American Gangster: Rayful Edmond, III

a twitter post that became something longer. gangsters are truly complicated.

I saw a post earlier about the passing of Rayful Edmond, that he’d passed at 60 and the immediate thought was “Rest in Peace.”

I thought that, immediately recognizing the reasons that sentiment is polarizing. There’s something about gangsters and how they command the fascinations of folks within a community.

It may be the fact that they found a way to beat inherently racist power structures. We find ourselves trapped in a webs of abject poverty and marvel at others who had the audacity to make it out.

Rayful Edmond, “Freeway” Rick Ross, Frank Lucas, Rich Porter… don’t differ significantly from celebrated Italian crime bosses like Lucky Luciano, Al Capone, etc.. They are all wrapped in a folklore that doesn’t hit you if you aren’t intimately entangled in their carnage.

There are sharply conflicting feelings knowing that all of the aforementioned defied the odds, they rose to heights far beyond our collective imaginations. Succeeded greatly with the tools at their disposal, in the only industry that would allow them.

We don’t all get the corner office in the high rise. Some of our lives are defined by our ability to consistently turn shit into sugar.