Director’s Statement
I set out to make CRIPS AND BLOODS: MADE IN AMERICA to answer the following questions: if affluent, middle-class white American teenagers were forming gangs, arming themselves with automatic weapons and killing one another, how would our country respond? Would our government step in to investigate the crisis, counsel the victims, heal the community, and direct funds towards a lasting solution? Or would our government allow this violence to continue unabated, decade after decade after decade?
To me the answer is quite obvious; I don’t believe our government would allow such a thing to ever take hold in white America as it would cause too much of a blight on our country’s image.
With that in mind then, why is it that young African-Americans have been involved in this spiral of death for over four decades with no viable solution in sight?
