In particular, inner-city(e.g., low-income urban) African-American male adolescents have been identified as a high-risk segment of youth due to their disproportionately high rates of exposure to (and often participation in) violent situations (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,2001; Hammond and Yung, 1993; Rich, 2001)" (Abdul-Ali). Elijah Anderson states, that "the 'code of the street' in poor, inner-city African-American communities places all young African-American men under much pressure to respond to certain situations-show of disrepect-with violence" (Anderson. 1994). The Young Warriors Violence Prevention program is consistent with Anderson's research because the program targets those that Anderson identified that were the most at risk: African-American Males from poor inner-city enviroments. Anderson, states that it is not only African-Americans that have a 'code on the street", but other races (white and Latino) who come from disadvantaged environment have a 'code of the street'. Economic and social disadvantage in these communities create "a threat of violence that is high in many disadvantaged communiites" (Cullen & Agnew, 2011, 143). The Young Warriors Violence Prevention for Inner-City African American Male Adolescents program uses rap music to challenge 'the code of the street' and they use this as a mechanism to unify the youth and prevent violence. For instance, Jaleel Adul-Ali who reviewed the program found that "critical consciousness may be a particularly important sociopolitical resource for enhancing violence prevention efforts with inner-city African-American male adolescents(Watts & Abdul-Adil, 1998; Watts, Abdul-Adil & Pratt, 2002; Watts, Griffith & Abdul-Adil, 1999). Kerns and Prinz (2002) arg... ... middle of paper ... ...ual, collective, and socio-political factors concerning violence among inner-city African-American male adolescents). Based onthese themes, the program goals are to help inner-city African-American male adolescents: a) apply critical thinking to their world and behavior (e.g., causes and solutions for violent behavior today in society and media); b)adopt positive perspectives on manhood and male identity (e.g., salient characteristics of being a “man” that maycause and prevent violence); c) develop cultural awareness (e.g., knowledge of African-American icons such as Harriet Tubman, Booker T. Washington, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Harold Washington, Maxine Waters, etc.);and d) increase understanding of social processes and social change (e.g., develop themselves and their society by raising consciousness and changing conditions that contribute to violence)".
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.
Andreanna Clay and her book: The Hip-Hop Generation Fights Back expresses many views, ideologies, and upbringings of today’s youth of color. The book goes on to discuss many key factors some of which are youth violence, to the impact of high stakes biased and blatantly racist educational testing, to social media rewording youth of color in a negative light, to even the moral failures of hip-hop culture. Young people of color are often portrayed and stereotyped as gang affiliated, simply troubled or, ultimately, dangerous, and not safe to be around. This book looks at and examines how youth activism has come about recently to address the persistent inequalities and injustices that affect these urban youths of color. Clay provides an over encompassing
Overall theory. Andrea Allen and Celia Lo wanted to devise their research from Elijah Anderson’s, “The Code of the Streets,” that intended to analyze the behavior aspect of young males particularly black urban males that were either incarcerated or attending school. According to Anderson, the apparent problem in inner-city communities is that they are controlled by violence and the unspoken street codes. In a glimpse the street codes is all about self-imaginary and façade that resembles toughness, in which this simple concept on the street defines a person. Therefore Allen and Lo wanted to do a continuation of Anderson’s study by observing the behavior of young males on the aspects of drug trafficking and firearm carrying. Within these two dimensions, they theorized from Anderson’s study that there is a possible connection between their defined definition of being disadvantage and the code of the streets. Amongst this connection, there should be a “co-occurring” relationship that should indicate the presence of increased violence of inner-city male youths. Also, the study was intended to analyze whether the code of streets on the notion of drug dealing was based on race.
The inclination to violence stems from several circumstances of life among the poor; the stigma of race, drug use and drug trafficking, and lack of employment, as well as the media and, family/peer association. The Code of the Streets by Elijah Anderson, is a groundbreaking essay the social scientist wrote, taking us inside of a world that most of us only read about. Anderson shows us how a frantic search for acceptance and respect governs social relations among the African American race; primarily the young men.
“Violence is the result of alienation and marginalization from mainstream labor opportunities” (as cited by Richardson). Due to this marginalization from mainstream labor opportunities and a lack of resources in urban communities a “subculture[s]…where an underground and illegal economy has provided both the social and economic means for young Black men to survive” (as cited by Richardson) has
At the age of thirteen-year-old, Jonathan (a pseudonym) knows all the names and shapes of the weapons circulating his neighborhood. Jonathan lives with his brothers and mother in a poor-income neighborhood of a metropolitan area. As a result of a lack of father’s presence in his life, his uncle serves as his male role model. In many occasions, when his uncle “goes out and steal” at the nearby stores, Jonathan is often his look out. Despite the criminal laws and police regulations, crime rates in these poor urban neighborhoods are escalating with incarceration rates and death rates follow suits. According to Elijah Anderson (1994), an American sociologist at Yale University, the inclination to violence is derived from the situations of life among the urban poor; these circumstances could be the lack of paying jobs, the stigma of race, the rampant drugs use and drugs trafficking, and the lack of hope for the future. Accordingly, who or what is responsible for the problems displayed in these African American, urban poor communities? The answer comes down to choices. The behaviors of these African American can be attributed through the individual’s disposition and the situational influences; thus, two theories hold the key explanation to answer the inquiry of this phenomenon: Rational Actor Theory and Structured Socialization Theory, respectively.
“Most of the research on youth’s perceptions of violence, however, is based on topics and questions defined by researchers. Few studies provide a format that allows youth to express their ideas about youth violence in their own voices. Rather, they report youth’s responses to closed-ended questions about issues in which the researcher is interested. The unique contribution of this study is that it is based on youth’s perspectives on violence in their own words” (Zimmerman et al., 2004). The cause of violence could be for many reasons including peer pressure, family problems, physical and mental health problems as well.
Violence is defined as the intentional use of force to harm a human being. Its outcome is injury (whether physical or psychological, fatal or nonfatal). Violence among teenagers is on the rise, and has been since the early 1980's. In my opinion this is due to the increase of violence in the media, the astounding availability of firearms and the lack of proper guidance in the home. Northeastern University's College of Criminal Justice reports that from 1985 to 1993 murders committed by people over the age of 25 dropped an impressive 20%; meanwhile they increased 65% for people between the ages of 18-24 and an astounding 165% growth for teenagers 14 to 17. According to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, in 1996, 6548 young people 15-24 years old were victims of homicides. This amounts to an average of 18 youth homicides per day in the US. It also states that homicide is the second leading cause of death for persons 15-24 and is the leading cause of death for African-American and Hispanic youths in this age group. There are a few things that we as Americans can do to stunt this problem, and it starts with the home. By focusing on the home first, we as Americans can drastically reduce the amount of violent crime committed in the US.
Holder, Eric H. Jr., Robinson, Laurie O., Rose, Kristina. (2009). The Code of the Street and African-American Adolescent Violence. Retrieved July 14, 2010, from http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/223509.pdf
In 1960, the American sociologist Paul Goodman published his seminal work, Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized Society. Having observed that, since World War II, there had been an increasing rise in juvenile delinquency – especially amongst white, middle-class, educated males – Goodman set out to study both the source and forms of delinquency. Simply put, he wanted to understand why and how young men were rebelling not just from the previous generation but from society as a whole. Goodman ultimately posited that having been frustrated by an increasingly bureaucratic and corporate culture, the only way for these young men to begin forging their personal identities was to reject the very middle-class culture and values from which they had emerged. Goodman then discovered that many of these young men began to find solace and freedom, to quote Allen Ginsberg, “by dragging themselves through negro hipster streets.” These middle-class young men – or what Goodman would ultimately label as “the white negroes” – found for themselves an entirely new cultural frontier by embracing what they felt to be the only free space available: within the bosom of black culture. The fact middle-class, white males listening to “black music” would hardly raise an eyebrow today only serves as a testament to the enduring power of blackness as a cultural trope. Whether it be jazz in the 1950s or hip-hop at the turn of the century, white youth have continued to find avenues of self-expression and self-formation through what Toni Morrison calls an Africanist presence.
Much like the adage, prevention is better than cure many African American parents hoped to prevent an incident in which their child would be disciplined by America. In this attempt the parents would make certain that their child is disciplined beforehand. The method used was physical discipline, a lower wrong than the discipline of America. While reminiscing of the first time his father disciplined him physically, Coates recalls that “Maybe that saved [him]. Maybe it didn’t” (16). As a child one cannot fully grasp the gravity and pain of a parent beating their child. It is only once Coates becomes a parent himself that he understood the complexities of being a parent of a child of color. Coates articulates, “Now I personally understood my father and the old mantra— ‘Either I can beat you or the police.’ I understood it all… Black people love their children with a kind of obsession. You are all we have and you come to us endangered” (82). Coates, now an adult understood both the love and fear in which his father had when beating him. Additionally, Coates, from his experiences in his childhood understood the growing up as an African American male in America is dangerous and unforgiving. Police brutality is the strong arm in which America uses to discipline young African American teen who fail to comply with their requests. Cooper makes note of this use of brutality by America when she discusses the death of Michael Brown at the hands of police officer Darren Wilson. Cooper
The "youth control complex" is one of the concepts presented by the author to analyze young people 's lives. As mentioned in the book, it is "a ubiquitous system if criminalization molded by the synchronized, systematic punishment meted out by socializing and social control institutions"(p.40). It is a person 's normal daily behavior become ubiquitously treated as deviant or even criminal behaviors. For example, schools in Oakland often treat problem students as potential criminals, and some staffs and teachers act as prison guards telling students they are will never be amount to anything and threaten to call the police for misbehaviors which should be dealt with on campus. Many young men are often called a thug and frisked by police. It damages the mind and future prospects of them. They feel outcast and just want to be acknowledged
Everyone agrees that parent involvement is a good thing. But when the parent behaves inappropriately, it creates a poor environment for the children to learn and enjoy themselves. "Sideline rage" with parents behaving badly at youth sports events is such an epidemic, that 76% of respondents from 60 high school athletic associations said increased spectator interference is causing many officials to quit (Associated Press, 6/3/01). Parents are supposed to be role models, and the lessons they teach will determine their values and actions in the future. These days violence in children's sports is not limited to the playing field; overbearing parents are creating dangerous situations on the field.
These crime-ridden communities (or ghettos) are springing up all through the country, mainly in and around major metropolitan areas. These areas are the most populated, so that means that within these areas are the most people there to be influenced by the crimes committed by fellow people. In Male's reading he shows statistics that prove the fact that once the poverty factor is taken away then teen violence disappears. He later adds, “That if America wants to rid of juvenile violence than serious consideration needs to be given to the societally inflicted violence of raising three to 10 times more youth in poverty than other Western nations.” (Males p386)
When a child observes daily occurrences of violence across: news broadcast, radio, and public incidences, why society is so violent should not be the question, but how society can decrease youth violence should be explored. Today’s youth has an overwhelming burden to bear. Violence has increased in society and youth often are exposed to situations that end in violent acts. The family dynamic has changed significantly in the last 40 years: with increased divorce, single parent households, and blended families the variability for children to be unsupervised allows for increased exposure to violence as well as expressing violence. Societal acceptance of violent acts has also opens the door for children to face more violent situations. The constant growth of drug and weapon use among today’s youth has become a proponent of increased violence against this generation. Violence in society today is caused by decreased parental supervision, societal acceptance, and drug and weapon access.This essay will Understanding why the trend of violence occurs and how it changes the future of youth