Franklin

[Grand Theft Savage]

The " son I always wanted" line was obviously a joke, you see how Fanklin responds? also It is not necessarly sarcasm, it's just a way of talking

I think Michael really feels that way, but Franklin probably sees Michael as his mentor/friend/boss or something. Certainly not a father figure.

[TheWetPartoftheArm]

 

OP please google search troy and dino smith, romper room gang, and Chaz williams to name a few, all of them came from low income black ghetto areas, but that didn't stop them from being involved in heists without some rich "professional"(caucasian) robber even being involved, so I must ask if what your implying is that certain segments of the criminal underworld,(i.e. black/black gangs in this case) are only capable of slinging/selling crack and bangin, but nothing else.(which if that is what your implying I can tell you now you'd be dead wrong.)

I can't say for sure, but it seems like your not really pondering so much as to why these 2 would work together, but indeed you really want to say,"why the f*ck would this rich white guy/former criminal want to work with a ghetto black guy, I know I wouldn't."

Why are you attempting to make this about race, when no one's race was even alluded to? The OP was referring to the fact that Franklin is a gang member, I'm sure he would've made the same comment if the gang member had been Japanese, Hispanic, Caucasian etc. The fact remains that while Franklin is not your ordinary gang member, he and Michael are somewhat of an "odd couple", a rich former professional living in a wealthy area and a gang member with little to no experience living in a rough area, you wouldn't normally see two people from opposite ends of the spectrum hanging around with one another regardless of race (and that's actually what makes the pairing interesting). The divide would be created by cultural differences, not differences in skin colour, I expect the OP was commenting on the unlikelihood that Michael would consider Franklin useful and capable enough to join the crew because of his affiliations and lack of experience, but again that would depend moreso on his character which we still know very little about. Jumping to rash conclusions of racism is just paranoid, get a grip. If anything the OP was stereotyping gang members, not black people specifically.

[Dick Justice]

I already said I don't agree with the OP's point in regard to Franklin, and I certainly don't believe it's impossible for a gang member to be involved in a major heist, but I do believe that if studies were conducted (and I'm sure they have been) into a possible correlation between a lack of education and intelligence and members of street gangs there would almost certainly be a significant one. "Street smarts" is one thing, but most major heists that require a great deal of planning tend to involve more than just "street smarts", often knowledge of mechanics and architecture as well as a professional background of sorts plays a large part in successful cases. Your "criminals are criminals" attitude is far too black and white, there are all kinds of criminals, smart and dumb. There is no concrete evidence to suggest the existence of a "criminal brain", as far as we know we all have the capability to be criminals. Gang members from the "hood" however (again, regardless of race) probably rank pretty low on the intelligence scale in general due to the rough areas they live in combined with their upbringing and lack of decent schooling, so it's not entirely unreasonable to assume the possibility that a street gang member would not be in the same league as a former professional because they lack the intellect and experience that often goes into these things.

 

Having said that, this depends on the scale of the heists involved, I'm sure it's possible for a street hood to be successful in a few bank robberies but if any of these missions involve massively intricate invasions of maximum security buildings in order to steal priceless artifacts, well we can assume that your regular street thug may not be up to the job. Like I said though, it appears that Franklin is not portrayed as your typical gang banger, so the OP's point is likely moot. Either way, racism has nothing to do with any of this.

I think this is pretty spot on. The idea I have is that we'll see Franklin "grow" as a criminal throughout the game. In the first heists, he'll carry out simpler tasks/be the driver, but he'll learn more as the storyline progresses and he takes a part in more heists.