A new female gang was discovered recently on the streets of East Orange. They call themselves the “FBI”. Catchy little acronym, eh? You might wonder just how these young women justify those initials. OK, here goes: Female Bitches In Charge.

That’s street language, all right. Light years away from the world of the grammatician, who would point out that “female bitches” is redundant, and “in charge” is a phrase consisting of two very independent words. A hyphen just wouldn’t work here. Thus, the acronym would more properly be BIC.

Of course, people who join street gangs do not earn their meals by making precise use of written and spoken language. They live in a world where brute force and sexual exchange are the language of government and commerce.

Does that mean that a gang member is necessarily less moral than a lawyer, businessman or senator, i.e. the people who command our world through the spoken and written word? I’ve seen a lot of deception and raw aggression asserted through the precise application of the mother tongue by highly educated and civilized people. Perhaps their means aren’t considered criminal, but their ends are hurtful none the less. Does that mean that I’d rather live in the world of Bloods, Crips and now the FBI? No, but mainly because I don’t play their game very well, whereby I can more or less survive against the word gangsters.

So long as we have Enrons and security firms giving bogus advice and sales strategies built around alluring advertisements aimed at getting the fast buck and politicians willing to say anything for the vote and businesses that poison our land and sea and skies, I would not tell a gang member in jail that my world is humanly superior to his (or hers, in the case of the FBI). Until my comfortable techno-suburban world becomes more honestly concerned about the streets where the gang bangers hail from, more willing to make some honest sacrifices to help people like them, and less tied to the unspoken official motto of the 21st Century (Screw You, I’ve Got Mine – and don’t think that charities aren’t some of the most enthusiastic practitioners of that), I’d say that we “mainstream” law-abiding Americans have nothing to be smug about.

You say that perhaps I should form a gang called the Bleeding Heart Liberals? The BHL, that is? Not bad, but not quite as catchy as “FBI” (although in a presumptuous mood, we could twist it around to “bleeding HEArt LibERalS”, i.e. HEALERS).