Renegade Dreams paints a vivid picture of a gang-ridden, violence-heavy, and very poor neighborhood within the city of Chicago. Laurence Ralph spent years within the area of Eastwood Chicago, meticulously noting how the previously mentioned violence and poverty affect the citizens of the place. In the book, a gang renegade is described as “young gang affiliates that seasoned members claim don’t have the wherewithal to be in the gang.”(Ralph 56) The environment is so corrupt that straying from the established gang wars and fights earns a person the title of renegade or deserter. These renegades work for the community to be a better place, attempting to get rid of the obvious issues of gang violence, but also limit racialization, gender, and …show more content…
The last three problems all intersect to affect the people of Eastwood directly for the worse. These conditions influence opportunities that people are given in the area, limit their access to valuable resources, and shift the power dynamic within the community. Racial ethnicity of the area compared to the rest of Chicago is extremely prevalent and brings significant turmoil to residents of Eastwood. Consequently, this specific neighborhood within Chicago represents an African American majority that has and continues to be looked down upon for 40 years. Work is put in to assist in ridding the area of systematic racism. "Wilson’s work helped dismantle the racist presuppositions that were still embedded in mainstream sociological scholarship of the 1970s and 1980s, which suggested that African Americans were predisposed to delinquency and violence" (Ralph 13). During that time, a movement within America was formed because of the Civil Rights Act and Martin Luther King Jr’s efforts to improve the state of America. When he was assassinated, riots and protests began, which painted negative connotations of the African Americans within these areas. Despite efforts to improve, government officials push off development of the area because of its