livelihoods, and so long as drugs and crime make money, gangs will continue to hold power and influence. Since 2006, at least 80,000 people have died as a result of the war on drugs. That's 30,000 more casualties than America suffered in the Vietnam War. And in all that time, the cartels haven't budged. Featured illustration by Egarcigu

An Asian-American township trustee and US army veteran has unbuttoned his shirt during a Town Hall meeting to send an important message about racism in the US.

Trustee Lee Wong was speaking at a West Chester Township meeting in front of members of the community when he started to speak about his experiences since immigrating to America when he was 18-year-old.

During the comments section of the meeting, 69-year-old Wong spoke about a time when he was beaten up in Chicago due to his race. After taking his attackers to court, Wong revealed they received no punishment.

"For too long, we have, I have, put up with a lot of s*** in silence, excuse the language, too afraid to speak out, fearing more abuse and discrimination," Wong said during Tuesday's board meeting.

"Things are getting worse and worse," Wong said.

During his impassioned speech, Wong opened his shirt to show a series of scars across his chest.

As he took off his tie and unbuttoned his shirt, Wong said that will not tolerate racism anymore, telling those in attendance:

"People question my patriotism, that I don't look American enough.

"They could not get over this face. I want to show you something, because I'm not afraid. I don’t have to live in fear, intimidation, insults."

Wong - lifting his vest to show his scars - then told the community: "This is sustained from my service in the US military. Is this patriotic enough?

"I'm not ashamed to walk around anymore."

Per Cincinnati.com, Wong served 20 years in the military.

At the conclusion of his speech, Wong said: "We are all the same. We are all equal." He then walked away from the dais with his jacket in his hand.

The veteran's words come after eight people - six of whom were Asian - were killed in an attack on spas in Atlanta.

NBC News reports that the number of recorded hate crimes against Asian-American people in the United States has increased sharply over the last year.

According to a report from the organization Stop AAPI Hate, approximately anti-Asian 3,800 incidents were reported in the US between February 2020 and March 2021 - around 1,200 more hate incidents than the previous year.

Commenting on the data, a professor of Asian American studies at San Francisco State University Russell Yeung told NBC: "There is an intersectional dynamic going on that others may perceive both Asians and women and Asian women as easier targets."

Featured image credit: ZUMA / Alamy 

The US has been plagued by devastating mass shootings, which have prompted nationwide calls for harsher firearms laws.

Per USA Today, the National Rifle Association (NRA) has been declared a "domestic terrorist organization" by officials in San Francisco after a shooting at a festival in Gilroy, California, left four people, including the gunman, dead and a further thirteen people injured.

In the social experiment below, a 13-year-old successfully buys a gun on a first try: 

[[jwplayerwidget||https://content.jwplatform.com/videos/kYaKAqKg-Q0L14jDU.mp4||kYaKAqKg]]

Officials concluded that the NRA was, in part, to blame for the prevalence of mass shootings, giving it what is a rare classification for a US lobbying group.

The resolution read: "All countries have violent and hateful people, but only in America do we give them ready access to assault weapons and large-capacity magazines thanks, in large part, to the National Rifle Association's influence."

It added that the US is being "plagued by an epidemic of gun violence" and that the NRA has used "its considerable wealth and organization strength to promote gun ownership and incite gun owners to acts of violence."

[[imagecaption|| Credit: Getty]]

While the classification can't limit the ability of the NRA to sell its products, it does mean that the city will "take every reasonable step to limit those entities who do business with the City and County of San Francisco from doing business with this domestic terrorist organization."

President Trump, however, has said the classification should have been given to the left-wing autonomous antifascist movement, Antifa.

[[imagecaption|| Credit: Getty]]

Responding to the classification, the NRA issued a statement which read: "This ludicrous stunt by the Board of Supervisors is an effort to distract from the real problems facing San Francisco, such as rampant homelessness, drug abuse and skyrocketing petty crime, to name a few."

"The NRA will continue working to protect the constitutional rights of all freedom-loving Americans."

If the last year and a half has taught us anything about the state of political opinion in America, it's that a lot of people are still patently racist. The country has seen white supremacist rallies taking place in major cities, a hard crackdown on immigrants from so-called "s**thole countries", and a worrying increase in hate crimes against Muslim people.

In fact, at least one academic paper found that "Trump's Tweets on Islam-related topics are highly correlated with anti-Muslim hate crime after, but not before the start of his presidential campaign", indicating that the president's actions can be linked to at least some anti-Islam attacks.

More recently, though, there has been a spate of high-profile racist incidents involving black Americans being reported to police for literally just going about their business. This time, it's for delivering newspapers.

Brandie Sharp, who lives in Upper Arlington, Ohio, was out delivering newspapers last Friday with her two sons, 12-year-old Uriah and 17-year-old Mycah, when she was stopped by police and asked what she was doing. Sharp explained that she was delivering papers, and had just sent her son back to retrieve some that were accidentally left at the wrong addresses.

When he seemed surprised, she asked, "Why are you questioning me about this?"

Apparently, someone had called the police on them.

In a report on ABC6, an audio clip of the call in question was played.

"It looked like at first they were delivering newspapers or something, but I noticed they were walking up to the houses with nothing in hand and one of them came back with something," a woman can be heard saying in the recording. "I mean, I don't want to say something was going on, but it just but it just seemed kind of suspicious."

In response, Sharp posted this message on Facebook:

[[facebookwidget||https://www.facebook.com/brandie.sharp/posts/10212139882229233]]

"What was suspicious at 5:30 in the evening? What was this big, you know, reasoning that you had to call the police?" she said in a TV interview. "Something as simple as delivering papers and it turns out to be I have to be racially profiled?"

Bryan McKean, an Arlington police officer, said that the caller had reported the "incident" after witnessing Sharp and her sons walking repeatedly back and forth to their car, dropping things off in the vehicle along the way. Law enforcement, McKean says, responded accordingly.

"Our officer could see that they were probably delivering newspapers, but he wasn't sure, so he pulled up next to the car, did not exit the vehicle, and asked if they were selling door to door," he said.

"She said 'No, I'm delivering papers,' and produced some paperwork with the delivery route on it. He said, 'Ok, have a good day,' or something like it, pulled away, and waved to the little boy as he drove off."

He then added: "If she feels that our agency didn't act appropriately or with anything less than respect, we encourage her to contact us."

As insignificant as this may seem to some people, it is yet another reminder to many that black people are perceived with suspicion in the USA, and that prejudice against them is still as strong as it ever was. For as long as incidents like this continue, America cannot hope to achieve equality amongst all races.