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. Starting off the discussion we will start with chapter one. Chapter one is about Decent and street families. Decent families are families who live by society’s norms and try to avoid violence, drugs, confrontation, whereas street families embrace violence and fear because it is a way to stay alive within their neighborhoods. In the chapter they discuss how many families in the inner city actually have the decent family values, but can also harbor the street values. For example in the chapter they actually discussed an instance where Marge a women they had interviewed had a problem with others in her neighborhood. Her story s... ... middle of paper ... ...is was an excellent book that discussed a lot of information. This book is about how inner city people live and try and survive by living with the code of the streets. Within the book in each chapter it talks about every aspect of the street code with great information on each topic. The information that each chapter discusses are the, Street and decent families, respect, drugs violence, street crime, the decent daddy, the mating game, and the black inner city grandmother. Each one of these chapters has major points and good information within them and I would personally want anyone to read this book because it helps you understand and give you a better view into someone else’s world. Works Cited Anderson, Elijah 1999, Code of the Street: decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city, W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110
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...
Harding, D. J. (2010). Living the Drame: Community, Conflict, and Culture Among Inner-City Boys. Chicago, IL: The University Of Chicago Press.
The book We Beat the Street by DRS. Sampson Davis, George Jenkins, Rameck Hunt, and Sharon Draper, is a captivating autobiography about three boys, Sampson, Rameck, and George, who overcame several obstacles and became important doctors. This story took place in the dangerous location of Newark, New Jersey, in the 1980-1990’s, where violence, peer pressure, and drugs were often found. Accordingly, the majority of people were greatly impacted by the negativity around them. In this book, Sampson and Rameck were affected by their negative environment, hence they were involved in unfortunate situations, and often had to face severe consequences, some as serious as being arrested.
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
The neighborhood of Philadelphia in which the 6th Street Boys reside is not the poorest neighborhood in the city, however, it can still be classified as poor section. The young men being examined have never really had a positive male role model in their lives, and were exposed to crime at a very young age. Institutional bodies are also at play here. The gang did commit crimes, however, the police that patrolled the neighborhood were portrayed as bad guys, who just wanted to make these young men’s lives a living hell, by harassing them, their loved ones, and neighbors. The other institutional body at play was the high school that the gang members went to. A simple schoolyard tussle was blown out of proportion, thus leading the men to not trust authority figures. Drug use also seemed to run rampant throughout the neighborhood. This led to one of two things, either becoming a junkie, or becoming a dealer. While some people emerge from these backgrounds as successful adults, many do not, and Goffman made sure to ram that point home. The in depth description of Miss Linda’s (a drug user and abuser) home almost made me sick. According to Goffman, it was a mess, smelt like animal urine, and had cockroaches roaming all around it. This leads us to assume that this was the state of many of the homes in the
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.
Currently there are about 600,000 people who live in the South Bronx and about 434,000 who live in Washington Heights and Harlem. This area makes up one of the most racially segregated areas of poor people in the United States. In this book we focus on racially segregated areas of poor people in the United States. In this book we focus on Mott Haven, a place where 48,0000 of the poorest people in the South Bronx live. Two thirds of the people are Hispanic, one-third is black and thirty-five percent are children. There are nearly four thousand heroin users, and one-fourth of the women who are tested are positive for HIV. All of this, and much more in one little area of the South Bronx. In the middle of all this chaos and confusion are children. Children who have daily drills on what to do if gunshots are heard, children who know someone who has died of AIDS, children who have seen someone been shot right in front of their face wondering if its their father, children who long to be sanitation workers, and children who die everyday. The lives of these children almost seem lost with depression, drugs, and death all around them.
Inner-city black America is often characterized as a place composed of violence and delinquency. In his novel, "Code of the Street", author Elijah Anderson discusses the true cause of crime in these urban areas through a variety of different observations and experiences. In a major Philadelphia artery known as, "Germantown Avenue", many criminological theories can be interpreted as the cause of many misdemeanors in which the community suffers. These theories consist of social disorganization theory, labeling theory, and the general theory of crime.
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.
Inner city youth are usually very impressionable due to less than ideal living conditions in their communities. As a result, it is easy to see why so many African American youth think that selling drug is a way out of poverty. Unfortunately, because of their surroundings, the only people they know with substantial amounts of money are the drug dealers they see in their community. Whether it is a friend of a friend or a close relative, these young people have become accustomed to this way of life. With dreams of one day making enough money to have just the bare necessities or the respect of their peers, these are some of the reasons why drug trafficking is so prevalent in urban areas. In the story The Coldest Winter Ever, by Sister Souljah, she describes how this, the sensationalism and fast money associated with drug trafficking within urban communities, effects a young girl who wants to emulate and hold on to this lifestyle.
A family’s dynamics is the core or base on which one defines ideas about family. Numerous things impact family dynamics, for instance: birth order, spiritually, change, personalities, race, and sexual orientation. When one is determining a family’s dynamic they must look at the big picture to fully grasp what makes a family the way they are. One cannot truly understand the family dynamics of someone until they put themselves in their shoes. “That Evening Sun Go Down”, “Soldier’s Home”, and “A Good Man is Hard to Find” contain family dynamics that help to shape and mold each story. These pieces of literature depict family dynamics, but are found on their own unique foundation. “That Evening Sun Go Down” is found on the dynamics of racism
Ann Petry’s The Street In our society today, there are many images that are portrayed through media and through personal experience that speak to the issues of black motherhood, marriage and the black family. Wherever one turns, there is the image of the black woman in the projects and very rarely the image of successful black women. Even when these positive images are portrayed, it is almost in a manner that speaks to the supposed inferiority of black women.
It’s not easy to build an ideal family. In the article “The American Family” by Stephanie Coontz, she argued that during this century families succeed more when they discuss problems openly, and when social institutions are flexible in meeting families’ needs. When women have more choices to make their own decisions. She also argued that to have an ideal family women can expect a lot from men especially when it comes to his involvement in the house. Raymond Carver, the author of “Where He Was: Memories of My Father”, argued how his upbringing and lack of social institutions prevented him from building an ideal family. He showed the readers that his mother hide all the problems instead of solving them. She also didn’t have any choice but to stay with his drunk father, who was barely involved in the house. Carvers’ memoir is relevant to Coontz argument about what is needed to have an ideal family.
males dealing with family, sexuality and the harsh reality of living in the urban ghetto. Young