In the article, ‘Crack in Spanish Harlem: Culture and economy in the inner city’. Philippe Bourgois’ main argument is to show the readers how people from the inner city have to face structural racism on a daily basis and how this in return have a huge impact reflected on the statistic results on violent crimes in the United States. (Bourgois, 1989) Structural Racism is a form of racism that revolves around ideas and beliefs of a dominant group which gets implemented in the society and are seen as the cultural norm in the community. Other ethnic’s cultural practices are obligated to confirm to the dominant group’s cultural practices or risk being outcast. Structural racism tends to favour one ethnic group over the other as it is likely to oppress and marginalise other cultural groups. (Horan, 2015) Bourgois argues that the racism inflicted by the dominant race unto the inferior race is supressed to a personal level. The structural racism in inner city is so extreme that the only ‘legal’ job available to them are ones that are considered as the least desirable jobs in the US, offering low income and racial abuse from their racist bosses. Since the self-reinforced marginalization is destined to keep them powerless and at the bottom of the US economy; the likes of working in an illegal, underground economy may sound appealing as it not only offer …show more content…
He described the theory as having the capability of exposing the links between drug abuse, crime and violence, referred to as cultural resistance, and ‘white’ people’s refusal to accept entry-level jobs with minimum wage in the inner city, thus leaving it to the Puerto Rican residents (seen as the inferior race in this article) to occupy these job vacancies (an example of self-reinforced marginalization). As a result, this is reflected into high crime and drug addiction rates, and intra-community violence (Bourgois,
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Show MoreBourgois, Philippe. “Crack in Spanish Harlem: Culture and Economy in the Inner City.” Anthropology Today 5, no. 4 (1989): 6-11.
To say that racism is institutional is to refer “to the ways in which racist beliefs or values have been built into the operations of social institutions in such a way as to discriminate against, control, and oppress various minority groups” (Henry et al, 2004). Institutional racism is a facet of structural violence—but is by definition restricted to structural violence or cultural violence for which race is the catalyst and with racial bias or bigotry the sustaining element.
In the article “Gentrification’s Insidious Violence: The Truth about American Cities” by Daniel Jose Older, Older places emphasis on the neighboring issue of gentrification in minority, low income communities or as better known as being called the “hood” communities. The author is biased on how race is a factor in gentrifying communities by local governments. Older explains his experience as a paramedic aiding a white patient in the “hood” where he was pistol whipped in a home invasion by a black male. This is an example of black on white crime which is found to be a normal occurrence in the residence of his community. But that is not the case in Older’s situation because that was the first time he has
Over the past 60 years there has been a recent phenomenon in the development and rise of gangs and gang violence. This is exceptionally apparent in South Central Los Angeles where the Bloods and the Crips have taken control of the social structure and created a new type of counter culture. Poverty in this area is an enormous problem caused by a shear lack of jobs; but just because there is a lack of jobs doesn’t mean that there will be a lack of bills to pay, so sometimes selling drugs in order to keep a roof over your head seems like the most logical option. Crime often times flourishes in these regions because the inconvenient truth is; crime pays. Senator Tom Hayden stated “It’s been defined as a crime problem and a gang problem but it’s really an issue of no work and dysfunctional schools.” this statement is in fact true, but with an exception it is a more broad issue than just involving school, and lack of jobs but goes beyond into social structure as a whole and more specifically the judicial system, this can all be supported by three sociologists Chambliss, Anderson, and Durkheim.
Living in an environment where the crime rate is relatively low Dreamers do not worry about the daily protection of their bodies leaving room for their minds to be open to explore all life has to offer. Albert Einstein once wrote, “Education is not the learning of facts but the mind to think.” Being an educated black person is not always connected to background, many of the most success people living today have rags to riches story, yet what sets the black dreamers apart is their talk, their address and even at times their looks. Black dreamers’s protection lies in their voice, “You speak very eloquently to be black.” Or in plainer terms, “You talk like a white person.” A black dreamers’ protection lies in their state of dress, for who is going to gun down a man in a suit? When Coates describes his wife’s upbringing he says, “Perhaps it was because she was raised in the physical borders of such a place, because she lived in proximity with the Dreamers. Perhaps it was because the people who thought they were white told her she was smart and followed this up by telling her she was not really black, meaning it as a compliment.” (p.116) These are the people who become caught up in being black but not black enough to be subjected to police brutality. Bell Hooks writes in her essay Gangsta Culture, “On mass media screens today, whether
Institutional Racism- consists of established laws, customs, and practices that systematically reflect and produce racial inequalities in a society, whether or not individuals who maintain those policies and practices
In today 's society, it is said that institutional racism still exists, but it isn 't as bad as it used to be. Institutional racism is the idea that people can have racist thoughts or actions without being blamed for it since it is often difficult to prove. People can walk down the street
Victor Rios is a previous gang member, whom “was given the opportunity” to get out of the youth control complex. In his book “Punished”, he analyzes the experiences of young black and Latino boys in Oakland, California. Rios gives us an intimate description of some of the everyday forms of “hyper discrimination” these minority boys experience. This book review will focus on the main concepts explained in chapters one through three from the book Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys.
Quinney subscribed in part to Marxist ideology (Mutchnick et al., 1990). Quinney’s views on criminality and social inequality are rooted in the belief that class conflict creates an environment favoring those with greater means of accumulation over those with lesser means of accumulation. The resultant interpretation by Quinney followers is greater means to wealth equates to lesser involvement in criminal activities. This thought is well told in Quinney’s works on white-collar crime. It is the writer’s assertion that minority communities seem largely superficially impacted by white-collar crime as a means of exploitation upon them, rather than originating within them. Ruddell and Thomas (2010) state policing agencies within in areas with larger populations of minorities employ more law enforcement officers and spend more of their annual budgets on enforcement activities. This is largely a representative of Quinney’s theoretical examination on social conflicts using Marxist theory to explain how social structural impacts on crime leads to the eventuality of developing systemic support by way of law and policy used to oppress the poor to keep class divisions structurally intact (Mutchnick et al., 1990). The law serves to benefit the interests of one group over another. Policing’s role as an instrument of the system, is
Crime has always been a hot topic in sociology. There are many different reasons for people to commit criminal acts. There is no way to pinpoint the source of crime. I am going to show the relationship between race and crime. More specifically, I will be discussing the higher chances of minorities being involved in the criminal justice system than the majority population, discrimination, racial profiling and the environment criminals live in.
In relation to the Critical Race Theory, the idea of the “gap between law, politics, economics, and sociological reality of racialized lives” (Critical Race Theory slides). The critical race theory gives us a guide to analyze privileges and hardships that comes across different races and gender. For example, analyzing how and why a “black” or “indigenous” woman may experience more hardships versus not only a “white” man, but a “white”
Gang Leader for a Day: A Rouge Sociologist Takes to the Streets by Sudhir Venkatesh is the ideologies rooted in the African American community. The ideal facts cannot be denied here. The idea of being black and poor is not a simple answer of, very bad, somewhat bad, neither, somewhat good or very good. Being black and poor is a lifestyle. Being black and poor is a community. This book will give you understanding how structural racism among blacks is installed throughout history. The system is created to make sure the subject matter, blacks, in this case are subjected to fail. The crack epidemic in a Chicago neighborhood was only the beginning.
The majority of our prison population is made up of African Americans of low social and economic classes, who come from low income houses and have low levels of education. The chapter also discusses the amount of money the United States loses yearly due to white collar crime as compared to the cost of violent crime. Another main point was the factors that make it more likely for a poor person to be incarcerated, such as the difficulty they would have in accessing adequate legal counsel and their inability to pay bail. This chapter addresses the inequality of sentencing in regards to race, it supplies us with NCVS data that shows less than one-fourth of assailants are perceived as black even though they are arrested at a much higher rate. In addition to African Americans being more likely to be charged with a crime, they are also more likely to receive harsher punishments for the same crimes- which can be seen in the crack/cocaine disparities. These harsher punishments are also shown in the higher rates of African Americans sentenced to
However, in Crips and Bloods, the Los Angeles Police Department under the direction of Chief Officer William Parker regulated the Los Angeles area in a forceful way. One of the ways he did so was by locking down African-American neighborhoods. Also, in the time of the Watts Riot, many African Americans were being killed for small crimes. There is a difference between the documentary’s order-maintenance and the order-maintenance in “Broken Windows.” Small crimes or disorder were to be treated, but people in the documentary, specifically whom were African Americans were being killed for small crimes. Where does the broken windows speak about this issue? And though the theory thinks that crime is the issue, what if the problem is that there were not enough jobs for the minorities? During the 1950’s when industrialization started to come about, African Americans found themselves displaced in the job market because they did not have the skills, knowledge, or education to perform high-end jobs due to discrimination and lack of opportunities. They also felt they should not have to perform low-end jobs because they felt they were above the immigrant low level jobs. This resulted in total displacement from the labor market. Eventually, by the late 1960s, jobs and factories disappeared from Los Angeles regions. The consequences were
The problems of race and urban poverty remain pressing challenges which the United States has yet to address. Changes in the global economy, technology, and race relations during the last 30 years have necessitated new and innovative analyses and policy responses. A common thread which weaves throughout many of the studies reviewed here is the dynamics of migration. In When Work Disappears, immigrants provide comparative data with which to highlight the problems of ghetto poverty affecting blacks. In No Shame in My Game, Puerto Rican and Dominican immigrants are part of the changing demographics in Harlem. In Canarsie, the possible migration of blacks into a working/middle-class neighborhood prompts conservative backlash from a traditionally liberal community. In Streetwise, the migration of yuppies as a result of gentrification, and the movement of nearby-ghetto blacks into these urban renewal sites also invoke fear of crime and neighborhood devaluation among the gentrifying community. Not only is migration a common thread, but the persistence of poverty, despite the current economic boom, is the cornerstone of all these works. Poverty, complicated by the dynamics of race in America, call for universalistic policy strategies, some of which are articulated in Poor Support and The War Against the Poor.