# Read the first page of Monster by Sanyika Shakur Read the opening of Monster by Sanyika Shakur free, no signup. A former gang member recounts violence, prison, identity, and life inside the Crips. - Page: https://uncovered.ink/read/monster-sanyika-shakur - Genre: Crime memoir - Year: 1993 - ISBN: 9781611858747 - Read it blind (cover and title hidden): https://uncovered.ink/?b=9781611858747&s=read-page - Buy: https://bookshop.org/a/125786/9781611858747 - Borrow: https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=9781611858747 ## The opening @@CHAP@@ PREFACE Helicopters hover heavily above, often no higher than the tree-tops that dot the battlefield. Staccato vibrations of automatic gunfire crack throughout the night, drowned out only by explosions and sirens. People hustle quickly past, in a dangerous attempt to get anywhere the fighting happens to be heaviest. There is troop movement throughout the city, and in some areas the fighting is intense. The soldiers are engaged in a “civil war.” A war without terms. A war fought by any means necessary, with anything at their disposal. This conflict has lasted nine years longer than Vietnam. Though the setting is not jungle per se, its atmosphere is as dangerous and mysterious as any jungle in the world. Neither side receives funding from any government, nor does either side claim any allegiance to any particular religion or socioeconomic system of government. There are no representatives from either faction in the United Nations, nor does either side recognize the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Recruitment, or conscription, begins at eleven years of age. Squads of five usually make raids into neighboring territories for preemptive strikes or retaliatory hits on enemies and targets useful to the opposition. Although both armies are predominantly made up of males, there are many females involved in the fighting. These infrastructures were built initially on robberies and extortions. Today, however, they are maintained by proceeds from major narcotics deals and distribution throughout America. Each army has a distinct territory—the boundaries of some very large areas are broken by enemy cluster camps. Each army has a flag, to which total allegiance is pledged. Each army has its own language, customs, and philosophy, and each has its own GNP. The war has been raging on for twenty-two years. The death toll is in the thousands—wounded, uncountable, missing-in-action unthinkable. No one is keeping a tally. No one has noticed, except for those recently involved in the fighting and those indirectly drawn in by geographical location, economic status, or family association. Other than this, the war has been kept from the world, hidden like an ugly scar across the belly of an otherwise beautiful woman. Under the guise of being a showpiece for the world where prosperity is as easily found as water in a stream, America, for all her ostensible beauty, has an ugly scar across her belly that she has tried repeatedly to suppress and keep hidden from curious onlookers. More than a few times she has almost been exposed, and this ugliness brought to light, but always another garment would quickly be thrown over the rough spot and all the turmoil and ugliness again blanketed. But not this time. On April 29, 1992, the world witnessed the eruption of South Central Los Angeles, the concrete jungle—battlefield of the Crips and Bloods. The scar of over twenty years that had been tucked out of sight and passed off as “just another ghetto problem” burst its suture and spewed blood all across the stomach of America. People watched in amazement as “gang members,” soldiers of the Crip army, pelted cars with rocks, sticks, and bottles, eventually pulling civilians from their vehicles and beating them. This was hours after they had routed a contingent of LAPD officers. Troop movement escalated, and Los Angeles was set ablaze. All this began on Florence and Normandie in South Central, the latest Third World battlefield. I have lived in South Central Los Angeles all my life. I grew up on Florence and Normandie. That is part of my territory. I was recruited into the Crips at the ripe old age of eleven. Today I am twenty-nine years old. I am a gang expert—period. There are no other gang experts except participants. Our lives, mores, customs, and philosophies remain as mysterious and untouched as those of any “uncivilized” tribe in Afrika. I have come full circle in my twenty-nine years on this planet, sixteen of those with the Crips. I have pushed people violently out of this existence and have fathered three children. I have felt completely free and have sat in total solitary confinement in San Quentin state prison. I have shot numerous people and have been shot seven times myself. I have been in gunfights in South Central and knife fights in Folsom state prison. Today, I languish at the bottom of one of the strictest maximum-security state prisons in this country. ## Books with a similar feel - [A Mother's Reckoning by Sue Klebold](https://uncovered.ink/read/a-mothers-reckoning-sue-klebold.md) - [Vienna Triangle by Brenda Webster](https://uncovered.ink/read/vienna-triangle-brenda-webster.md) - [London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe](https://uncovered.ink/read/london-falling-patrick-radden-keefe.md) - [Tall Oaks by Chris Whitaker](https://uncovered.ink/read/tall-oaks-chris-whitaker.md) - [Chasing the Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar](https://uncovered.ink/read/chasing-the-boogeyman-richard-chizmar.md) - [King of Ashes by S. A. Cosby](https://uncovered.ink/read/king-of-ashes-s-a-cosby.md) --- Source: Uncovered (https://uncovered.ink). A short sample shown for reading and discovery. Rights holders can request removal at https://uncovered.ink/takedown.