This fall, Harvard will see a substantial
change to its normal recruiting season, as a number of street gangs begin
recruiting new members directly out of the senior class.
“In the past, students have been required
to approach recruiting gangs on their own,” explains Martha Richards, the new
Gangbanger Career Counselor at OCS. “But we’ve found this process to be
inefficient, time-consuming, and to be quite frank, a little dangerous. There
are a lot of strange gangs out there, and it can be hard for first-time ‘job’
seekers to know which ones to trust. We take the guesswork out of the process
by bringing gangs to the students.”
Current members of recruiting gangs agree
that in the past, the process of finding the ideal gang could be harrowing.
Jared Ashmore of the Crips reminisces, “When I first joined up, my boys wanted
me to mule, so they put a gun to my shit and told me to start swallowing
balloons.”
He added, “Of course, applicants under the
current system are no longer expected to know how to suppress their gag
reflex. We look to hire competent, goal-oriented people, and teach them the
skills they need once they’re on the job.”
The policy of most gangs seems to echo that
of the Crips. Richards explains, “Gangs today aren’t looking for any
particular skill. They’re looking for growth potential. Ask any gang, and
they’ll tell you they don’t care what your major is. All they want is someone
with 
a strong stomach, an itchy trigger finger, and a weak moral compass.”
While this is the case for most gangs,
Sean Townsend and Elise Schmidt of the Bloods admit that some of the more
specialized crews do have application requirements. “The Mafia wants economic
concentrators, the Yakuza requires that applicants be bilingual, and as for
me,” Townsend exclaimed with an exaggerated urban accent, “If I’m bringing a
new boy up into my hizzle, I best be damn sure he can drop some knowledge.”
“Applicants must be familiar with
Microsoft Office applications,” Schmidt clarified.
Regardless of the gang, duties seem to be
similar for all interns who survive the application and interview process. “If
it’s your first time in a gang, you can’t expect too much,” Richard cautions.
“You’ll probably spend a bit of time with clients, enforcing, collecting
protection money, and that sort of thing, but most of your work in the first
year will consist of coffee runs and light clerical.”
“It’s mostly about the experience,” agrees
Ashmore. “It’s about making connections. Heck, I didn’t pop my first cap until
my second year.”
Despite the somewhat monotonous nature of
most gangbanger internships, Richards and gang members agree that the
experience is worth it. According to Townsend, “If you isn’t shot, stabbed, or
canned for fucking up our filing system, you’ve got a good chance of being
offered a fulltime position as partner.”
States Richards, “That’s a real reason to
raise the roof. Do they say that?”
