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HBO: How did you go from gang member to documentary filmmaker?
Cle "Bone" Sloan: I grew up in South Central, Los Angeles.
Had no aspirations of being a filmmaker at all, didn't know what I was
going to do. I thought pretty much I would do like everybody else--
hopefully not die, but, I thought I probably would spend the rest of my
life in prison. Or, a big chunk of my life in prison.
And then I met Jim Brown through an intervention program, and me and
him started to talk, and he took an interest in me, and then kindly became
my mentor. He got me a job as a production assistant on some films.
And then I moved to a camera PA, to a second AC, bangin' the slate,
putting down marks for the actors, so, at that point, to me, I had made it.
I was saved: I had, not a job, but a career. It kept me out of the streets,
because you're shooting fourteen hours a day. So I would use that just to
escape from the 'hood. Because I was such a high-profile cat as far as
the gangs were concerned, and I was always into something.
Art saved my life. I fell in love with filmmaking. The process. I just
became obsessed with it. And I was obsessed with my neighborhood
also. So, what I did was, I kind of married the two, and I always loved
documentaries, before I even knew they were called documentaries. And
that was the beginning of 'Bastards of the Party.'
HBO: What makes this different from other films about gangs is your
perspective.
Cle "Bone" Sloan: The key thing is it's told from the inside out. That's what really
separates 'Bastards.' I have enough credibility to go in any neighborhood --
Compton, Watts, the Nickerson Garden Projects, Jordan Dams -- because
I'm known there. I'm known in jail, so I started bringing my camera with me,
and sitting down, like, friends. My partners, my homies. And they would
open up, because, we knew each other.
HBO: Were there things in the making of the film -- either challenges
that you had to overcome or things that you just didn't expect to
encounter -- that surprised you, touched you, blew you away?
Cle "Bone" Sloan: The history, man, the history. I got a little obsessed with the
history. The guys before me that's in their fifties and sixties, weren't even
allowed to go in the city. That just blew me away. They said, 'Yeah, we
would get together, ten, fifteen, twenty of us sometimes, just to go to the
movies in Inglewood, so we wouldn't be attacked or slaughtered by the
spook hunters.' And I'm going, 'The spook hunters, who are they?' And
they said, 'Well, these was the white guys, and they controlled Compton,
and they controlled Lynwood, and Downey, and they controlled the
streets, basically. And they was some bad white boys.' That was the
most shocking thing to me, is, these black gangs who came together out
of response to this white Compton gang. That sounds crazy in itself:
white Compton. And that's where I started learning about the history of
Los Angeles black gangs.
HBO: Can you talk a little about COINTELPRO?
Cle "Bone" Sloan: COINTELPRO, the Counter-Intelligence Program, was started by
the government. And their whole objective was to neutralize any black
movement in America, that they thought a threat. The Panthers being the
biggest threat in America at one time. And these are probably the cream
of the crop, some of the most intelligent brothers that you ever were
going to meet. They broke down that whole infrastructure very quickly,
in two, three years. They turned them against each other, and jailed their
leadership. Geronimo Pratts in jail. Huey P. Newton in jail. John
Huggins dead. Bunchy Carter, who was like, the mayor of Los Angeles,
really, he was killed. And that's what made everybody say, wow, see, if
you get involved with the politics they'll kill you. So, I'm just going to
look out for me, and my family. It went from community success to
individual success. I think that's where black-on-black crime really just
exploded.
HBO: With this film it seems like you're putting a challenge to yourself
and everyone around you.
Cle "Bone" Sloan: I totally had to challenge myself, totally had to keep it real with
myself, as we say. We walk around with this pain of some of the stuff
we've done. We might not even talk about it to each other. But when you
do a violent act to somebody, it stays with you forever. Forever. And,
you know, this is not about oil, or millions of dollars, it's about, who
killed who in retaliation for this or that death. And we don't have a
justice system that's going to prosecute those guys, so we become judge
and jury. We play God, in our community, who's going to live, who's
going to die.
Not to sound like a victim or anything, but it's kind of hard to really
function in mainstream society. You know, you've got the soldiers
coming home from Iraq, they're going to have a problem if they don't get
some type of psychiatric help. And we've never had that luxury. And
this war's been going on since 1969. Man, that's longer than any
American war. And it's a war. No doubt about it. Iraq's low numbers
was eight hundred, seven hundred, a thousand a year. We were riding
those same numbers. Think about it. No hand grenades. No helicopter
bombs. This is just straight up, one-on-one, old fashioned gangbangin'.
I thought it was a given that I had to do this all my life. I didn't really see
a way out. My whole status was based on what I did as a gang member. I
accepted that. At least I'm not invisible, you know what I mean, in this
world of gang banging, at least I'm somewhat of the man in this little
arena, maybe not the corporate world, maybe not IBM, but they know
about me in my own little world. And I think that's what, all kids want. I
think people want to be recognized, and, understood, and respected. And
in that world, that's what I was.
HBO: How do you stop from wanting to go and kill the guy who killed
your brother?
Cle "Bone" Sloan: Well, see, I started, like I said, to challenge myself. And I had to
really tell my homeboys, look man, I'm not doing it anymore. Y'all can
say what you want to say about me, y'all can do what you want to do to
me, I'm not doing it anymore. What guys usually do, they kind of segue
out of it, they either move away, or, they kind of start drifting out as they
get older. But I made a clear attempt to tell my closest friends, I'm not
doing it anymore, man. And then my homie's like, man, if you don't go, a
lot of people's going to stop. And I said, well, I guess we're going to stop
then, because I'm stopping. And then I started getting letters from the
penitentiary, and I started writing them back, listen, I'm not doing
anymore, spread the word, Bone is done. And once I stopped, the
intensity level started coming down in my neighborhood, because I
spearheaded a lot of stuff. So it became a relief for a lot of guys that I
wasn't going crazy anymore so they didn't have to go crazy. And I didn't
realize that until I really stopped.
HBO: How has the film been received in your community?
Cle "Bone" Sloan: Just over the last couple of months, I've been showing it to strictly
gangsters in Los Angeles. And that's where I was really nervous about.
Because, you know, as a gang member, it's all about revenge. So, if I say,
"When I meet [my brother's] killer, I'm not going to do anything to him,"
it's like treason. We battle with these guys called the East Coast Crips
(from the East Side of Los Angeles.) And I saw twenty of them in the
theater. And there was a bunch of my guys there too. I didn't know what
was going to happen. I was a nervous wreck. And at the end of it, man,
everybody talked, we stood out there and we talked for hours. And then
the Grape Street Crips came -- some of the most notorious Crips in Los
Angeles. I was like, oh, shit.
Their guys had the reputation of having no open-mindedness, they're
from one of the roughest projects in LA. And, you know, a lot of those
guys, they were crying. It seems to me, every time somebody sees this
film, it's a relief. I see guys sitting up straight in their chair, because what
the film really says is that we came out of some really powerful shit,
man, we came out of the derailment of the black liberation movement.
That's how we ended up as Crips and Bloods. We came out of something
good, is what I'm trying to say. And I think that gives guys a sense of
pride. Like, wow, we're not just a bunch of crazy guys, this is what
happened?!
HBO: What do you think the future is, what's the forecast?
Cle "Bone" Sloan: The climate, the winds of change are blowing. But as we're trying
to get it together, the system is just crushing us like it's never done
before. I've got friends who went and got jobs at Wal-Mart, because
they're really trying to change their lives. Well, the cops go to Wal-Mart,
and tell the manager, hey, that guy, this guy, all those guys you hired?
That's the worst guys in the world, you don't want those guys working
here. So they fire them. And that's the part that scares me, because,
everywhere we turn the doors are being closed now. Boom, boom,
boom, and so guys are getting, like, the f**k it attitude again. And not
really towards each other, but towards the system.
HBO: How would you fix things?
Cle "Bone" Sloan: I would try to explain how we're trying to fix it now. We're really
trying to stop the killing. We're really trying. You've got to let us try to
do better for ourselves as individuals. Forget as gang members, this is
individuals. Look at me as a man, an individual who's trying to get a job,
instead of lumping us all together as this big gang. You guys could shut
down the Panthers in thirty-six months -- guys who were organizing, who
had Ph. D's and were in college. But here we are, way less organized,
way dumber, but our thing has been able to parlay for years? This
country has the capability of doing all the things they want to do. So are
you really trying to stop this? Because it seems like everybody who tries
to stop it gets locked up for a long time. And the guys who are just wild
and going crazy, they leave out there. So, from where I'm sitting, I would
ask them, what are you really trying to do? Because it's time, and people
are willing to change. I hear it every day in the neighborhood. Now that I
know the whole story from A to Z, I have a responsibility not to just
leave the gang, but to stay and deal with the individuals in the criminal
surroundings. Like: 'Look man, you know me. I was the worst of the
worst. Whatever I can do, I'll help you.'
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