Amateur teardrop tattoos?

[CornField]

I've heard that those teardrop tattoos mean that the person has killed someone (one tear for each killing). Is that true?

[mr_hat]

1. Also, never flash your brights at an on-coming car.

[CornField]

2. Oh, come on... I'm not an ignorant bitch about most things

And when I do find myself along the path of ignorance, I stop and ask for directions.

I'm not sure how asking for information has become some sort of an open invitation for ridicule.

[Shredr]

6. Hear, hear!

I've asked questions before that others think are stupid and decide to ridicule me about instead of just answering. There's a lot that I know and a lot that I don't. The things I don't, I'm gonna ask about.

Good for you for standing up for yourself.

[mr_hat]

10. Just joshing, sorry. Didn't mean it as ridicule. As to the tears,

I've heard that, too. But then, I've also heard about the light flashing thing, so...

[RagingInMiami]

12. the light flashing thing was an urban myth

associated with the same gangbangers that have teardrop tattoos.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I've seen more extreme cases of ridicule on DU.

[mr_hat]

15. Thanks, Mulletman.

[mr_hat]

20. OH! I put a "g" in brackets after that! Didn't show up.

No ridicule intended, past mullets or no! Sorry one and all -- I'm mostly silly and good-hearted. Please consider that before you assume flames/ridicule/general wickedness.

Thanks, RIM.

[RagingInMiami]

26. see what i mean?

[uppityperson]

7. Why? n/t

[livinginphotographs]

8. I could be wrong, but....

I've heard gang members drive around with their lights off, and then when someone flashes them, it's an initiation thing to go beat the shit out of that person.

[uppityperson]

11. Thanks. I thought it was to warn oncoming traffic of police ahead.

Telling them to slow down. Guess I should watch where I flash my lights.

[auntAgonist]

3. I also have heard this and I don't think I've ever

really known it to be true or false. Interesting question though. I'd like to know too.

[punpirate]

4. I've heard that and other variants...

... but I wonder about the bit about killings (would sort of make a person an obvious suspect for the police).

Among gangs, particularly Asian, an open teardrop is supposed to indicate that someone has killed another, while a closed teardrop indicates jail time or loss of family member or friend.

Much, much earlier, on skinheads and white supremacists, they were called "Hitler's tears" and were meant to variously suggest sympathy with Hitler's racial views or grief over Hitler's death. What the significance of multiple numbers of them is, I don't know, in the latter case.

Like so many other ways in which one is outside a sub-culture and unable to know for sure, the meaning probably varies considerably to those on the inside.

[Ellen Forradalom]

5. the most common explanation I hear is one for each jail term

I've never felt it wise to go up to a person with such a tattoo and ask, though.

[xmas74]

18. I met a guy at the local grocery store w/ one not too long ago.

He was bagging groceries. I'll ask him next time-I usually can act so stupid about it that no one really questions me about it and then I get away with it.

[madison2000]

9. A guy who works at my local bagel shop has one- its blue

I thought it was a birthmark for the longest time!

[KyndCulture]

13. Don't feel bad I just learned one too..

A spiderweb tattoo around someone's elbow is a skinhead.

shrug. Silly me I thought it was cool looking.

[jmowreader]

14. It's a skinhead who killed a black person

Many years ago, a skinhead named James Burmeister (who was at the time in the 82nd Airborne) killed two black people so he could "earn" his spiderweb tattoo.

That's when we in Fayettenam learned that there are four kinds of skinheads:

* Racist skinheads are the biggest threat.
* Non-racist skinheads hate everyone without regard to religion, race, creed, moral standing or whatever.
* Anti-racist skinheads save their vitriol for the racist skinheads.
* Simulated skinheads really aren't skinheads, but they figure that since the 82nd makes them get that kind of a haircut anyway they may as well get the leather jacket and the loud-music CDs.

[MrSlayer]

19. The spiderweb on the elbow is for a murder.

Sometimes gang related, sometimes not.

[KyndCulture]

22. yikes... that's scary! nt

[MrSlayer]

23. Yeah but a lot of people get them now because they are "cool"

As with the tears, most people do not know the real meaning and just get them to be trendy. I know some 1% bikers and they hate seeing some young kid wearing them without having "made their bones". Being trendy can get you a beating in certain circles.

[MrSlayer]

16. The tears denote the amount of time you've spent incarcerated.

It's not a white or black thing, it's a prison thing. 5 years to a tear.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

17. Here's an article on them

http://www.hanover.k12.in.us/Cybercat/Wire%20News/Teardrops/Teardrops.htmlSome concerned
by teenage trend
of teardrop tattoos

By Megan Twohey
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
(KRT)

MILWAUKEE - When David Romo returned to Milwaukee last summer after 16 years in the federal penitentiary, he was surprised by how many young people in the city had teardrop tattoos.

Romo, a large man with a bald head and pockmarked face, had been tattooed with the symbol in the early 1990s. At that time, he said, the marking was worn only by those who had committed murder, served time behind bars or lost a fellow gang member to violence.

The 52-year-old suspected that many of the teenagers he was seeing with the teardrop couldn't make such claims.
"Since I've been out, I've seen a lot of kids with them," Romo said. "It's like they don't even know the real meaning."

Romo isn't the only one noting the growing number of teardrop tattoos popping up under the eyes of youths. Police and youth workers are alarmed by the trend. They worry teens are wearing the decades-old tattoo as a fashion statement without understanding that it can cause them harm.

"They are a very dangerous fad for young people to be getting involved with," said Richard Harris, a former gang member turned youth worker in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

"There's an expectation among older gang members that you know what it means. At one time, I would have caused some serious harm to someone who had teardrops who hadn't gone through what I had."

Nailing down the origins of the teardrop tattoo is difficult.
Wes McBride, president of the California Gang Investigators, said it surfaced in California's Hispanic gangs in the 1940s. Other gang experts said the marking began in Mexico and Puerto Rico.

[Spider Jerusalem]

21. Reminds me of a Tom Waits song...

Well, more a sort of spoken-word thing.

"The girl at the counter has a tattooed tear...one for every year he's been away, she says. Such a faded beauty...ah, there's nothing wrong with her a hundred dollars wouldn't fix..."

[KitchenWitch]

24. each teardrop represents a stint in prison

does not matter what the charge.

[khashka]

25. It can mean that or

it can also mean that someone you loved and cared for was killed. In my experience those seem to be the purpose of them for gangbangers.

It can also mean you just think it looks cool.

A good rule of thumb - never accept one definition. Things mean different things to different people.

Khash