Professional Documents
Culture Documents
ON A CHILLY DECEMBER NIGHT IN THE HEART OF BROWNSVILLE, canvas gasping for breath. In a flash, Danyel is on top of Aliya, her legs
Brooklyn, the weather so cold even the drug dealers have retreated in- straddling Aliya’s chest. She pummels her face with both fists.
doors, 100 or so rowdy young men and women from the adjacent hous- The crowd goes crazy with blood lust. Jigga spots that Aliya is in trou-
ing projects have gathered inside a windowless garage. In the center is ble and dashes across the ring to pull Danyel off her dazed rival and end
a brightly lit boxing ring stained with dried blood from a previous fight. the round. Jigga grabs Danyel under the arms, and as he heaves her up
Standing in the ring, two women dressed in street clothes and wearing from the canvas, she gets in one last hard kick, direct to Aliya’s face.
martial arts training gloves are punching the frigid air.
In one corner the deceptively slender Danyel Portis (a.k.a. Do Her Own ***
Motherfuckin’ Thing) is using her fingertips to lightly grease her pretty
face with Vaseline. She resembles a young Dionne Warwick and wears an The 1999 movie Fight Club is commonly credited with setting off the trend
impatient expression that says: Let’s just do this. Danyel has no time for for semi-organized underground slugfests among teenage boys and
the prefight trash talking that usually accompanies these bouts. This young men, but informal female fight clubs, just like their all-male coun-
single mother of three is not here to pop off her mouth. She’s here for one terparts, have likely existed for decades in prisons, housing projects, and
reason only: to win the $1,000 prize money so she can feed her kids. reformatory schools. In fact, the Brooklyn Girls Fight Club—born in
In the other corner, a young woman named Aliya Zalk, who has may- Brownsville, the gritty ghetto that has spawned more top fighters than
be a 20-pound weight advantage over her rival, is also eager for the fight any other neighborhood in America—began in the late 1980s at the tail
to start but for a different reason than Danyel: “You better make that end of the height of the crack cocaine epidemic, when whole families
money quick,” her boyfriend, who is standing at the side of the ring, urg- lost themselves to the pipe.
es her. “Don’t forget to cover your face.” She is from next door, Flatbush, “It started on the street with poor girls who desperately needed mon-
and exudes pure courage. Brave is the white girl who steps into this are- ey to take care of their kids,” says boxer Zab Judah, the former welter-
na in a neighborhood where the only pale faces belong to the cops. weight champion who grew up in Brownsville. “A guy would tell a girl:
Despite the numerous hard-looking characters hanging around, the ‘You’re a tough bitch. I’ve got $500. You fight my tough bitch.’ And the
atmosphere in the room feels more like a family picnic than an illegal guy’s friends would bet on the fight. A lot of women thought: I got three
fight club. While adults eat McDonald’s and sip Hennessy from plastic kids. My lights are getting cut off. My rent is overdue. Where’s the bitch at?”
cups, baby-faced teenagers flash gang signs and pose for cell phone cam- Then a group of local gangsters decided to organize these street brawls
eras and toddlers scream with delight, chasing each other around the and move them indoors into a boxing ring. Today half the audience as-
echoing concrete space. Incongruous sights abound: a father sitting on sembled at the Brooklyn Girls Fight Club is female. The brawlers are re-
a folding chair tenderly cradling a baby; a pit bull growling in a cage. Near cruited from the street, and they fight at the club to further establish
the ring a film crew that has been hard at work on a documentary about their rep in the neighborhood and to get a shot
the club prepares for the main event. By the entrance, two behemoths— In an empty garage in
at the prize money. Why not get paid for
one female, the other male—pat people down. Everybody gets checked the Brownsville section doing something they would otherwise do
for weapons. As soon as the last person has entered, the bouncers bolt of Brooklyn, Aliya every day for free?
Zalk (below left) and
the metal door shut. No one is allowed to leave until the event is done. Danyel Portis fight for The fights occur intermittently, publicized
If a fire breaks out, we’ll all be goners. the $1,000 prize. by word of mouth. The location, which
A voice in the audience yells, “Put your bets down now,” and $20 bills
appear from baggy trouser pockets and are passed from one hand to the
next. While there is no admission charge for the fight, the proceeds from
the gambling pays the fighters and finances the evening’s festivities.
Jigga, one of the organizers and the MC for the evening, calls the
women to the center of the ring. A lean 6'5", he is a popular figure in
Brownsville, known as “the Mayor” for his talent as a peacemaker.That’s
a critical skill when dealing with the boisterous fans who often support
fighters based on which public housing development (Tilden Houses,
Brownsville Houses, Langston Hughes Houses, Marcus Garvey Houses)
they come from. He explains the rules of the contest to the combat-
ants: “No grabbing. No kicking. No scratching. No hair pulling. No bit-
ing.Three rounds. Ninety seconds a round.” The fighters nod in acknowl-
edgment. And with the blare of a car horn, the battle begins.
ILLUSTRATION, HIROKI TADA
BROWNSVILLE’S
BADDEST
***
As the third round begins, both Danyel and Aliya are obviously exhaust-
ed. Street fighters tend to lack stamina and pacing; after all, a typical
corner brawl is over before you know it. Here a fight lasts three long
rounds. Danyel rests her left arm on the ropes and tries to fend off Aliya
with her right as her supporters scream in her ear: “Just knock her out.
You can do it.”
Meanwhile Aliya’s boyfriend is leaning into the ring offering his own
advice: “She’s tired. Stay on her. You just got to keep working on her.”
Danyel’s sister hears what Aliya’s boyfriend says and screams across
the ring: “Fuck you! She’s not tired. She’s gonna fuck your bitch up.”
Jigga pushes the girls together and warns them if they don’t fight
harder, no one gets paid. Within moments both girls are on the floor.