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Hebron beating reignites Juggalo debate

With the recent negative headlines about crimes committed by Juggalos the debate about Juggalos allegedly being a gang or cult has sparked up again. Jeremy Cox, a writer for Delmarva Now recently published an article looking at the debate.

Jeremy discusses Juggalo culture, the tattoo carving, homeless Juggalos, and more.  This is an interesting article to read. You can read the full article below.

From delmarvanow.com:

Since emerging in the mid-1990s, ICP has amassed a large fan base. But some of those fans’ actions have attracted the wrong kind of attention

To some, they are harmless misfits, young people who wear clown makeup, chug off-brand soda and cheer “Whoop! Whoop!” to identify themselves as members of a global “family.”

The brutal beating and burning of a Hebron man last week that police blamed on a pair of fellow followers of the hip-hop act Insane Clown Posse, though, bespoke another, darker image.

The story of Zachary Swanson’s near-fatal beating was sensational enough to spread like wildfire across the country. It dominated readership at DelmarvaNow.com for days and has appeared in one form or another in media outlets as diverse as the online versions of Time and Spin magazines and the British national tabloid The Daily Mirror.

Behind the splashy headlines, however, lies a national debate that’s been growing in volume with each high-profile crime attributed to a Juggalo member.

Critics of the group point to a 2011 FBI assessment that labeled the Detroit-based duo’s most devout fans “a loosely-organized hybrid gang.”

Many groups of Juggalos — or Juggalettes, if they’re female — threaten civil society, with their tendencies toward “violence, drug use/sales and their general destructive and violent nature,” the FBI concluded.

But emerging social research is reaching a different conclusion: Juggalos, like many outcast groups, have been misunderstood.

Insane Clown Posse’s fan group “is not a gang and it is not a cult,” said Karen Bettez Halnon, a sociologist at Penn State Abington who has written several papers about Juggalo culture.

“It is an outcast community of belonging,” she said, “a space and place for many who are poor and who have sad tales of abuse and rejection, a place of acceptance and love.”

The hip-hop group (Twitter handle @ICP) consists of two artists who virtually always wear clown makeup in public appearances — Joseph Bruce, who performs under the name Violent J, and Joseph Utsler, also known as Shaggy 2 Dope. The duo’s own troubled early biographies have endeared them to people with similar backgrounds of poverty and abuse, Halnon said.

They belong to a genre that typically gets little radio play.

Horrorcore hip-hop is rife with graphically sexual and violent lyrics. But the performances are deliberately tongue-in-cheek, like a Roger Corman film set to music.

Juggalos are known for wearing the duo’s “evil” clown makeup to gatherings. Some further distinguish themselves by drinking Faygo, a soda brand mentioned often in the duo’s lyrics.

ICP wears the label “the most hated band in the world” like a badge of honor. But the large, boisterous fan base they’ve amassed since emerging in the mid-1990s belies that description.

Some of those fans’ actions have attracted the wrong kind of attention, though.

In January 2010, two suspected Juggalos were arrested on charges of beating and robbing an elderly homeless man. A year later, a Juggalos member shot and wounded a couple in King County, Washington.

The FBI accuses Juggalo members of “gang-like behavior,” saying that authorities in 21 states have identified 21 criminal groups associated with ICP’s followers. Their behavior was growing more disturbing as of the 2011 assessment, escalating from petty theft and vandalism to felony assaults and robberies, the law-enforcement agency found.

For its part, the musical act has fought such accusations. The American Civil Liberties Union joined the band in a federal lawsuit claiming that the gang classification had violated its freedom of speech.

A federal judge in Michigan dismissed the suit last month, opining that the federal government isn’t responsible for the actions of local police agencies. The ICP and ACLU are appealing the decision.

Carving off a tattoo, then burning it

Then came the Hebron incident.

Two men –– Paul Martin Hurst, 33, and Cary Lee Edwards, 35 — beat one of their housemates Aug. 4 because they didn’t believe he had earned his ICP tattoo, alleges the Wicomico County Sheriff’s Office. They first tried carving it off Zachary Swanson’s arm with a knife, then used lighter fluid in an attempt to burn it off, deputies said.

Hurst and Edwards are being held in jail without bond on charges that include attempted first-degree murder.

Swanson, 31, is still receiving medical treatment in Baltimore, a Sheriff’s Office spokesman said Wednesday. Part of Swanson’s arm had to be amputated.

It is unfair to attribute the bad behavior of a few members to the whole group, Halnon said.

“The actions of these men … is a very un-Juggalo way of acting,” she said.

Media stories often don’t help a group’s cause because they fail to discriminate between the actions of individuals and the larger group, said James Burton, a media studies professor at Salisbury University.

“The impulse for sensationalistic stories and ratings mean that such incidents come to stand in for all members of a subculture,” he said. “That’s not to say that what happened isn’t terrible. It’s just that I’m suspicious when an event comes to represent an apparent movement that, in turn, represents an entire group of fans.”

Homeless identify as Juggalos

Robin Petering, a doctoral student in social work at the University of Southern California, found herself researching Juggalos after meeting so many in her work with homeless youths. A couple years ago, she gave questionnaires to nearly 400 homeless young people in the Los Angeles area to learn more about them.

One out of six of the youths identified themselves as Juggalos, it turned out.

They were twice as likely as other survey respondents to have spent time in jail and four times as likely to have been in a recent fight. They also were more likely to have done drugs and have witnessed someone being severely injured or threatened, she found.

“They’re obviously a population at risk for violence and poor outcomes, so we need to think of them beyond being just weird,” Petering said in an interview.

She emphasized that their “poor outcomes” aren’t necessarily a result of being Juggalos or being influenced by ICP’s music. The act’s followers just tend to have experienced more troubles, Petering said.

Ultimately, people should consider the bigger picture behind the Hebron incident, Halnon said.

“It seems a group of people were living together in poverty,” she said. “The real savagism involved may be the horrid things that marginalizing and stigmatizing the poor — including their attempts to find alternative community — produces.”

[email protected]

410-845-4630

On Twitter @Jeremy_Cox

What is the Insane Clown Posse?

A Detroit-based hip-hop act consisting of two performers, Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope. It’s part of the horrocore genre, which features over-the-top lyrics about sex and violence.

What are the Juggalos?

Don’t call ICP’s followers “fans.” They prefer the term Juggalos — Juggalettes, in the case of women.

The FBI’s stance?

Juggalos are a “a loosely-organized hybrid gang” with a presence in many states. In small, disorganized groups, they commit vandalism, assault and other crimes, according to the FBI.

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    Faygoluvers Comments

  1. AlQuelude

    Comment posted on Friday, August 15th, 2014 08:35 am GMT -5 at 8:35 am

    Terrible

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