BET's American Gangster

I have become hooked on the show American Gangster that comes on BET, Wednesdays at 10pm. The show is only a few episodes into it's second season, and has been full of stories of real life hustlers. Men that despite the life they chose to lead were respected by many, mostly because they all started with nothing and made millions of dollars on the street. Some even earned the respect of the police detectives that followed them and some ministers. These men came up under rough circumstances and did what they felt was there only option out of a rough situation and make money. They were all chasing the "American Dream." There is no doubt the life they chose was wrong. The ones that are still living are telling there story from behind bars and some would tell you themselves it was wrong. But there lifestyle is not for me or any other man to judge, that final judgment is reserved for our Creator.

I watch the show because despite how some feel about these men they shared one thing in common, they were intelligent. Any man that can make millions of dollars has got to have some intelligence. I once watched a story several years ago about one of the few mafia crime bosses that lived to be an old man, and he was asked if he had any regrets looking back over his life. He said that he did not have any regrets, but if given the chance to do it all over again he admitted he would not have chosen the life of crime because "it takes the same brain power to make a million dollars legally, as it does to make a million dollars illegally." There is very little difference between the financial thought process of the founder of a Fortune 500 company and the men whose story is told on American Gangster.

There were a few things that stuck out in the last two episodes that were different from previous episodes. The next to last episode was about a man named Melvin Williams that grew up in Baltimore. Little Melvin, as he was called, grew up gambling for high stakes and started selling drugs when he was busted for the first time by police that planted drugs on him. He later became the biggest heroin dealer in Baltimore. The character of Avon Barksdale on the HBO show The Wire is based on the life of Little Melvin. That entire show is based on how the police taped Melvin's phones and tried to bring him down.

With The Wire being another show I like to watch, it was interesting seeing the life of the man the show was created around. Melvin even has a role on the wire as the Bishop. But there were still two things that stuck out to me while watching this episode of American Gangster.

The first thing was Melvin was not telling his story from behind bars. He had done 26 years total on several different occasions and missed time with his family that he will never get back, but today he is a free man. The second thing was that among people that spoke on the intelligence and discipline of Melvin were a police detective and a couple of ministers. The detective was the one that was following Melvin around trying to take him down. Watching this episode I got the feeling that McNulty, a character on The Wire, is based on this detective who is also a producer on The Wire. The reason these two things stuck out to me is because this was the first time I had seen either happen on this show. As I said earlier, every man that is still living is telling his story from behind bars, all except Melvin.

The last episode made me confused and a little upset about who they chose to profile. The last episode of American Gangster featured the DC snipers John Allen Mohammed and Lee Boyd Malvo. They do not belong on this show. The men profiled before the snipers grow up in the 60's and 70's, a time when there violence was directed towards those who threatened them. As sad as it was they were killing each other, the snipers sought out innocent victims randomly. The actions of the DC snipers was cowardly, there was nothing considered gangster about what they did. American Gangster is an interesting show, but I could have done without that last episode.