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Mafia Myths: Three Criminally Persistent Fallacies About the Mob Debunked
Don’t believe the movies
It’s almost Valentine’s Day, which makes it the perfect time to debunk some persistent myths about a group closely related to the holiday: the Mafia. Seriously, try saying “St. Valentine’s Day” without at least thinking “Massacre” immediately after. There are innumerable myths about the Mafia that have been around for nearly a century, some because of films like The Godfather and some invented by the mobsters themselves, but today I’m taking a closer look at three of the biggest myths.
1. They were men of honor. It’s no surprise that the Mafia has tried to keep this myth alive over the decades; after all, bad guys never see themselves as bad guys. The fallacy has been bolstered in recent years by a grim comparison: as Colombian and Russian gangs (less discreet and far more violent) came on the scene from the late 1970s through the late 1990s, something akin to a revisionist nostalgia about the “good old days” of the respectable Sicilian gangster came into vogue, once again reinforced by the touchstone of gangster lore, The Godfather.
However, the fact that the Mafia typically didn’t shoot up shopping malls like the Colombians did in Miami in the ’80s or murder entire families as the Russian mob has been known to do doesn’t mean…
