Racial And Ethnic Tensions By Elijah Anderson And Dreams Deferred : The Patterns Of Punishment

Prior to being assigned the reading of the memoir “Always Running”, by Luis Rodriguez, I had never given much thought on juveniles involved in gang life. Rodriguez achieved success as an award-winning poet; sure the streets would no longer haunt him - until his own son joined a gang. Rodriguez fought for his child by telling his own story in the vivid memoir, “Always Running.” “Always Running” is the compilation of events Luis experienced during his youth in San Gabriel. The theme of the book is to always strive for the best things in life and to always take a stand for what you believe. Lured by the seemingly invincible gang culture of East L.A., he witnessed countless shootings and beatings, as well as senseless acts of street crime against his friends and family members. As a Latino in a poor neighborhood, Luis struggled through criticism, stereotypes, and mistreatment. With the help of his mentor, Chente, Luis saw a way out through education and the power of word to successfully break free from years of violence and desperation.

In her article, On the Run: Wanted Men in a Philadelphia Ghetto (2009), sociologist Alice Goffman uses data collected from her six year ethnographic study to explain how incarceration and threat of incarceration impacts daily life within a Philadelphia neighborhood. Her work focuses primarily on how policing and supervision in the neighborhood, referred to primarily as Sixth Street, impacts the lives of its poor Black residents. Gossman focused on the many men in the community that had warrants out for “minor infractions” including failing to pay court fees or breaking curfew, and the daily struggles they faced while trying to avoid identification and imprisonment. Using evaluation guidelines from Creswell (2013) and Anderson (2010), I have provided a critical review of Goffman’s research methodology and practices. I have highlighted many major flaws in her work, yet I have also recognized the promising advancements to sociological understandings that could come from her findings.

As a young colored women living in LA County, I have always been fascinated with the police approach and attitudes towards minorities and rural part of LA. I was aware with the gangs’ situation in major cities of country, including LA. Yet, I was unaware of the history and rise of gangs etc. When I came across the movie,”Bastards of the Party”, I was thrilled and excited. I could relate to this documentary with the theories such as racial segregation and white supremacy. I was also able to relate to this documentary with Coates reading the “between the world and me.” Coates work is not a work of inspiration or optimism. It is not written for white people - not written to comfort them, pat them on the back for their occasional acknowledgment

“In the ghetto, police and the public have a general mutual desire to avoid interaction. The sociologist Ervin Goffman wrote, “One avoids a person of high status out of deference to him and avoids a person of lower status . . . out of a self-protective concern.” Goffman was concerned with the stigma of race, but in the ghetto, stigma revolves around the “pollution” associated with drugs. Police use words like “filthy,” “rank,” “smelly,” or “nasty” to describe literal filth, which abounds in the Eastern District. The word “dirty” is used to describe the figurative filth of a drug addict. It is, in the drug-related sense, the opposite of being clean.”

How we dress, talk, and behave can have life or death consequences, with young people particularly at risk. Myself would define it as the ultimate black urban experience. More importantly, I was more engaged to read the book eager to base my own personal experience of my black urban neighborhood to compare to the residents interviews Anderson tackles and the assertion Anderson makes between street" persons from "decent" persons and families, with decent families tending to accept mainstream values, while street values are part of an oppositional culture. In addition, I wanted to see if he is accurate about his assumptions that the constant threat of violence to the circumstances of life among the ghetto stir from poor lack of living-wage jobs, dearth of basic public services, the stigma of race, the fallout from rampant drug trafficking and use, and the ensuing alienation and lack of hope for the future. After just finishing chapter one and two I was amazed and shocked by his knowledge and illustration on the distinction along with the relationships between “street” and “decent”

“The Republic of East L.A. Stories” captures the heartbreaking experiences Mexican-American’s were forced to endure. Escaping poverty, alcohol abuse, drug use, and gang violence was an everyday struggle for many families during this time. African American and Latino gangs were initially created as a response to white racism. They were restricted as to what areas they could live in and where constantly harassed. As their populations increased, so did white gangs, in order to take control of their “territory”. African Americans and Latinos had no choice but to protect their families by fighting back. As time went on, the violence only continued. The Civil Rights Movement led many gang members to join organizations like the Black Panther Party, but the government quickly responded by breaking them up and soon enough, street gangs quickly returned. The violence escalated, alcohol,

Culture in urban communities, also referred to as inner-cities, are growing increasingly violent. In the article, The Code of the Streets by Elijah Anderson, he begins to take an in-depth look at the root of the evil. He deduces that economic factors, parenting and the troublesome environments largely influence the violent norms within this culture.

In Policing Gangs in America, Charles Katz and Vincent Webb describes every issue in American Gangs today. The ultimate goal of this book is how the gang officers work and the different kind of atmosphere they work in. Their job isn’t like other law enforcement jobs. It’s one of the more dangerous occupation in the Criminal Justice system. These gang officers focus on how they react to public gang issues.

The author and researcher of Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys, Victor M. Rios, was a former gang member from Oakland as well, who learned in his adolescence what a small break from police and educators could mean for a boy on his way to prison. Rios made it out of gang life through the support of concerned teachers, and a very fortunate break from a cop who gave him a last chance. After the death of his best friend and countless negative interactions with the police, Rios was forced to reflect upon the larger image of youth violence and criminalization. He wanted and needed to find out the reason of the prevalence of youth and police violence in his community. After graduating college, and attending graduate school,

The unorthodox and nonmatching culture of youth of color is often demonized and portrayed as deviant in mainstream media, even though youth in poorer communities attempt to adjust themselves in ways that can be fully accepted by the labor-force. Although one may be quick to assume that this concentrated working-class culture can easily be defined as malicious or spiteful to the mainstream culture, it is actually “organic capital” that is wrongly misrecognized by the authority. When youth of color in Oakland partake in “devious” or “criminal” activities, it is actually a strong political statement on their marginalization and a valid attempt in trying to get back the dignity and respect that are forcefully relinquished to the criminal justice

However, Wacquant brings the term “inner city” to light, breaking down its meaning: “black and poor.” Living in Chicago gives one an exemplary example of the term “inner city” meaning “poor, black ghettos.” The references to “inner city” schools being synonymous with “poor quality” and “mostly African American” are damaging to urban terminology and creating a predetermined perspective of those who call the “inner city” home. The “hypersegregation” of the city of Chicago is a topic within itself, but the institution of segregation is, without question, existent here. In addition, “inner city” is becoming a label which implies unavoidable incarceration.

In Search of Respect by Philippe Bourgois, is an ethnographic study which explores the social marginalisation and alienation of people living in El Barrio (East Harlem). Though drug and substance abuse seems to largely be the focus of the study, it is merely demonstrating the inhabitants first hand experiences of poverty, with illegal economy being the focal point to their lifestyle. Bourgois established lasting friendships between himself and the crack dealers based on mutual trust, which was essential in the honest telling of the book. Through recording their conversations and documenting them in transcript form, the reader is thrown completely into the dialogue. This makes it not only an academic insight into the underground economy of El Barrio, but also a gritty narrative of the seemingly most impoverished side to society.

The first reading “Policing the ‘progressive’ city: The racialized geography of drug law enforcement” by Mona Lynch, Marisa Omori, Aaron Rousell and Matthew Valasik takes a closer look at the specific individual city organization within San Francisco and relates it back to areas like Cleveland, Detroit, New York, and Seattle to determine the city’s impact on racialized policing. Previous studies generalize their results to all cities, instead of looking at the historic and contemporary race relations, norms, political atmospheres, and the relationship between law enforcement and the community. Within San Francisco, there is an overrepresentation of African Americans in prison for drug offenses and they are concentrated in limited areas of San Francisco like the Tenderloin and Hunters Point due to gentrification.

In the book, Gang Leader for a Day, a rogue sociologist passionately dives into the lives of one of Chicago’s toughest housing projects in an attempt to develop an insight as to how the urban impoverished lived. Throughout the text it becomes clear that a conflict paradigm is being reflected. A conflict society is based on social inequality, in which some individuals benefit and thrive more than others, which tends to lead to conflict and thus change. This is evident both in the housing projects where a gang known as the “Black Kings” take over and also in the surrounding neighborhoods where the more elite citizens, including persons from the authors university, shy away from associating with the nearby poor black nearby public, thus

To residents of the suburbs, all economically distressed districts of the city may seem dangerous and threatening, however, to residents of these poor districts, it is just home. The local residents know the truly crime-ridden areas of each district. This essay will refer to these crime-ridden areas within poor communities as "hot spots" or "skid-row". Skid-row is generally an area of the economically distressed community that is plagued with vagrants, criminals, drug abusers and other individuals thought to be of exile from normal society (Bittner, 1967). This is an area where law abiding, poor citizens do not wish to venture (Bittner, 1967). Due to this stigma, skid-row is an area that is patrolled by police, who generally