History Channel: Origin of gang name, "Crips"

[Wilson Gray]

According to the History Channel, the true origin of the gang name,
_Crips_, is lost to history. <har! har!> However, the HC does offer 2½
theories:

1. The original Crip[ple]s walked about their territory carrying
standard, crook-necked walking-canes (as the old blues song has it:
"Look [...] wall / Hand me down my _walking-cane_") as their standard,
i.e. essentially, the claim posted here by your humble correspondent

2. A Korean store-owner reported to the police that the robbers were
"the crippled boys," consonant with my claim, i.e. they probably were
carrying their canes, causing the propritor to refer to them as
"crippled"

½. The Crips have a special way of walking, shown in the HC's doc.


IMO, the Crip-walk is derived from the manner in which a person
crippled in one leg walks, though they no longer carry canes.
Naturally, that would be my opinion, given that my claim is not only
that the Crips *carried* canes, but also that they also walked in such
away as to mimic the walk of a genuinely-crippled man. Furthermore,
the HC was not presenting anyone's theory, but was merely showing a
Crip walkinng the walk. (Y'all didn't know that phrase had a referent
in reality.)  Hence, merely "half." YMMV

FWIW, 'fo' I got hip to sE, the tool was a "walking-cane." Simple
"cane" was only a useful material normally used for making
fishing-poles and such.
--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

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