Walk With Me, Talk With Me
by phlux
Intro
Do you know what a throw up is? Tossing up? How about "flashing the sign?"
Street gangs use hand signals to communicate with their own group or faction. These signals may also be known as "walks."
I only bang keyboards, but I know enough about "stacking" to present to you this article on a method of secure communication. Note that some of the more specific gang related knowledge may be inaccurate or out of date.
What follows is a fair amount of information about the signals of actual gangs. You should know what you are dealing with before just making your own sign language. Some gangs have actual books of knowledge, containing the gang's creed and other symbols. Members study these books and may read from them during meetings.
Gang members can have complete conversations without saying a word, using advanced body and hand signals. These signals are often used for privacy purposes.
Caution!
First of all: a word of caution.
This applies especially if you live in large cities like Chicago, New York City, or Los Angeles. Be careful what you do with your hands, especially around people who look like they may be gang types. You may inadvertently catch a potential gang member's attention.
Or, worse, you might flash a rival gang's sign. This could be bad. It could just result in a "G check," where the gang member or members approach you and ask you to "rep yo set," which means they are asking what gang you represent, and for you to identify your name and rank.
In addition to allowing gangs to recognize their own members, gang signs are used to identify rivals. This is known as claiming, or representing.
Hackers and Phreakers
However, a gang stack may also appeal to a group of phreakers who regularly go out in the field to do such things as trashing.
Having your own stack also has advantages for a Capture the Flag or wargaming crew. If the stack is developed securely, you will be able to communicate at a reasonable distance and without worrying about about someone on the network sniffing your communications.
Your own stack will have other uses too; for example, if you and a buddy find yourselves in a jail cell. You may be monitored, and you should know that you should never talk about anything that can incriminate you with someone who you think is a fellow inmate. That "fellow inmate" may be a police officer planted there specifically to narc.
Knowing What to Avoid
There are certain handsigns you should avoid just to be safe, no matter where you live.
The first two are the CK and BK hand signs, or Crip Killer and Blood Killer. Look them up on the Internet and make yourself familiar with them. This should be easy; the CK hand sign looks like the letters C and K, and the BK hand sign is much the same.
Also, never say "crab," "slob," or, in Canada, "goof."
Crab is a derogatory term for Crips used by rival gangs which have been known to fight with other Crips groups. Slob may be just a variation of crab and is a derogatory term for a Blood. Goof is a Canadian prison slang term which literally means a pedophile but can be used to describe anything really despicable or bad.
Just to be safe, never say goof if you are in Canada; you might be around someone who has done time. Saying any of these words can have severe consequences.
Avoid throwing up "the horns."
This hand sign is commonly used among the Latin Kings. It means "I love you" in American Sign Language and is also used by satanists and heavy metal enthusiasts. To the Latin Kings, I believe it is supposed to represent a three-pointed crown. This sign may also be used to indicate a Blood Killer.
To see a very good Latin King stack, search YouTube for "Latin Kings yonkers stackin crowns" or see the links at the end of this article.
That guy can stack!
It's probably my favorite stack; the way he does it shows a lot of respect, demonstrates crowns with different numbers of points, and explains how everything relates to the "Kings." The speed at which goes near the end is also incredible.
Note the star he makes at the beginning with both hands. Five- and six-pointed stars should be avoided, especially in Chicago.
The five-pointed star is a symbol of the People's Alliance, which I believe was started in the Illinois penal system and runs strongest in Chicago.
The six-pointed star or Star of David is, like the pitchfork, a symbol of the Folks Alliance. To gang members and other people who use it, the pitchfork may represent the struggles to overcome oppression.
The stars may be gang knowledge applicable only to Chicago. Each point of the star has a different meaning, or "value." To Latin Kings, the five-pointed star represents a cluster of five island countries in the Caribbean: Puerto Rico, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Jamaica.
Search online for the Gangster Disciples hand sign; that is, the pitch fork.
Pointing that hand sign downwards should especially be avoided, as this shows disrespect, or worse. (I believe there is a scene in the movie Dangerous Minds where Michelle Pfeiffer flashes some gang members their own sign and then turns it upside down. The gang members react.)
A gang's letters or symbols shown backwards or upside down shows disrespect and may be used to make a threat.
In gang graffiti, a rival gang's name may be spelled out backwards to show disrespect and diss the gang mentioned.
Letters representing a rival gang, for instance "b" for Bloods or "c" for Crips, may be be crossed out for the same reason. It may be replaced with with the letter of the graffiti sprayer's gang, so "Crip" may turn into "Brip."
Crips and Bloods may even refuse to pronounce or write the letters C, B, or P, instead just "mark out" the opposing gang's letters when writing.
"P" here also indicates the Bloods, as the Bloods were founded on Piru Street in Los Angeles. Piru may refer to a Blood, or it may more specifically refer to a set such as the Piru x Bloods, or a member of such a set.
Crossing out a handsign such as the C for crip, with the other hand making a slash like a cent sign, is one way of showing disrespect. Another way is to make a handsign and break it over the knee, raising the knee slightly.
On a related, interesting note, look at the word Piru. Read it backwards, but rotate the U so it becomes a C. Similarly, "blood" written upside down is PLOOP. If you ever see graffiti with a down arrow, chances are its a gang indicating you are on their turf. However, some elaborate graffiti art makes use of arrows.
You may have seen the Bloods hand sign somewhere. The fingers of both hands actually spell out the word b-l-o-o-d. There is a Crip hand sign which has a spelling of their letters as well, using both hands.
Gang members may "false flag" a hand sign to a rival gang member. Suppose a Crip sees someone he thinks is a Blood. He may just throw up the GD sign, to see if the person in question is indeed a Blood, by waiting for him to throw up his own sign. After this, the initiator may throw up his real hand sign, maybe a C for a Crip.
Gang colors are not an indicator of a particular gang. Bloods may be seen wearing blue jeans, or bandannas in a color other than red. Gang members may disguise themselves in non-gang or rival gang colors. Some sets just wear other colors, as in the case of Lime Street Pirus, who are affiliated with the Bloods. Guess what their color is.
Not all gangs of the same name use the same hand sign. The Bloods and the Crips have no centralized leadership, so every set, faction, or trey is different. Some sets are not satellite sets; these are known as clone sets. These are gangs who use the name of a larger gang but which have no ties to the larger gang in, for example, Chicago or Los Angeles.
Gangs often use a character's ordinal position in the alphabet to represent that character. For example, "1 4 18" means "A D R" which ultimately stands for Amor de Rey, which is a Latin King saying meaning "king's love."
If you ever see 187 somewhere, like on a wall, it means murder. It is a numeric code in use by the police. Section 187 of the California Penal Code is for the crime of murder. For more information, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/187_(slang).
Walk the Walk
You may be thinking: with all the gangs out there, what can you safely stack?
If you are around strangers, the answer is nothing. But in the dead of night, or the shelter of a hacker convention, you can stack pretty safely. You don't have to avoid every sign in use by other gangs that would leave none for you to communicate with!
Avoid the ones mentioned and avoid flashing in public unless you have to.
When making your stack, the most secure way is to do it on paper.
You could even use spy paper which is destroyed when it comes into contact with water. Get a sign language dictionary if you can't think of new ways to contort your fingers and come up with motions. Don't just copy the definitions from the dictionary. Photocopy the pages with your hand signs and mail them out securely to friends. If you have to send them digitally, use strong encryption.
Familiarize yourself with other gangs' signs, like those of the Vice Lords, MS-13, and so on. Again, check out the links at the end of this article. Check out their graffiti for symbols they may use.
The bigger your stack, the more useful it will be for communication. Keep in mind that you have to memorize whatever you create. Try using mnemonics, but be careful not to compromise the security of your stack.
Think of symbols or letters that you can make with your hands. Don't forget the motions. You can even have a behind-the-back-stack. One hand sign that should come to mind, especially if you are a phreak, is the sign for phone, which I believe also means "hang loose": thumb and pinky extended, middle three fingers closed and clenched into a partial fist.
You may be lucky like me and be able to spell out your area code with your fingers.
For me, it is as follows: four fingers on the right hand extended, thumb folded: four.
On the left hand the thumb tip touches the pointer tip: zero.
Remaining fingers on left hand extended: three. 403.
If you want to be a bit more dramatic, you can point your hands downwards, and then cross your arms and reverse the digits to have the 403 sign at your shoulders.
You may want to change up your stack at certain times. Some signs may not need changing if they do not compromise security.
Here are some tactical hand signals from the textfile handsig.txt, which I compiled in 2003. I got these from the manual for Daryl F. Gates' Police Quest: SWAT simulator game, which is otherwise a waste of money. You might find these useful for field phreaking or urban exploration:
- Clenched fist = hold
- Flat hand, horizontally = take cover
- Fist with arm at right angle = hurry
- Flat hand with all fingers spread = suspect
- Snapping fingers (in motion) = attention
- Index finger pointing = look
- Thumb up = clear
- Flat hand, vertically = stop
- Flat hand, horizontally at neck (in motion) = kill
- Index finger against lips = "STFU"
Outro
Is it really necessary to stack?
No, but it can be fun, and it may bring you and your hacker buddies closer together. I was wondering if I could make a linguistic analysis of the signs, but your process can be much simpler. Just pick up a pocket dictionary of signs, and use it as a reference. And watch stacking videos on YouTube for inspiration.
Try to get creative and make your own signs. Here are some that I thought of:
W x Y: ASCII art for the female form. The signs can be flashed in succession. I stole this from a Beavis and Butt-Head comic, in which Beavis said, "Drawing naked chicks is as easy as W x Y!"
x_X or o_O: Mugging or confusion. With Xs, this may also symbolize death. This hand sign is made by touching the thumb and pointer finger together while bending and folding the middle finger to touch the joint on the pointer.
Two utility knife razor blades touching each other at their sharp ends. This symbol and hand sign is used to represent being on the "cutting edge." To make the hand sign, make the universal hand sign for a phone handset on both hands. Touch your pinkies and thumbs together. This makes a diamond-like shape, and your knuckles represent the notches in the razor blades.
C(_): Coffee mug. This may resemble the GD hand sign. To make this sign, do the o_0 sign and just open your thumb and pointer to make the cup.
<3: The heart. This has gang connotations but can be used safely. I saw this in O Magazine (don't ask).
Hold your fingers on one hand together with no gaps between them, while leaving the thumb free. This looks like a cane. (The Vice Lords use canes like this.) Do this with both hands and bring them together to make a heart, with the fingertips and thumbs touching. Now, figure out how to make a heart with your hands and a diamond at the same time for another heart hand sign.
Another fun idea is to have a call. This is a noise you make as if you were an animal. The Bloods roll their tongues and say "Blllaaattt!" or "Brrrattt!" to mimic an automatic gun like an Uzi. The Crips have a similar call as well. These calls are used to intimidate.
"Rrrrrriiiiiiiinnnnnnggggg!"
Links
Latin Kings (Yonkers, NY King Chucho): www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B4MDVIsLN0 Best stack evar.
Hand Signs: www.chicagogangs.org/index.php?pr=HAND_MAIN
Imperial Gangster: www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-4jJAK767E Fun. I like their colors (pink and black), plus it has a taste of some wicked music from 1990s tapes.
World's fastest "Blood" handsign: www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiDaXAA5hyk The laugh is hilarious.
MS-13 Stack jeroenarendsen.nl/2007/01/ms13-and-other-gangs-gestures
Chi Town Gangstaz: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S2nBKQayVM Another just for fun video.
My nigga Lil B 5tackin Bbbbblllllaaaaattttt: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZOzIQkMwKc A great stacking video, this time a Blood. See if you can catch him throwing the pitchfork.