Last August, in an interview with BallerStatus.net, rapper 40 Glocc confirmed that while he's still a gang member with the Crips, he's "growing from that and maturing as a person."

Last weekend, while in Las Vegas for the NBA All-Star Game festivities, he was involved in a brawl in the MGM Grand's casino, about which he said, "Niggas wanted a problem, so we mashed them out ... I don't wear rags for videos and fashion. Gangbangin' is not a fashion!"

He's a father of two, including a 9-year-old he claims has his own MySpace page and is among his Top 8 friends.

Sounds like a great guy. But I don't want to be near him. Or his pals.

Or people who look like him.

Just like with Hell's Angels and skinheads, it's time to judge the books by the covers ... chosen dress that associates themselves with a culture in which the violence is too frequent, the disrespect too rampant, the barbarism too familiar.

For years, gangsta rappers have defended their work by saying that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis never took 1/10th of the shit for portraying killers in movies. Their lives off the set, however, don't betray the nature of their characters. Hip-hoppers and their minions, meanwhile, live out their art that is defined by confrontation, by violence, by seeing whose dick is biggest, whose bankroll is largest, whose bling shines brightest.

This goes beyond being rebellious. Hippies were rebellious. Rock stars are rebellious. But if you hear about a stabbing in a movie theater, a shooting at a club, a fracas in the crowd at a high school basketball game, you don't expect to see a tree hugger or Bono involved. Sadly, you know exactly what type of people get mixed up in this shit — the same crass crews who are impolite on public transportation, spew offensive language, are unfamiliar with the words "please" and "thank you" and wake up every day just "tryin' to get mine."

Jason Whitlock penned a couple of columns (one | two) on the thugs that ran around Vegas last weekend, before answering apparent criticism with a follow-up piece in which he assimilates "gangsta rappers, gangbangers and posse members" with being a "Black Ku Klux Klan."

Whitlock writes, "Just like the White KKK of the 1940s and '50s, we fear them, keep our eyes lowered, shut our mouths and pray they don't bother us."

Traveling in packs, carrying guns and knives (and using them) with a higher frequency than any segment of the population, the risk is getting too great to be around anyone who even looks like he may be packing. And if that punishes the innocent, so be it. It's easy to buy a new set of clothes that doesn't associate with a despicable lifestyle.

However businesses choose to deal with this element, whether it be dress codes — in effect, a license to say "we don't want your kind here" — or what have you, it's time to get serious. There should be no shame in denying gang members entry onto private property, and these posses are simply mini-gangs against everyday society, disciples of a culture defined by disrespect.