No Shame In My Game Summary

Race and urban poverty are continuous challenges that the United States must continue to address. During the last 30 years innovative analyses and policy responses have been necessary to combat changes in the global economy, technology, and race relations. A common thread which weaves throughout many of the studies reviewed here is the dynamics of migration. In When Work Disappears, immigrants provide data to highlight the problems of ghetto poverty affecting blacks. In No Shame in My Game, Puerto Rican and Dominican immigrants reflect the changing demographics in Harlem. In Canarsie, the possible migration of blacks into a working-class neighborhood prompts conservative backlash from a liberal community. In Streetwise, the migration of young

Newman and her research team explore the lives of Harlem's working poor, focusing on the fast food industry, also known as "burger flippers", as the subject for her cultural study in which she conducted her research from the point of view of the subject. One of the important observations emphasised in her study is the extended familial structures that rely on welfare and wage income as a means of survival, in addition to providing resources such as child care. Therefore, welfare reform restructuring will not only impact working poor families who rely on both welfare recipients and wage earners, but also on those who rely solely on welfare for survival. Newman's study also attempts to disprove the myth that fast food jobs provide no training opportunities. She portrays fast-food jobs as an activity requiring specific knowledge gained from on the job experience, often passed on from the veterans to the newer employees. These jobs also provide for the development of people skills, work ethic, and discipline which are integral skills required for almost all jobs. Lastly, in addition to the wage earner/welfare collector family based networks, Newman calls attention to the function of social networks, mostly formed around co-workers in the fast food industry, which provide a means of social support

Professor Wilson argued that New Deal legislation essentially eliminated racial tension in economics and completely tore down the racial barriers to unionization. Interracial unionization eliminated the split labor market between blacks and whites where blacks were given a lower wage. With this dissipation of racial conflict over opportunities in the job market, Wilson argued that racial tension shifted from economics to the social sectors, represented by access to resources like neighborhoods, schools, and housing. Canarsie serves an excellent example of a shift in racial conflict to one over real estate and