As Anderson elaborates on the “campaigning for respect” I found it to be an important part of the book. The code of the streets is all about respect; everything we do in the streets is all for respect. As a result, without respect, we will not be able to survive on the streets because much of the code have to do with achieving and maintaining the respect. Anderson touch bases on children from the “street” groups going to the streets to hang out late in references to children from the “decent families having curfews and being taught to stay out of trouble, having to look capable of taking care of yourself, parents imposing sanctions if their child is not aggressive enough, and other topics. This was a strong analysis of how we start at a young …show more content…
For example, in my neighborhood when I was young this one particular girl would constantly pick on me and attempt to fight me for no reason. One day she hit me and hearing my mother in the back of my head “If someone hits you, hit them back”. I easily absorb street behavior by feeling forced to react and fight back. After that, it was clear that I had to internalize the code of the streets or become knowledgeable with its rules because there are always people who are looking for a fight in order to increase their share of respect. In contrast, I disagree with Anderson’s accusations about physical appearances playing an important part in campaigning for respect. Around my neighborhood self-image should be the least of someone's worries; people do not care about other people's opinions based on their flashy clothes. One can still be disrespected if they have on expensive clothing and jewelry. Anderson does make a point when he mentions jackets, sneakers, gold jewelry, reflect not just a person's taste, which tends to be tightly regulated among adolescents of all social classes, but also a willingness to possess things that may require
To the urban lifestyle of growing up in the ghettos and the hardships. She depicts the usages of drugs, gang, crime, poverty, teen pregnancy and mostly how it effects the community. But also shows how the outside violence comes into the home and can devastate the natural order of the household.
Kody Scott was born into the gang life weither he liked it or not. Born on 1963 in South Central Los Angeles Kody?s life would be affected by the growing number of gangs inevitably. Kody knew he had a choice to be made, be a gang member or be a pedestrian. He viewed pedestrians as spineless nerds who were always victims of someone?s ridicule or physical violence, who never responded to an affront of any type. He himself had a taste of pedestrian life in grade school were he was picked on and had his lunch money taken from him. ?Early on I saw and felt both sides of the game being played where I lived. It was during my time in elementary school that I chose to never be a victim again, if I could help it?(Shakur 100). Being in a gang gave Kody a feeling of security in a city of violence. ?I felt very different, older, more attached than any of...
The book itself is an on-going dialogue between Kozol and the neighborhoods residents, interjected every so often with thoughts from Kozol. He covers a spectrum of topics from AIDS, drug addiction, prostitution, crime, poorly run and funded schools, white flight from schools to over-crowded hospitals and the amazing faith in religion and God that many of these people have.
Harding, D. J. (2010). Living the Drame: Community, Conflict, and Culture Among Inner-City Boys. Chicago, IL: The University Of Chicago Press.
...ll. The inner city has many complications the fact that most are African American is a mere coincidence. If we as a nation are capable of fixing all institutions and structural issues we could bring the slums out of poverty. The cycle of unemployment and poverty is a terrible cycle that cannot only be judged by race and cultural values. When reading this book keep in mind the difficulties, any family or person could go through these tribulations. There are many arguments and sides to each problem; this is another one of those. The battle for inner city poverty, and the factors that go along with it, has not been finished. Wilson brings out a different aspect which could help people expand horizons and come up with better solutions.
Bloom, Alexander and Wini Breines, eds. Takin' it to the Streets. Oxford University Press, New York, 1995.
In his observation of the boys, he finds that these boys are criminalized by many social forces besides the police. “I found that schools pushed out boys who had been victimized.” (pg. 6). Many boys feel that their school system blames them for crimes that have occurred in their area, or as a danger to other students in the classroom. These boys think that these experiences of victimization are part of their street life. Rios says that if the institutions of social control believe that all young people follow the code of the street, then programs and interactions with margined youth’s will be based on this false information. This dishonest perception of youth is what leads to their
Ann Petry’s The Street is more than a story of racism and poverty in America. This novel is about how the intersectionality of identities limit African-Americans from achieving equality in the dominant race’s society. The protagonist, Lutie Johnson has three barriers dragging her down. She is not only a woman, but a black woman that is also a lower class single mother. In the novel Lutie faces the realities of the American Dream, which for African- Americans is literally just a dream. Lutie also experiences the harsh effects of poverty and how it shapes one’s life.
Throughout the article “The Code of the Streets,” Elijah Anderson explains the differences between “decent” and “street” people that can be applied to the approaches of social control, labeling, and social conflict theories when talking about the violence among inner cities due to cultural adaptations.
Geoffrey Canada’s characters in Fist Stick Knife Gun use violence to increase their status and honor, and to make themselves stand out from the rest of their group as being more powerful. Canada’s violence is necessary to his characters as it is their only way to distinguish different people’s power. Canada’s characters also use violence to save their lives, as the adults in their life cannot protect the children. Canada writes: “status was a major issue for boys on the block” (Canada 18), a very blunt yet compelling statement that describes the importance of “status” for the boys on the block. “On the block,” respect and power means everything, as social order is decided by these qualities. Canada argues that in the South Bronx this “status” and social order could only be decided ...
In Imagining the Urban: Politics of Race, Class and Schooling the urban jungle is described as, “Black, Brown and Yellow bodies, which are poor and dirty, criminals and dangerous, violence and drugs tied with the images of majority of urban people.” Leonardo (2007) This perception of urban fails to look outside of one’s own stereotypes and attributes some character perceptions to describe a group as a whole. The media also plays a big role in our depiction of the urban, men and women who live in urban walls are seen as villains. An example of this is in the 2015 movie Fast and Furious described by IMDb as a “Crime film/Thriller.” Here we see an increasing majority of the character’s to be men of color and the themes of the movie were fast cars, vulgar language, violence and gang affiliations. The media constantly shows in the news that the response to manage the villain living in the urban is jail or death. The end result for most teachers who see urban in this way believe teaching students in these various demographics as a “waste and hopeless.” This perception held by policy makers and teachers has attributed to what Brenzel and Kantor (1945-1990) have described as a “crisis” that needs to be fixed, “urban schools receive insufficient funding, and have out dated facilities leaving them far below the achievement gap and increasing their dropout rates.” That was the case in the 90’s and is still the case today 25 years later. So in conclusion our perception as educators has a true impact on all students, the way we see them early on and relate to their urban can save them from prison and/ or death. It is challenging to be fully invested and truly help children if you do not trust them, as future and existing teachers we owe it to our students to think beyond the media, and our own
Geoffrey Canada gives his readers a rare opportunity to look inside the life of a ghetto kid and what they have to go through just to survive. He also provides answers to the many questions asked of why certain things happen the way they do in the Bronx. He used his childhood experiences and turned them into a unique tool when helping the youth of today. Now that he works as a youth councilor he sees that the problem in the slums has gotten dramatically worse with the emergence of guns. It used to be about pride and status, now any thug with a gun can be feared in the community. This, to Canada is a major problem because guns gives kids a sense of power, a strong feeling that is often abused and results in someone, even an innocent person dead.
In the short essay, “Black Men in Public Space” written by Brent Staples, discusses his own experiences on how he is stereotyped because he is an African American and looks intimidated in “public places” (Staples 225). Staples, an intelligent man that is a graduate student at University of Chicago. Due to his skin complexity, he is not treated fairly and always being discriminated against. On one of his usual nightly walks he encountered a white woman. She took a couple glances at him and soon began to walk faster and avoided him that night. He decided to change his appearance so others would not be frightened by his skin color. He changed the way he looked and walked. Staples dressed sophisticated to look more professional so no one would expect him to be a mugger. Whistling classical music was referred to the “cowbell that hikers wear when they know they are in bear country”(Staples 226). The cowbell is used to protect hikers from bears. But in Staples case, it was to not be stereotyped and show that he is harmless. The general purpose of Staples essay was to inform the readers that stereotypes could affect African Americans and any other races.
For this assignment I decided to read the book Code of the Street: decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city by Elijah Anderson. This book is about how inner city people live and try and survive by living with the code of the streets. The code of the streets is basically morals and values that these people have. Most of the time it is the way they need to act to survive. Continuing on within this book review I am going to discuss the main points and arguments that Anderson portrays within the book. The main points that the book has, goes along with the chapters. These points consist of Street and decent families, respect, drugs violence, street crime, decent daddy, the mating game, black inner city grandmother. Now within these points there are a few main arguments that I would like to point out. The first argument is the belief that you will need to accept the street code to get through life. The other one is the belief that people on the street need “juice”. For the rest of this paper we will be looking at each one of main points and arguments by going through each chapter and discussing it.
Bloom, Alexander and Wini Breines, eds. "Takin' It To The Streets". New York: The Oxford University Press, 1995.