"A brilliant diagnosis of the internal factors that hold blacks back." -Wall Street Journal
"One of the best observers of poor people today is Elijah Anderson .... Code of the Street is required reading for anyone interested in the problems that urban African Americans face." -Detroit News
"Elijah Anderson's superb reporting-he is both an example and a reproach to journalists-is the foundation for his dramatic deciphering of the complex code by which too many young people live, and die. Anderson combines a sociological imagination with a novelist's gift for using telling details to drive a narrative. The result is a deeply disturbing, but also moving, story of decency under pressure."
-George F Will
"Important .... [Anderson] demonstrates, time and again, how optimism, ambition and decency can sprout in the most unlikely places, given even the slimmest chance."
-Newsweek
"Profoundly unsettling .... [A] powerful new book."
Katherine S. Newman, Ford Foundation Professor of Urban Studies at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, and author of No Shame in Mly Game: The Working Poor in the Inner City
DECENCY, VIOLENCE, AND THE
MORAL LIFE OF THE INNER CITY
EIijahAnderson
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W, W, NORTON & COMPANY
NEW YORK / LONDON
Campaigning for Respect
N the inner-city environment respect on the street may be viewed as a form of social capital that is very valuable, especially when various other forms of capital have been denied or are unavailable. Not only is it protective; it often forms the core of the person's self esteem, particularly when alternative avenues of self-expression are closed or sensed to be. As the problems of the inner city have become ever more acute, as the public authorities have seemingly abdicated their responsibilities, many of those residing in such communities feel that they are on their own, that especially in matters of personal defense, they must assume the primary responsibility. The criminal justice system is widely perceived as beset with a double standard: one for blacks and one for whites, resulting in a profound distrust in this institution. In the most socially isolated pockets of the inner city, this situation has given rise to a kind of people's law based on a peculiar form of social exchange that is perhaps best understood as a perversion of the Golden Rule, whose by-product in this case is respect and whose caveat is vengeance, or payback. Given its value and its practical implications, respect is fought for and held and challenged as much as honor was in the age of chivalry. Respect becomes critical for staying out of harm's way. In public the person whose very appearance-including his or her clothing, demeanor, and way of moving, as well as "the crowd" he or she runs with, or family reputation-deters transgressions feels that he or she possesses, and may be considered by others to possess, a measure of respect. Much of the code has to do with achieving and holding respect. And children learn its rules early.
THE SOCIAL SHUFFLE
Children from even the most decent homes must come to terms with the various influences of the street. Indeed, as children grow and their parents' control wanes, they go through a social shuffling process that can affirm-or test or undermine-much of the socialization they have received at home. In other words, the street serves as a mediating influence under which children may come to reconsider and rearrange their personal orientations. This is a time of statUs passage, 1 a formative stage for social identity, as children sort out their ways of being. It is a critical period of flux, and a child can go either waydecent or street. For children from decent homes, the immediate and present reality of the street situation can overcome the compunctions against tough behavior that their parents taught them; as children learn to deal with their social environment, they may thus quickly put aside the lessons of the home. The child is confronted with the local hierarchy based on toughness and the premium placed on being a good fighter. As a means of survival, one often learns the value of having a "name," a reputation for being willing and able to fight. To build such a reputation is to gain respect among peers. And a physically talented child who starts down this track may find him- or herself increasingly committed to an orientation that can lead to trouble. Of course, a talented child from either a decent or a streetoriented family may discover ways of gaining respect without resorting unduly to aggressive and violent responses-becoming an athlete or, occasionally, a good student. Some parents encourage their children to become involved in dance, camp, Little League, and other activities to support a positive orientation. The important point here is that the kind of home a child comes from influences but does not always determine the way the child will ultimately turn out. The neighborhood and the surrounding environmental influences, including available social and economic opportunities and how the child adapts to this environment, are key.
Typically, in the inner-city poor neighborhood, by the age of ten, children from decent and street-oriented families alike are mingling on the neighborhood streets and figuring out their identities. Here they try out roles and scripts in a process that challenges their talents and prior socialization and may involve more than a little luck, good or bad. In this volatile environment, they learn to watch their backs and to anticipate and negotiate those situations that might lead to troubles with others. The outcomes of these cumulative interactions with the street ultimately determine every child's life chances.
Herein lies the real meaning of the many fights and altercations that "hide" behind the ostensible, as a rule seemingly petty, precipitating causes, such as the competitions over girlfriends and boyfriends and the "he say, she say" conflicts of personal attribution, including "signifYing" and other name-calling games. Adolescents everywhere are insecure an'd trying to establish their identities. Young people from the middle and upper classes, however, usually have a wider variety of ways to express the fact that they consider themselves worthwhile. The negotiations they engage in may also include aggression, but they tend to be more verbal in away unlike those of more limited resources. In poor inner-city neighborhoods, verbal prowess is important for establishing identity, but physicality is a fairly common way of asserting oneself. Physical assertiveness is also unambiguous. If you punch someone out, if you succeed in keeping someone from walking down your block, "you did it." It is a fait accompli, and the evidence that you prevailed is there for all to see.
During this campaign for respect, through these various conflicts, the connections between actually being respected and 'the need for being in physical control of at least a portion of one's environment become internalized, and the germ of the code of the street emerges. As children mature and obtain an increasingly more sophisticated understanding of the code, it becomes part of their working conception of the world, so that by the time they reach adulthood, it has emerged as an important element of public social order. The rules of physical engagement and their personal implications become crystallized. Children learn the conditions under which violence is appropriate, and they also learn how the code defines their relationship to their peers. They thus grow to appreciate the give-and-take of life in public, the process of negotiation, as well as its implications for social identity. And to a degree they learn to resolve disputes mainly through physical contests that settle-at least for the time beingthe question of who is the toughest and who will take, or tolerate, what from whom under what circumstances. In effect, they learn the social order of their local peer groups; this order, always open to change, is one of the primary reasons the youths take such a strong interest in the fight.
This reality of inner-city life is absorbed largely on the streets.
There children gain, in the words of the street, valued "street knowledge." At an early age, often even before they start school and without much adult supervision, children from street-oriented families gravitate to the streets, where they must be ready to "hang," to socialize competitively with peers. These children have a great deal of latitude and are allowed to rip and run up and down the streets. They often come home from school, put their books down, and go right back out the door. On school nights many eight- and nine-year-olds remain out until nine or ten o'clock (teenagers may come home whenever they want to). On the streets they play in groups that often become the source of their primary social bonds.
In the street, through their play, children pour their individual life experiences into a common knowledge pool, mixing, negating, affirming, confirming, and elaborating on what they have observed in the home and matching their skills against those of others. They also learn to fight; in particular, they learn the social meaning of fighting. In these circumstances even small children test one another, pushing and shoving others, and they seem ready to hit other children over matters not to their liking. In turn, they are readily hit by other children, and the child who is toughest prevails. Furthermore, as the violent resolution of disputes-the hitting and cursing-gains social reinforcement, the child is more completely initiated into a world that provides a strong rationale for physically campaigning for selfrespect.
In a critical sense, violent behavior is determined by specific situations, thus giving importance to the various ways individuals define and interpret such situations, which become so many public trials. The individual builds patterns as outcomes are repeated over time. Behaviors, violent or civil, that work for a young person and are reinforced by peers will likely be repeated, particularly as the child begins to build a "name," or a reputation for toughness.
Moreover, younger children refine their understanding of the code by observing the disputes of older children, which are often resolved through cursing and abusive talk, and sometimes through outright aggression or violence. They see that one child succumbs to the greater physical and mental abilities of the other. These younger children are also alert and attentive witnesses to the occasional verbal and physical fights of adults; later, they will compare notes among themselves and share their own interpretations of the event. Almost always the victor is the person who physically won the altercation, and this person often enjoys the esteem and respect of onlookers. These experiences reinforce the lessons many children have learned at home: might makes right; toughness is a virtue, humility is not. The social meaning of fighting becomes clarified as these children come to appreciate the real consequences of winning and losing. And the child's understanding of the code becomes more refined but also an increasingly important part of his or her working conception of the world.
The street-oriented adults with whom children come in contact at home and on the street-including mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, boyfriends, cousins, neighbors, and friends-help shape and reinforce this understanding by verbalizing the messages these children are getting through public experience: "Watch your back." "Protect yourself." "Don't punk out." "Respect yourself." "If someone disses you, you got to straighten them out." Many parents actually impose sanctions if a child is not sufficiently aggressive. For example, if a child loses a fight and comes home upset, the parent might respond, "Don't you come in here crying that somebody beat you up; you better get back out there and whup his ass. I didn't raise no punks! If you don't whup his ass, I'll whup yo' ass when you come home." Thus the child gains reinforcement for being tough and showing nerve.
While fighting, some children cry, as though they are doing something they are at best ambivalent about. The fight may go against their wishes, yet they may' feel constrained to fight or face the consequences-not just from peers but also from caretakers or parents, who may administer another beating if they back down. Some adults recall receiving such lessons from their own parents and justify repeating them to their children as a way to toughen them up. Appearing capable of taking care of oneself as a form of self-defense is a dominant theme among both street-oriented and decent adults who worry about the safety of their children. But taking care of oneself does not always involve physical fighting; at times it can involve getting "out of stuff" by outwitting adversaries, a tactic often encouraged by decent parents of the inner city. Marge, the hardworking decent woman and mother of five children whom we met in the preceding chapter, tells this story: My son that's bad now-his name is Curtis. And he was going to Linden Junior High School, and he was in the eighth grade. And my son Terry was in the same grade. Terry's a year younger, but Curtis had gotten put back in the second grade. They had never had a fight.
So he [Curtis] called me at work one day and told me tlhat somebody was bothering him, and he was afraid. He was thirteen or fourteen at the time. He said he was also afraid to tell the teacher because if he told the teacher, they were gonna pick on
him more. And he didn't have any men in his life at the timemy husband was not his father, so that was another issue. So I said to him, "What are you gonna do? Are you gonna leave school?" He said he was afraid to leave school because ifhe left school, they would still pick on him. So I said to him, "Curtis, I'll tell you what you do. I'm gonna get off work early. What I want you to do, I want you to talk as bad as you can talk and don't act afraid. They don't know me. None of your friends in your classroom know me." I said, "I want you to come out and talk as bad as you can talk, but don't hit anybody. And then walk away." I said, "If a fight breaks out, then I'll come and break it up." And that's what he did, and they left him alone. Isn't that something? See, he had to show nerve; it's very important for boys. It's easier for girls. The boys in the neighborhood-ifyou don't do some of the things they do, or even with the clothes, if you don't have nice things-at that time it was J ordache jeans and Sergio-if you don't have some of those things, people will pick on you and that type of thing.
Many decent parents encourage their children to stand up to those who might be aggressive toward them, but they also encourage their children to avoid trouble. Given their superior resources and their connections to the wider society, including schools, churches, and other institutions, the decent parents have the ability to see themselves beyond the immediate neighborhood; they tend to have more ways "to be somebody" than the typical street-oriented person. The difference in outlook has to do mainly with a difference in social class. Hence they tend to encourage their children to avoid conflict by talking or by turning and walking away. But, as was indicated above, this is not always possible, and as a last resort such children are usually taught to stand their ground.
SELF-IMAGE BASED ON "JUICE"
By the time they are teenagers, most young people have internalized the code of the street, or at least learned to comport themselves in accordance with 'its rules. As we saw above, the code revolves around the presentation of self. Its basic requirement is the display of a certain predisposition to violence. A person's public bearing must send the unmistakable, if sometimes subtle, message that one is capable of violence, and possibly mayhem, when the situation requires it, that one can take care of oneself. The nature of this communication is determined largely by the demands of the circumstances but can involve facial expressions, gait, and direct talk-all geared mainly to deterring aggression. Physical appearance, including clothes, jewelry, and grooming, also plays an important part in how a person is viewed; to be respected, it is vital to have the right look.
Even so, there are no guarantees against challenges, because there are always people around looking for a fight in order to increase their share of respect-or "juice," as it is sometimes called on the street. Moreover, if a person is assaulted, it is essential in the eyes of his "running buddies" as well as his opponent for him to avenge himself. Otherwise he risks being "tried" (challenged) or "rolled on" (physically assaulted) by any number of others. Indeed, if he is not careful, he can lose the respect of his running buddies, thus perhaps encouraging one of them to try him. This is a critical consideration, for without running buddies or "homies" who can be depended on to watch his back in a "jam," the person is vulnerable to being rolled on by still others. Part of what protects a person is both how many people can be counted on to avenge his honor if he is rolled on in a fight and who these defenders are-that is, what their status on the street is. Some of the best-protected people in the environment are members not only of tough street-corner groups but also of families and extended families of cousins, uncles, fathers, and brothers who are known to be down with the street. Their family members, especially when the family's reputation is secure, "can go anywhere, and won't nobody bother them." Generally, to maintain his honor, the young man must show that he himself, as an individual, is not someone to be "messed with" or dissed. To show this, he may "act crazy"-that is, have the reputation for being quick-tempered. In general, though, a person must "keep himself straight" by managing his position of respect among others, including his homies; fundamentally, this task involves managing his self-image, which is shaped by what he thinks others are thinking of him in relation to his peers.3
Objects play an important and complicated role in establishing self-image. Jackets, sneakers, gold jewelry, even expensive firearms, reflect not just taste, which tends to be tightly regulated among adolescents of all social classes, but also a willingness to possess things that may require defending. A boy wearing a fashionable, expensive jacket, for example, is vulnerable to attack by another who covets the jacket and either can't afford to buy one or wants the added satisfaction of depriving someone else of his. However, if a boy forgoes the desirable jacket and wears one that isn't hip, he runs the risk of being teased or even assaulted as an unworthy person. A youth with a decency orientation describes the situation this way:
Here go another thing. If you outside, right, and your mom's on welfare and she on crack, the persons you trying to be with dress [in] like purple sweatpants and white sneaks, but it's all decent, right, and you got on some bummy jeans and a pair of dull sneaks, they won't-some of the people out there selling drugs won't let you hang with them unless you dress like [in] purple sweatpants and decent sneaks every day ...
They tease 'em. First they'll tease 'em and then they'll try to say they stink, like they smell like pig or something like that, and then they'll be like, "Get out of here. Get out. We don't want you near us. You stink. You dirty." All that stuff. And I don't think that's right. If he's young, it ain't his fault or her fault that she dressin' like that. It's her mother and her dad's fault.
To be allowed to hang with certain prestigious crowds, a boy must wear a different set of expensive clothes every day. Not to do so might make him appear socially deficient. So he may come to covet such items-especially when he spots easy prey wearing them. The youth continues,
You can even get hurt off your own clothes. Like, say I'm walkin' down the street and somebody try to take my hat from me and I won't let 'em take it and they got a gun. You can get killed over one little simple hat. Or if I got a gold ring and a gold necklace on and they see me one dark night on a dark street, and they stick me up and I won't let 'em, and they shoot me. I'm dead and they hid me. I'm dead and won't nobody ever know [who did it].
In acquiring valued things, therefore, an individual shores up his or her identity-but since it is an identity based on having something, it is highly precarious. This very precariousness gives a heightened sense of urgency to staying even with peers, with whom the person is actually competing. Young men and women who can command respect through their presentation of self-by allowing their possessions and body language to speak for them-may not have to campaign for regard but may, rather, gain it by the force of their manner. Those who are unable to command respect in this way must actively campaign for it.4
One way to campaign for status is to take the possessions of others.
Seemingly ordinary objects can become trophies with symbolic value that far exceeds their monetary worth. Possessing the trophy can symbolize the ability to violate somebody-to "get in his face," to dis him-and thus to enhance one's own worth by stealing someone else's. The trophy does not have to be something material. It can be another person's sense of honor, snatched away with a derogatory remark. It can be the outcome of a fight. It can be the imposition of a certain standard, such as a girl getting herself recognized as the most beautiful. Material things, however, fit easily into the pattern: sneakers, a pistol, even somebody else's girlfriend can become a trophy. When a person can take something from another and then flaunt it, he gains a certain regard by being the owner, or the controller, of that thing. But this display of ownership can then provoke a challenge from other people. This game of who controls what is thus constantly being played out on inner-city streets, and the trophy-extrinsic or intrinsic, tangible or intangible-identifies the current winner.
In this often violent give-and-take, raising oneself up largely depends on putting someone else down. The level of jealousy and envy underscores the alienation that permeates the inner city. There is a general sense that very little respect is to be had, and therefore everyone competes to get what affirmation he can from what is available. The resulting craving for respect gives people thin skins and short fuses. Shows of deference by others can be highly soothing, contributing to a sense of security, comfort, self-confidence, and selfrespect. Unanswered transgressions diminish these feelings and are believed to encourage further transgressions. Constant vigilance is therefore required against even giving the impression that transgressions will be tolerated. Among young people, whose sense of self-esteem is particularly vulnerable, there is an especially heightened concern about being disrespected. Many ilnner-city young men in particular crave respect to such a degree thai they will risk their lives to attain and maintain it.
As was noted above, the issue of respect is thus closely tied to whether a person has an inclination to be violent, even as a victim. In the wider society, particularly among the middle class, people may not feel required to retaliate physically after an attack, although they are well aware that they have been degraded or taken advantage of. They may feel a great need to defend themselves during an attack, or to behave in a way that deters aggression, but they are much more likely than street-oriented people to feel that they can walk away from a possible altercation with their self-esteem intact. Some people,may even have the strength of character to flee without thinking that their self-respect will be diminished.
In impoverished inner-city black communities, however, particularly among young males and perhaps increasingly among females, such flight would be extremely difficult. To run away would likely leave one's self-esteem in tatters, while inviting further disrespect. Therefore, people often feel constrained not only to stand up and at least attempt to resist during an assault but also to "pay back" -to seek revenge-after a successful assault on their person. Revenge may include going to get a weapon or even getting relatives and friends involved. Their very identity, their self-respect, and their honor are often intricately tied up with the way they perform on the streets during and after such encounters. And it is this identity, including a credible reputation for payback, or vengeance, that is strongly believed to deter future assaults.
THE STAGING AREA
In Philadelphia as in other urban areas, young people especially become associated with the parts of the city, including streets and blocks, from which they come, gaining reputations based on the "character" of such areas. People are likely to assume that a person who comes from a "bad" area is bad.5 The reputation of the neighborhood affects the reputation of the school, particularly the high school, that the youth attends. The school's reputation is shaped by its history, including the records of its sports teams, the achievements of its students, the levels of violence and of entrenched and persistent poverty associated with the area, and the number of staging areas in and around it.
Staging areas are hangouts where a wide mix of people gather for various reasons. It is here that campaigns for respect are most often waged. Three types of staging areas can be distinguished. One is quite local, revolving around neighborhood establishments such as carryouts, liquor stores, and bars. The staging area might be inside, on a street comer outside, or at a house party with little or no adult supervision, where alcohol and drugs are available. The second type is a business strip whose stores cater to street-oriented working-class and poor people. Buzzing with activity, it draws people from a larger area. The third type-multiplex theaters, sporting events, and concertsbrings together large crowds from throughout the city. Such areas are the most volatile, especially at places such as roller-skating rinks or dances where there is music, alcohol, drugs, and rough crowds of young people inclined to "act out" what they have seen or heard others do.
People from other neighborhoods who come to a staging area and present themselves are said to be "representing" both who they are and the "world" or " 'hood" from which they hail. To represent is to place one's area of the city on the line, to say to outsiders, "Hey, this is what's to me [what I am made of] and my neighborhood," compared with other neighborhoods of the city. For the boldest young people, it is to put oneself on the line, in effect, to put a chip on one's shoulder and dare others to knock it off. It is to wage a campaign for respect, but with the added elements of dare and challenge. There are often enough young people in the staging area to provide the critical mass of negative energy necessary to spark violence, not just against people like themselves but also against others present in the staging area, creating a flashpoint for violence. At sporting events (where a school's prestige can be on the line) and at other public events like movies at the multiplex, some people are looking for a fight, making the place something of a tinderbox.
In representing, material goods play an important and complicated role in establishing self-image. Youths typically place a high premium on eyewear, leather jackets, expensive sneakers, and other items that take on significance as status symbols. An impoverished inner-city youth who can acquire these material things is able to feel big and impress others, but these others may then attempt to relieve him of his property in order to feel big themselves and impress still others. The wise youths of the neighborhood understand that it is better not to opt for the more expensive items, because they realize that by doing so they make themselves into targets for theft and robbery. But for those who go for bad the staging area is a place to show off, to represent, even to dare someone to mess with you. Just visiting the staging area can be quite satisfying, and risky. The person goes to the "block" or the staging area to see what is the latest trend, what is happening, who is doing what with whom, or who did what to whom, and when.
But the staging area is also a densely populated place where young people hang out and look to meet members of the opposite sex. Here young men and women out to be "with it" or "hip" smoke cigarettes or drink "forties" or other alcoholic beverages, or perhaps they are there to get high on "blunts" (drug-laced cigars). As people represent, their demeanor may serve as a kind of dare. Young men may taunt others by joking with them, saying directly, "Now, start something!" as though they are ready for anything. At an event with large crowds from all around the city, heterogeneous groups vie for social position. People can become touchy, and a fight can start over seemingly minor incidents, but what happens is anything but minor, because an injury or death may result, rearranging the social order of the group and setting the stage for payback-inspired feuds. With so much at stake a man, or a woman, can easily feel disrespected by another who looks at him for "too long" or simply by being cut off in the concession line. Such a "cut," which might also be viewed as an advance at someone's girl- or boyfriend, may be taken as a "statement." Challenging the statement creates a "beef," and a confrontation can erupt. As the situation deteriorates, it may be very difficult for either party to back down, particularly if members of an audience are present who have, or are understood to have, a significant social investment in who and what each participant pretends to be.
The fight over the beef can begin within the confines of the multiplex or athletic event, first with words that can quickly escalate into shouting, name-calling, or fisticuffs. A peace officer or security guard is usually there, or is sent for, to break up the altercation. Bystanders may also try to break it up, but this is becoming increasingly rare, as people assume that a fight in a public place is likely to erupt into warfare with guns or knives; a stranger trying to intervene may be risking his or her life, and most people will not do so unless they are very sure of themselves or have a stake in the outcome.
If violence occurs, matters are not always settled on the spot. If one person gets the better of the other, there often must be a payback. Everybody knows this, and certain people may wait. Mainly for protection, young people who attend such events may carry "equalizers" or "shit"-firearms or other weapons-but because of security, only the boldest will try to enter the event armed. Most people will leave their shit in the trunk of the car, or hidden in accessible bushes or a trash can, to be retrieved if the need arises. A young man with a publicly known beef will feel there is a chance that he will have to go get his shit. For this to happen, the young man's life does not always have to be in danger; pride, how he feels about his homies, low feelings, or having gotten the bad end of an altercation may be enough for him to prepare to settle things or to try to avenge the offense. So after the security guard or others have stopped the fight, the participants may want to take it outside, where their shit is, and where there is a lot less security. While the staging areas of the city are often tlhe places where beefs spontaneously develop and fights to settle them occur, the code itself germinates, emerges, and grows on the streets, in the alleys, and on the playgrounds of the inner-city neighborhood, where in the interests of social survival small children begin early in life their campaign for respect.6
TYREE'S STORY*
Tyree is a young black man of fifteen, a high school student, and his story illustrates the intricacy of the rules of the code. Until recently, he lived in a poor section of South Philadelphia with his mother, Rose, a nurse's aide at a local hospital. Then their house burned down, and they lost much of what they owned. Tyree never knew his father, but his mother has had a number of boyfriends who have served as a male presence in his life. These men have come and gone, leaving a bit of themselves here and there. He has known Richard, a man who worked as a security guard; Reece, a parking lot attendant who sold drugs on the side; and Mike, who worked as a janitor at the hospital. Mike continues to come around, and at this point he is Tyree's mom's "main squeeze," the man with whom she keeps company the most. Tyree likes Mike the best. Mike has taken Tyree to Eagles games in the fall and Seventy-sixers games in the winter. Steady and decent, Mike has been most like a real father to Tyree.
After the fire Tyree and Rose moved in with his grandmother, who lives in Southwest Philadelphia, one of the most distressed neighborhoods in the city. Along Fifty-eighth in Southwest, a local staging area, small groups of teenage boys hang out, talking, milling, and passing the time. On the side of a dilapidated building is a graffiti memorial reading, "Barry, we love you, RIP." Particularly at night, prostitutes hustle their wares on the corners. A drug dealer hangs near the pay telephone, standing there as though this is his corner, which for all intents and purposes it is. Public, open-air drug marketing goes on here-in broad daylight or at night. Buyers, some with out-of-town license plates, stop their cars, seeming not to care who might be looking on. Some are white, others are black, but they have one thing in mind-to "cop" their drugs and go on about their business.
Drug dealing is big business here. The trade is carried out in public, but also in the homes of certain proprietors, who charge dealers to sell in the house and rent rooms to whores or johns who want to get "tightened up." There are also crack houses, where people simply go to buy or smoke their drugs. The neighbors are aware of this situation, but they are often demoralized, feeling there is little they can do about it. They sometimes call the police, but the police require proof that the place is what the neighbors know it to be. But such proof is not easy for the police to gather. It is sometimes easier, though frustrating, for the residents simply to "see but don't see," trying their best to ignore what is much more than a nuisance.
This is the neighborhood Tyree has moved into, and he has been here only a few days. His major concern at this point in his young life is "to get cool" with the boys who run the neighborhood. He refers to these boys as "bols." He refuses to call them boys. Part of this may have to do with the fact that for so long the term "boy" was so demeaning that young black men replaced the term with one considered to be "cool" from the standpoint of the code. At any rate, Tyree says "boIs," spelling it "b-o-l-s" and pronouncing it "bulls." A particular meaning of the term is "friend." On the streets of his new neighborhood, Tyree's biggest problem now is to get cool with these bols.
What does that entail? Here, as in almost any working-class to impoverished inner-city neighborhood, the boIs are known to run the neighborhood. Tyree understands what the deal is. He used to run with the boIs from his old neighborhood, where he himself was in charge, where he had established himself as a main bol of the neighborhood. The task before him now is to get to know the new boIs-but also to allow them to get to know him. They must be able to take his "measure" up close, to see what he will or will not stand in his dealings with others, how much nerve and heart he possesses, whether he will defend what he claims is his. Tyree has a general idea of what he has to do here to survive or to have any semblance of a decent existence.
On Saturday, while his mom is at work, Tyree's grandmom quite innocently asks him to run to the store for her.
"Yeah, Grandmom. What you want?"
"I need a loaf of bread and a quart of milk."
Tyree dutifully takes the money and heads out the door. It is two o'clock on a nice, sunny afternoon. He leaves the house and begins to walk up the street toward the store. He can't help being somewhat tense, given his familiarity with the code of the street. He knows that eventually he will encounter the bols. And sure enough, after about five minutes, he spies about twenty boIs walking up the street toward him. He sees them, and they see him. Their eyes meet. It is too late to turn back, for that would mean he would lose face, that he had acted scared, and his sense of manhood will not allow him to do that. He must face this situation.
As he approaches the bols, he feels himself tensing up even more, but he continues. As they come face-to-face, they stop and begin to talk. He knows they want to know what his business is. What is he doing here? Where does he come from? What gang is he from? Even before the questions are fully asked, Tyree tries to respond, "Well, uh, my grandmom, uh ... " But the boIs do not really want an answer. They want to roll on him (beat him up). Before he realizes it, the bols begin to punch him out, allowing most of the group to "get a piece." One boy punches-then another and another.
It is important to understand that these are almost ritual punches, with "good licks" and some kicking, pushing, and slapping "upside the head." Soon Tyree loses his balance and falls to the ground. " [This] really scared me," he said. FaIling in such a fight is very risky, for then the worst can happen: someone "could really get messed up." There is an important distinction between rolling on someone and messing someone up. To roll is simply to take advantage of someone, to act as the aggressor in the fight. To mess someone up is actually to hurt him physically to the point where blood is spilled and he might have to go to the hospital. In this instance, the bols are not out to mess Tyree up.
The bols leave Tyree lying on the ground in a fetal position. As they move away, they smirk and say things like, "Who do he think he is?" and "We showed the motherfucker, think he gon' come up in here bigger than shit!" Tyree is bruised and hurt, but his pride is hurt much more than his body. For Tyree is a man, and it is extremely important not to let people do this to you. But there was really little that he could do to prevent this. He has been rolled on and utterly dissed. He is very angry, but also sad and dejected. He knows that they could have seriously hurt him. They wanted to put something on his mind, to show him whose turf this is. And Tyree understands the profound meaning of this incident, for he understands the code and has himself lived by it.
Tyree picks himself up and, without completing his errand, walks back to his grandmom's' house with his head down. He is angry, for
he has been violated. When he arrives at his grandmom's house, she says, "Where you been? Where are the groceries?" He mumbles a reply and goes to sit on the living room stairs and peer out the window. "What's wrong, boy?" she asks.
"Aw, nothin'," he says.
"Wha-you been fightin'?" she presses. With this, he mumbles, "I met some boIs." "You hurt!? I'll call the police!" she exclaims. "Naw, don't call the police."
"But you hurt."
"Don't call no police, I'll take care of it myself," he pleads.
This is something of a revelation to his grandmom. She hadn't known that the young men on the streets were this way, because she has never had Tyree with her for so long. She's an elderly woman, and old people are sometimes deferred to and protected by the same bols who violated Tyree. This is part of the code. She had never been aware that Tyree was so vulnerable, so she now worries about what to do.
Tyree goes to the bathroom to clean himself up. He showers and then sits and mopes around the house. He knows his grandmom still needs her groceries, and pretty soon, without saying a word, he leaves for the store. As he travels the distance to the store, he is somewhat edgy, circumspect, trying to watch his back, peeping around the corners and hoping to see any of the boIs before they see him. He makes it up the two blocks to the store, walks in, and looks around. And over by the ice cream freezer he spies one of the bols who rolled on him earlier. The bol sees him. What does Tyree do now? Full of nerve, he rushes over to the bol and punches him in the face. Tyree gets in a couple of licks before the boy's nose begins to bleed, which was really all Tyree wanted to do; he wanted to pay him back, to let him know he has been punched and violated back. At that point the
bollooks at Tyree and acknowledges aloud, "You got me that time, but I'll be back!"
Tyree looks in the bol's eyes and says, "Yeah, you and yo' mama."
And with that he exits the store, without getting what he came for. He walks away. Tyree now feels good, as though he is getting his respect back.
With all the punches and hits, and particularly the public dissing he underwent at the hands of the boIs, Tyree suffered a serious loss of respect. To settle scores as he did with the bol at the store is to begin to get his respect back. He retrieves self-esteem at the expense of another, in this case, the bol he publicly punched out. Tyree feels so good, in fact, that he walks (with some care) on to another storethrough the turf of the boIs-to get his grandmom's groceries. He buys what he wants and heads home carefully, watching out for the bols. Tyree feels under some obligation to punch out every bol he sees until he can avenge himself and regain his respect.
This is the code of the street. The code is not new. It is as old as the world, going back to Roman times or the world of the shogun warriors or the early American Old South.7 And it can be observed in working-class Scotch-Irish or Italian or Hispanic communities. But profound economic dislocation and the simultaneous emergence of an underground economy that thrives on the "law of the jungle" implicit in the code have exacerbated conditions in many communities. Equally important, the proliferation and availability of guns have further exacerbated such conditions. Tyree could easily acquire a gun. Most of the young boys he knows from his old neighborhood know where they can get a gun without too much trouble.
Tyree arrives home with the groceries, and his grandmom is pleased. Although relieved that Tyree hasn't gotten into more trouble, she now has anew worry-how Tyree will get along with the young men of her neighborhood. She asks him more about his altercation, and he tries to assure her that he can take care of himself. But when he leaves the house, his grandmother worries, and this worry is shared by his mother. Increasingly, given the local news reports of street crime, shootings, and drugs, Tyree's mother questions her decision to move in with her own mother, although she really had little choice; the alternative would have been homelessness. Now
Tyree spends much of his energy trying to persuade his mother and grandmother not to worry about him as he ventures outside in the streets. And while he tries to reassure them, he is really not very sure himself. For he knows that when he leaves the house he must watch his back.
The young men are very aware of Tyree's presence in the neighborhood; they are much more sensitive to the presence of interlopers than are the adults. (This fact is relevant to an understanding of Tyree's mother's and grandmother's ignorance of or indifference to the implications of their move into the new neighborhood.) When leaving home, Tyree steps from his house into the street and then looks up and down, trying to Spot a bol before the bol spots him. His orientation is one of studied defensiveness. He wants to avoid contact with those who might be inclined to roll on him. He peeks around corners, travels through alleys, and basically does what he feels he must do-lie low.
There is pressure on Tyree to get cool with these bols, if only in the interest of safety. A few weeks later, on a Saturday afternoon, he is again walking down a street in his new neighborhood, heading to Center City to meet some friends from his old neighborhood. As he approaches the bus stop, he sees a group ofbols coming up the street. They are about a block and a half away, and Tyree thus has a choice of running or staying. But something inside him-his concern about being manly, his quest to be defined as a person with nerve, heart, or simply street knowledge-makes him hesitate. They see him, and now it is too late. They know that he sees them. Now he can't run or dodge them; he must meet this situation head-on. Tyree must do what a man has to do. He knows he must deal with them, because the situation has been building for a while. He tenses up, for he feels caught in the wrong place, but he is unable to flee. He knows that if he runs today, he'll always be running. His manhood is on the line. Therefore he goes and meets the bols. But it is almost as though both parties have been expecting this day. He knew it was coming eventually. They knew it was coming, and all the while they have been keeping tabs on him, maybe even keeping score on him, particularly noting the way he rolled on the bol in the convenience store (whose name he later found out was Tiny). This is a showdown. As they come face-to-face, Tyree says, "What's up!"
They return his greeting, "Hey!" The situation is tense. Tyree says, "Look, y'all. I can't fight no twenty bols." There is a short silence. Then he says, "Can we be boIs? Can I be bols with y'alI?"
Summoned by Calvin, who seems to be the leader, the group huddles. A few talk to one another, while the others remain quiet. Calvin soon emerges and says, "You gotta fightJ C." J C steps forward. He is about six one, eighteen years old, and weighs about 180 pounds. Though Tyree is daunted by the prospect of fighting J C, he tries not to display any signs of fear. He has been expecting to have to fight someone, and he has been dreading this for four weeks; he just didn't know how this would work out-when it would be, whom he would fight, or whether he could trust that others would not jump in. The showdown, therefore, is something of a relief. So he doesn't hesitate. He simply and quickly agrees, saying, "All right," trying to disabuse others of the notion that he is scared.
Calvin says, "Let's go behind this building." So the group of young men go behind a building on Walton Street for what promises to be a fair fight. Tyree is only five seven and weighs about 140 pounds, but he is muscular and quick, and he knows how to hold his hands in a pose to block any shots.JC does the same, and they begin to spar, dancing around, swinging now and then. Their eyes are riveted, following each other's every move. They watch each other's hands, looking for weaknesses and trying not to show any of their own. Much is at stake here. They spar and keep their eyes on each other but also on the audience that eggs them on. J C, of course, is the favorite, but Tyree seems not to care.
They begin to fight. Tyree lands the first punch to J C's midsection, breaking the tension. J C feints and swings at Tyree with a right cross. Finally J C grabs Tyree and begins to pummel him. But Tyree hangs in there, swinging, punching, scratching, even biting. This is supposed to be a "fair fight," but the distinction soon gets blurred. J C is clearly getting the best of Tyree, and Tyree becomes increasingly angry, while feelings of humiliation loom. Yet, in addition to the nerve he showed in taking J C on, he shows just as much heart by hanging in there with the larger boy, for J C is not only larger but also quick with his hands and quite agile. What Tyree lacks in strength and ability, he makes up for in guts. And this is on display for everyone to observe.
After about twenty minutes, the fight ends, and apparently J C has won. "The bol was just too big and too fast, but I showed them that Ihad heart," says Tyree. He might have added thatJ C also had much at stake in this fight; he had a lot to lose if he had gotten whipped, particularly in frOnt of his bols It is also clear thatJ C knows he has been in a fight. He has lost a shoe, and his eye is badly bruised. Tyree's shirt collar is almost completely torn off, his arms and neck now bear deep scratches and scrapes, and his nose is bleeding. He put up a very good fight, which was impressive to all. He lost,. but he lost to a worthy opponent.
Tyree has now won the respect of the bols, and he is thus allowed to be-in a limited way-a member of the group. The fight withJ C has been a step in a long process that will allow him to get cool with the bols and to establish himself in the neighborhood. In the next few days and weeks, people will talk about the fight and how Tyree, though he did not win, gave a good account of himself. And since J C had such a strong reputation or "name" in the neighborhood, Tyree benefits from the encounter. So Tyree gets known around the 'hood. The boIs will now greet him on the streets and not bother him, at least on certain conditions. Tyree may be carrying a box of chicken, and if a bol says, "Hey, Tyree, what's up. Gimme some of that," Tyree is obligated to share it. This is true not just for food but for virtually anything Tyree displays as his own. If he is wearing a nice jacket or a nice pair of sneaks, he must be ready to "loan" them. If he has money, he is expected to be generous with the others. And as he does so, he negotiates his place in the group. This is the code.
As he meets the demands of his new role, he gets cool with the others, establishing, maintaining, and controlling his share of respect. As tlhe young men learn to relate to others, they learn, in effect, their place. But in an environment of such deprivation, respect is in short supply and cannot be taken for granted; trials and contests continue, day in, day out. Status in the group is continually being adjusted, and this dynamic allows boIs who are cool with one another to live in relative peace.
I GOT YO' BACK
In the process of working his way up in the group, Tyree makes friends with Malik. Malik is Tyree's age, fifteen, and is physically about the same size; they are pretty evenly matched. Both young men are marginal to the group, not yet completely established as members. Both have fought other boys but have never fought each other. This observation is significant because fighting is such an important part of residing in the neighborhood, of being a part of the neighborhood groups that dominate the public spaces. Physical prowess and ultimately respect itself are in large part the coin of the social order. Certain boys appoint themselves as defenders and protectors of their turf-of their neighborhood~against boIs from other neighborhoods; in so doing, they claim the area as their domain, making it known that anyone and anything going down in the neighborhood is their business, particularly in matters involving young women.
Malik and Tyree hang together. They traverse the city together, occasionally going downtown to the Gallery, to Thirtieth Street Station, or to one of the staging areas dominated by other boIs; in these other areas of the city, people might jump them without a moment's hesitation, mainly because if someone is not in his own neighborhood, there may be a virtual price on his head. This means that anyone out to make a name for himself might jump outsiders for the honor of it, or simply on "GP" -general principle. So in order to travel in peace, or to believe they are traveling in peace, Malik and Tyree often dress to look mean or cool, as though they are "not for foolishness" -not to be messed with. They try to be ready, working to impress others with the notion that they are deadly serious, "that we don't play." When they travel out of the 'hood, they charge each other with watching their backs, and by taking on these critical responsibilities, they bond and become "tight," at times "going for brothers," or "cousins." 8
These fictive kinship relationships involve a close connection between the two boys, so close that they are ready and willing not only to watch each other's back but to take up for the other in time of need. But this is not always an easy relationship.
For instance, one day Malik and Tyree are walking down a street in the neighborhood and encounter a group of young women. In his characteristic way, Tyree begins to "rap" or "hit on" one of the young women, trying out his conversational game. As so often happens when young women are present, the boys can become downright silly, acting out in ways that at times surprise both themselves and their companions. The girls giggle and laugh at Tyree, and Malik, too, laughs at his "silly" conversation in front of the young women. Tyree's "jaws get tight"-that is, he becomes perturbed by Malik's show of disrespect.
As they leave the girls and walk about a block down the street, Tyree stops and confronts Malik. "Say, man. Why you always squarin' me off. You always dissin' me. I'm tired of yo' shit, man."
"Aw, man. I didn't do nothin'," responds Malik.
"Yes you did. You always gettin' on my case, and I'm tired of yo'
shit. Put up yo' hands, man. Put up yo' hands," challenges Tyree.
"Aw, man. I don't wanta fight you, man," responds Malik.
"Naw, man. I ain't bullshittin'. Put up yo' hands," presses Tyree. "Well, I ain't gon' fight you here, let's go behind this building,"
offers Malik, finally accepting Tyree's challenge.
The two young men walk behind the building they are standing next to and begin to square off. Almost on cue, the two friends put up their hands in the fighting position in an attempt to settle their differences in the man-to-man manner they know. With no audience present, they commence battle, sparring and dancing about.
Tyree and Malik have agreed to a contest that is somewhere between a fair fight and a real fight. Such fights are part of a long and honorable tradition of settling disputes between men, and this tradition has a justice that is its own result, effectively settling things for the time being. The fights are characterized by elaborate rules, including "no hitting in the face," "you got to use just your hands," and "no double-teaming." No one can tell beforehand, however, whether a fight will remain "fair" or change in the course of battle. A change can result simply from audience reaction, which serves to interpret each blow and indicate who is winning or who is beating whom. Audience reaction can sometimes tilt the scale from fair to unfair, and it can determine who wins and loses and thus who must then get even. For instance, a loud slap to the face, even if accidental and quickly followed by apologies, can alter the character of the contest. Young boys can start off joking and wind up fighting to the death, all because of a reaction to a miscalculation that pushed the contest hopelessly off-balance.
Malik and Tyree dance and spar, huffing and puffing, dodging and feinting. To the onlooker, it appears to be a game, for real blows seem hardly to be exchanged. But suddenly Malik lands a blow to Tyree's shoulder and another to his stomach, and he follows this up with this taunt: "I gotcha." Dropping his guard, Tyree acknowledges this, but then he quickly resumes his fighting stance, again putting up his hands. They go at it again, punching, dancing, dodging. Tyree lands a good punch to Malik's stomach and then, with a right cross, catches him on the chest, but Malik counters with a kidney punch and a knee to the crotch. Tyree checks his opponent with, "Watch that shit, man." They continue trading punches, hits, and feints. They are getting tired. Tyree, hands up, accidentally lets an open hand to to Malik's face with the sound of a slap. Tyree knows instinctively what he has done, that he has seriously violated the rules of the fair fight, and just as quickly he says, "Aw, 'cuse me, man." The apology must come quickly and must be sincere, otherwise such a blow can escalate the fight to the point of a serious exchange. Malik responds, "Watch yourself, man. Watch yourself."
They continue their dancing and sparring for about twenty minutes and then stop. They have fought and, for the moment, settled their differences. But, actually, something much more profound has occurred as well. To be sure, the two boys can now smile at each other again, knowing that if they have a disagreement, they can settle it man to man. Through this little fight, they have bonded socially. They have tested each other's mettle, discerned important limits, and gained an abiding sense of what each one will "take" from the other. With this in mind they adjust tlheir behavior in each other's presence, giving the other his "props," or respect. In this context they learn to accept each other, or pay the consequences; in effect, they learn the rules of their relationship. After consummating their bond through a fight, they can now walk together again, while expecting that if someone was to try to jump Malik, Tyree would likely be there to defend his friend, or vice versa. They informally agree to watch each other's back. When this very strong-and necessary in the inner city-expectation is met, powerful bonds of trust are formed and, with repeated supportive exchanges, ever more firmly established. Essentially, this is what it means to "get cool" with someone, and when the story gets out, each is now more cool with the wider group of boIs as well.
MANHOOD AND NERVE
On the neighborhood streets, many of the concerns of Tyree, Malik, and other young males relating to respect and identity have come to be expressed in the concept of "manhood." Manhood on the streets means assuming the prerogatives of men with respect to strangers, other men, and women-being distinguished as a man. It implies physicality and a certain ruthlessness. Inner-city men associate manhood with this concept in large part because of its practical application: if others have little regard for a person's manhood, his very life and the lives of his loved ones could be in jeopardy. But there is a chicken-and-egg aspect to this situation: one's physical safety is more likely to be jeopardized in public because manhood is associated with respect. In other words, an existential link has been created between the idea of manhood and one's self-esteem, so that it has become hard to say which is primary. For many inner-city youths, manhood and respect are two sides of the same coin; physical and psychological well-being are inseparable, and both require a sense of control, of being in charge.
For many young men, the operating assumption is that a man, especially a "real" man, knows what other men know-the code of the street. And if one is not a real man, one is diminished as a person. Moreover, the code is seen as possessing a certain justice, since everyone supposedly has the opportunity to learn it, and thus can be held responsible for being familiar with it. If the victim of a mugging, for example, does not know the code and thus responds "wrong," the perpetrator may feel justified in killing him and may not experience or show remorse. He may think, "Too bad, but it's his fault. He should have known better."
A person venturing outside must adopt the code-a kind of shield-to prevent others from messing with him. In crime-ridden parts of the inner city, it is easy for people to think they are being tried or tested by others even when this is not the case. For something extremely valuable on the street-respect-is at stake in every interaction, and people are thus encouraged to rise to the occasion, particularly with strangers. For people unfamiliar with the codegenerally people who live outside the inner city-this concern with respect in the most ordinary interactions can be frightening and incomprehensible. But for those who are invested in the code, the clear object of their demeanor is to discourage strangers from even thinking about testing their manhood, and the sense of power that comes with the ability to deter others can be alluring even to those who know the code without being heavily invested in it-the decent inner-city youths. Thus a boy who has been leading a basically decent life can, under trying circumstances, suddenly resort to deadly force.
Central to the issue of manhood is the widespread belief that one of the most effective ways of gaining respect is to manifest nerve. A man shows nerve by taking another person's possessions, messing with someone's woman, throwing the first punch, "getting in someone's face," or pulling a trigger. Its proper display helps check others who would violate one's person, and it also helps build a reputation that works to prevent future challenges. But since such a show of nerve is a forceful expression of disrespect toward the person on the receiving end, the victim may be greatly offended and seek to retaliate with equal or greater force. The background knowledge that a display of nerve can easily provoke a life-threatening response is part of the concept.
True nerve expresses a lack of fear of death. Many feel that it is acceptable to risk dying over issues of respect. In fact, among the hard-core street-oriented, the clear risk of violent death may be preferable to being dissed. Conveying the attitude of being able to take somebody else's life if the situation demands it gives one a real sense of power on the streets. Many YOUtlhS, both decent and street- oriented, try to create this impression, both for its practical defense value and for the positive way it makes them feel about themselves. The difference between them is that the decent youth often can codeswitch: in other settings-with teachers, say, or at his part-time jobhe may be polite and deferential. The seriously street-oriented youth has made the concept of manhood part of his very identity and has difficulty manipulating it.
THE SCHOOL AS A STAGING AREA
The inner-city school is an outpost of the traditions of the wider society. Racially segregated and situated in an impoverished innercity community in which violence, drugs, and crime are rampant, it is characterized by the street/decent dynamic.9 During their early years, most of the children accept the legitimacy of the school, and then eagerly approach the task of learning. As time passes, however, in their relentless campaign for the respect that will be meaningful in their public environment, youth increasingly embrace the street code. By the fourth grade, enough children have opted for the code of the street that it begins to compete effectively with the culture of the school, and the code begins to dominate their public culture-in school as well as out-becoming a way of life for many and eventually conflating with the culture of the school itself. Such a school becomes a primary staging area for the campaign for respect.
In this social setting, decent kids learn to code switch, while street kids become more singularly committed to the street. Such a division, as previously stated, is largely a function of persistent poverty and local neighborhood effects, which include social isolation and alienation, but it is also strongly related to family background, available peers, and role models. For many alienated young black people, attending school and doing well becomes negatively associated with acting white. In what is essentially a racially black street-world, as shown in Tyree's case, one develops a strong need to show others he can handle himself socially and physically on the ghetto streets, a powerful community value in and of itself. This "street knowledge" is esteemed, and the quest for it and the consideration for those who have it begin to predominate, ultimately competing with, if not undermining, the mission of the school.
With each passing year the school loses ground as more and more students adopt a street orientation, if only for self-defense in the neighborhood. But often what is out on the streets is brought into the classrooms. The most troublesome students are then encouraged by peers to act out, to get over on the teacher, to test authority by probing for weaknesses. Particularly during mild weather, many students in the upper grades attend school sporadically or stop coming altogether, because street activities effectively complete for their time. Even while in school, they walk the halls instead of attending class, and their encounters there often mirror those on the street, marked by tension and fights.
Some of the seriously street-oriented kids may have mental health issues; some have been abused by their parents; others are depressed. The most troubled may fight with teachers, bring guns and knives to school, and threaten people. The idea of deprivation and anger is important here. In this highly competitive setting, the most deprived youths, who can easily be made to feel bad, sometimes become jealous of peers. To avoid feeling bad, these kids may lift themselves up by putting others down. A common tactic is to "bust on" or "signify" at someone, verbally teasing the person, at times to the point of tears. Sometimes the prettiest girls can get beaten up out of jealousy. From so much envy and jealousy, beefs easily erupt, beginning with ritual "bumping" and ending in serious physical confrontations to settle things. Bumping rights are then negotiated, determining who is allowed to bump whom, to pick on whom, and in what circumstances. In essence, these young people are campaigning for place, esteem, and ultimately respect.
In this situation, the school becomes transformed in the most profound sense into a staging area for the streets, a place where people come to present themselves, to represent where they come from, and to stay even with or to dominate their peers. Violence is always a possibility, for the typically troubled school is surrounded by persistent poverty, where scarcity of valued things is the rule, thus lending a competitive edge to the social environment. However, the trophies to be won are not of an academic kind, rather they are those of the street, particularly respect. In this campaign, young people must be prepared not only to fight, but also to take great care with their appearance. The right look means not wearing old or "bummy" clothes, or sneakers that are worn or dirty or out of style. Esteem is
so precarious that it can be taken away with just a word, and kids are constantly challenged to defend what they have. Social life becomes a zero-sum scenario: "If you have somethlng and exhibit it, it means I'm less. Who do you think you are by doing that?" The decent kids mimic the street ones, behaving in street ways that often confuse teachers (and also prospective employers and police who might be incapable of distinguishing the decent from the street). Some teachers are unable to differentiate between the two groups. Overwhelmed by clothes, the look, or the swagger, they cannot discern the shy kid underneath, which may be why teachers classify the majority of young people as "street."
To be sure, much of the students' behavior may be purely defensive, which requires significant expenditures of social energy. This situation tends to victimize the weakest players and certainly disrupts the business of the school. In time, when unattended, the street element (and those who would be "street") dominates the school and its local terrain. In the most troubled schools, the street element becomes so powerful that beefs and scores can only be settled by death. Again, most of the young people in these settings are inclined toward decency, but when the street elements rule, they are encouraged to campaign for respect by adopting a street attitude, look, and presentation of self. In this context, the decent kids often must struggle to maintain their credibility, like the fifteen-year-old boy I observed who typically changed his "square" clothes for a black leather jacket (thereby adopting a street look) after he got around the COrner from his home and out of his mother's view. In order to preserve his own self-respect and the respect of his peers, he would also hide his books under his jacket while walking to school, bidding to appear street.
In school as in the neighborhood, adolescents are concerned with developing a sense of who they are, what they are, and what they will be. They try on many different personas and roles, and they experiment with many scripts. Some work, others don't. How do the roles of decent and street play in their search for an identity, and what parts do others play? What stages do the young people go through? What is the "career" of identity as this'career takes shape?
Observing the interactions of adolescents in school and talking with them reveal how important school authority is to young people, but too often the authority figures are viewed as alien and unreceptive. The teachers and administrators are concerned that their own authority be taken seriously, and claims to authority are always up for grabs-if not subject to out-and-out challenge.
Young people, of course, do not go about developing their identities based solely on privileges and rewards granted by teachers, but this dynamic does exist to some degree. Often students perceive (more or less accurately) that the institution and its staff are utterly unreceptive to their street presentations. Mixed with their inability to distinguish the decent child from the street child, the teachers' efforts to combat the street may caused them to lump the good students with the bad, generally viewing all who display street emblems as adversaries. Here, their concerns might be as much with teaching as with controlling their charges.
In response, the decent children place ever greater stock in their ability to code-switch, adopting one set of behaviors for inside the building and one for outside. But, as indicated above-particularly in the heat of the campaign for respect-the two roles often merge, and what is considered proper in either setting can become one and the same. When this confusion goes unchecked, discipline in the school situation becomes elusive, particularly for those children who seem "to get away with it."
When students become convinced that they cannot receive their props from teachers and staff, they turn elsewhere, typically to the street, encouraging others to follow their lead, particularly when the unobtainable appears to be granted only on the basis of acting white. The sour grapes attitude notwithstanding, a powerful incentive for young people then emerges, especially for those sitting on the cultural fence, to invest themselves in the so-called oppositional culture, which may be confused with their "black identity." Such a resolution allows these alienated students to campaign for respect on their own terms, in a world they control.
Impacted by profound social isolation, the children face the basic problem of alienation. Many students become smug in their lack of appreciation of what the business of the school is and how it is connected with the world outside. In addition, they seldom encounter successful black people who have gone through school and gone on to do well.
Education is thus undermined because the mission of the school cannot equal the mission of the kids. To accept the school would be to give in and act white, to give up the value of the street for some other thing. And the value of that other thing has not been sufficiently explained to the children to make them want to give up the ways of the street and take on the ideology of the school. So the outpost of mainstream society tries to deliver its message to kids in an environment that has little regard for that society. In fact, the code of the street, and by extension the oppositional culture, competes very effectively with traditional values. As the young people come to see the school and its agents as unreceptive to them, embracing the oppositional culture becomes more important as a way to salvage selfesteem. The mission of the school is called into question, if not undermined.
Alienated black students take on the oppositional role so effectively that they often become models for other disaffected students. They do it because they are profoundly at odds with the white culture and can see themselves as visibly different. But other alienated students may mimic them because they are such strong models.
The culture of the street doesn't allow backing down. When the boys at the Youth Study Center (Philadelphia's juvenile detention facility) saw a video on conflict resolution as an alternative to fighting, they just shook their heads. They lknew that you never back down. That is to set yourself up as a doormat. You have to be tough. If you show fear, others will exploit it. So you always have to give the impression that you are strong, that you are a "thorough dude." Even a teacher who shows fear becomes vulnerable and can be emotionally undone by the kids. When that happens, the kids know they've won. So there is an adversarial relationship between the teachers and the students. The teachers' role is to keep the kids in line. The students' role is either to behave or to try to get over on the teacher.
The school is a microcosm of the community in a sense. Although police and disciplinarians are on patrol, kids are parading up and down the halls, socializing, even buying and selling drugs. The same things are going on inside the school as outside it. Yet it remains a haven, a place where one can go and expect relative order.
THE DILEMMA OF THE DECENT KID
At a certain critical point in development, sometime around ages five through eight, the child of a decent inner-city family ventures into the street, away from home, out of the view and immediate control of his family. Here children begin to develop an identity beyond the family, one that is helped along by the way they go about meeting the exigencies of the streets. They find their level, get cool with others, and adjust to the situation as they swim about the environment "looking for themselves" and trying to "be real." Essentially, such youth face the dilemma of how to obtain their props-and keep them-on the streets while building a reputation for decency as well.
They often experience a certain tension between what they learn at home and what they find in the streets. The family often becomes mildly concerned about the kinds of children their child is playing with. At this stage the child's peer group becomes extremely important. Often the child must go with what groups are available, and a child from a decent home can easily be sucked up by the streets. The child may learn to code-switch, presenting himself one way at home and another with peers.
Many children are left on their own for long periods of time. Others in the neighborhood, including "big brothers," "cousins," and neighborhood friends of the family, may be encouraged to look out for them. But at the same time the children want to try new things, to find themselves, and to grow into independence. The child encounters the street in the form of peers, cousins, and older children-and begins to absorb the experience.
To many residents the negative aspects of the street are exemplified by groups of young men like those who harassed Tyree. These young men often come from homes ravaged by unemployment and family disorganization. On the streets they develop contacts and "family" ties with other youths like themselves, as did Tyree and Malik. The groups they form are extremely attractive to other youths, and not simply to those whose lives have been seriously compromised by poverty. These groups dominate the public spaces, and every young person must deal with them. Even the decent young people must make their peace with them.
The connection these decent young people have with the street is not simply a matter of coercion. Often they strongly aspire to feelings of self-worth. And to achieve their goal, they must do more than make peace with the street group; they must actually come to terms with the street. Like Tyree, they must get cool with the people who dominate the public spaces. They must let others know how tough they are, how hard they are to roll on, how much mess they will take. The others want to know what will make such a person's jaws tight, what will get him mad. To find out, they may challenge the person to a fight or test his limits with insults to his family. Some of the most decent youths reach their limits rather quickly, thus allowing others to see what's to him, or what he's made of. Often a fight ensues: as the young men say, "It's showtime."
So the streets, or at least the public spaces, are extremely important to young people, because these are places where they are involved in the process of forging their own local identities-identities that carry over into other critical areas of their lives, including school, church, employment, and future family life. This is an issue for all the children in the environment, decent and street. Even the most decent child in the neighborhood must at some point display a degree of commitment to the street.
Life under the code might be considered a kind of game played by rules that are partly specified but partly emergent. The young person is encouraged to be familiar with the rules of the game and even to use them as a metaphor for life-or else feel left out, become marginalized, and, ultimately, risk being rolled on. So the young person is inclined to enact his own particular role, to show his familiarity with the game, and more specifically his street knowledge, so as to gain points with others.
It is essential that the child learn to play well. This ability is
strongly related to who his mentors and homies are and how much interest and support they show for the child. How "good" he is corresponds to a large degree to how "bad" his neighborhood is viewed to be. The tougher the neighborhood, the more prestige he has in the minds of outsiders he encounters. This prestige also presents a challenge to newcomers, as was the case with Tyree.
Young people who project decency are generally not given much respect on the streets. Decency or a "nice" attitude is often taken as a sign of weakness, at times inviting others to "roll on" or "try" the person. To be nice is to risk being taken for a sissy, someone who can't fight, a weakling, someone to be rolled on. And to roll on someone once is not always enough for those in search of respect. It is often done repeatedly to establish a pattern of dominance in a group. Young people who are out to make a name for themselves actively look for others to roll on. Once achieved, a name must be sustained and sometimes defended; its owner must then live up to his reputation, or be challenged. A strong reputation wards off danger from others. In this context the decent kids with low self-esteem, little social support, and a perceived unwillingness to be violent become especially vulnerable to being rolled on, their occasional defeats and resultant deference feeding the reputations of others.
With some number of campaigns to his credit, the winner may feel self-confident enough to challenge someone who has already established himself. Defeating such a person may be the ultimate trophy for a boy seriously campaigning for respect. But he is likely to roll on decent youths first. In self-defense, otherwise decent youths will sometimes mimic those who are more committed to the street. On the streets and in the halls at school, they sometimes adopt the "street look," wearing the street uniform, but also swaggering, using foul language, and generally trying to "go for bad," all in the interest of acquiring respect. Presenting thiS street side of themselves may blur the line distinguishing decency from the street in the eyes not only of their peers but also of outsiders like prospective employers and teachers, and perhaps in the eyes of the young people themselvesthough it is a public confusion they often desire.
For in this environment respect is sometimes especially necessary for getting along, and many of the decent kids will play along, codeswitching when the situation demands it. Occasionally, though, a decent kid will sit on the fence, impassively, not knowing which way to turn. As luck may have it, attracted by the right peer, he may become overly impressed by the "cool" behavior of his more streetoriented peers. As was indicated above, such a youth is apt to be respect-needy, since decent values and behavior are generally not held in high esteem. An especially solicitous member of the street group might bring such a person around to his group. But for the decent acquaintance there may be the attraction of elusive social acceptance, of being able to get cool with people on this side of the playground or classroom. The youth may approach this opportunity with some ambivalence, however; such children have heard the many warnings from parents, teachers, and school authorities about "not getting with the wrong crowd."
In this environment, depending on the circumstances, the decent kid gets a taste of the street culture, the ways of the street group, and these ways-always at odds with the conventional world-can "get good" to him. Particularly satisfying may be the new shows of deference he experiences, as well as the expectations of respect and friendship. Acceptance by the "in crowd" may be too attractive to let pass. In time the decent group may gradually lose its hold on or attraction for the kid. With the taste of the street and social acceptance may come higher self-esteem.
At the same time a fifteen-year-old boy also faces the issues of coming of age and manhood. Here he is encouraged to try out his newfound size and strength to see what thhey will win him in the game of social esteem. If he has been beaten up and pushed around once too often by a vulnerable target, he may now stand up, particularly if his adolescent growth spurts have left him bigger than others who have been tormenting him. He now begins to relate to them differently. A youngster who can gain some support for his new way of relating to the group of tough guys may be inclined to test his new strength on others. With the help of his acquaintances, he is able to see himself in a different light, and people are now seeing him differently. Respect-needy, and on a campaign, he is inclined to practice his new ways not just on other street kids but also on decent kids he knows well, closely noting the social reaction to his new, if provisional, identity. If he is encouraged, he gains points for going for bad as he tries out and forges this new identity by gaining social support. As he grows confident, he settles old scores and may well challenge others. And, as a person, he changes.
If he once sought to be loved, he now seeks to have others fear him. The street code says it is better to be feared than loved. Here he models himself on the street kids, notes how he can put fear in the hearts of others, and is encouraged by his successes to continue. On the street he goes for bad, challenging others, picking fights, and, in the words of the old heads, "selling wolf tickets."l0 At about this time an old head, a neighborhood mentor, who has been following this youngster's career, may "pull his coat," intervening and warning him about what will happen to him if he does not change his ways. But such intervention is less likely to happen today than in years past, mainly because of the general disengagement of such mentors, largely as a result of the spreading economic dislocation and social distress of many ghetto communities. Allowed to continue, he refines his skills, gaining a taste of respect, and comes to crave more: it gets good to him, and slowly he develops a different attitude about himself. He changes from a person who code-switched to go for bad to one who increasingly doesn't seem to have to put up a front in order to assume a street posture in defense of himself and of what belongs to him.
This "coming of age" process has implications for relations with parents, teachers, coaches, and other meaningful adults in the child's life. If he used to do his homework, he may now be less attentive to it. He may have a problem obeying teachers. His grades perhaps begin to suffer. When his mom asks him to go to the store or to run some otlher errand, he resists. He develops difficulty in doing as he's told. He increasingly gives authority figures back talk. Slowly, his stance changes from that of a cooperative child to that of an adversary. Arguments erupt more easily.
The changes are clear to those looking on, those people who once depended on the image they had of him as a nice and decent youngster. But those closest to him, particularly mothers, aunts, uncles, and adult neighbors, who remember his formative years, may resist any other definition of the person they know and love-that is, a young man who to them is the same person. They are often incredulous when they hear of something terrible the boy is accused of doing.
Once such a street-oriented person has established himself or made a name for himself, he has some disincentive for code-switching, for now he has much to lose by letting the wrong people see him do so. He is not inclined to sell out to appease "white people or striving blacks." On the streets he has respect precisely because he has opposed that wider society, and to switch back is to undermine his name or reputation as bad. Here the alienation so many young people feel has taken on a life of its own and become established. Those deeply involved in the code of the street sometimes find themselves proselytizing, urging others to join them. (We seldom hear of decent kids saying to street kids, "Hey, why don't you come join us?") A common entreaty is, "Hey! When you gon' get legal?" (meaning, "When are you gon' come and sell drugs with us?") .
In contrast, youngsters with a strong decency orientation attempt to avoid falling victim to alienation while still living in an environment rife with its consequences. Lee Hamilton, an eighteen year old, exemplifies this problem of how to obtain props in a street-oriented environment while maintaining decency.
Raised· in an impoverished inner-city community, Lee grew up with two older brothers and a younger sister. His father lived with them for a while, but he drank and was physically abusive to the children. Eventually he moved out of the house, though not out of the neighborhood. As a young teenager, Lee found he could go to his father for money, but they would always get into arguments. For a time he took friends with him to avoid the fights until his father got angry about that too.
Lee's older brother, meanwhile, gravitated toward the street and ended up in prison for robbery. This hurt their mother, a nurse's aide and a churchgoer, very much, and Lee resolved to go a different way from his brother in order to spare her any more grief. Growing up in the community, he had learned the code but was determined not to get sucked into it, and so he searched out friends who were similarly inclined. He found them on the basketball court. Although only five nine and 150 pounds himself, Lee learned to play well enough to hang out with this group.
In addition to playing basketball, the members of the group are distinguished by the larger plans they have. Some are looking to get a job after graduating from high school. Shawn is very good on the court and hopes to make basketball a serious pursuit. Pete and Lee himself get good grades and are planning to attend community college. Even now, when their game is over, these boys go home rather than hanging around on a street corner. In fact, the whole group stands in contradistinction to the street group.
Nonetheless, Lee wears the same clothes as his street-oriented neighbors. When the police cruise his drug-infested neighborhood and see him in his Timberland boots, his striped shirt, and his hooded sweatshirt, they stop him and ask him where his drugs are, and this makes him bitter. The knowledge that the wider system in the person of cops, teachers, and store managers downtown is instantly ready to lump them with the street element takes a psychological toll on boys like Lee. At the same time, there is so little support for decency on the streets that they have to mimic the street kids in order to get by. Some kids handle this by hiding their books when walking home from school or even by changing their jacket, say, once out of view of their mother. It is vital that the wider system identify these YOUtlhS and pluck them out of the street environment, for they can easily be lost. Lee is already angry at the police.
One way Lee and his friends pass muster on the street is by wearing clotlhes approved by the street. Another is to act out in judicious ways, cussing or acting tough in situations in which it is not likely to lead to real trouble. But the pressure to be street is always there. One area in which it is keenly felt is in dealing with girls. Many of the girls in poor communities are looking for a boy with money who will buy them gold jewelry and clothes and have their hair tracked. A nice car alone can snare many a girl. Lee's good looks compensate somewhat for his lack of money, but some other decent boys find it hard to get a girl interested in them. That in itself can lure a boy into becoming a drug dealer. Lee prefers to seek out more serious girls whose interests are not purely material, but it does help his self-image that he can attract the attention of some of the more street girls without flashing gold.
Crucial to resolving the dilemma of being decent in a streetoriented environment is the ability to code-switch. I might add that the serious street element has no need for a put-on; rather, the street is in the person, consuming his being, so much so that he has a limited behavioral repertoire. A decent youth like Lee tends to have a wide array of styles from which to choose how to act, and certainly with which to gauge and understand the conduct of others. With such street knowledge the young person may avoid being taken advantage of on the streets (not a small accomplishment). To be more appealing to those of the street, however, he must present himself in opposition to adult autlhority and, to some degree, make his peace with the oppositional culture. And this behavior is reinforced by the street group.
It is important to appreciate here that the code of the street and the street knowledge it implies are essential for survival on the innercity streets. The code works to organize publicly the community, limiting violence and street crime. It thus serves as a kind of policing mechanism, encouraging people to trust others with a certain respect or to face the consequences.
By a certain age a young person may become proficient on the streets and accumulate a certain amount of capital. This kind and form of capital is not always useful or valued in the wider society, but it is capital nonetheless. It is recognized and valued on the streets, and to lack it is to be vulnerable there.
The issues here-those of credibility and social belonging-raise other issues and questions. Would the decent kid resolve his dilemma differently if more decent kids were present? If there were a critical mass of decent kids, could he get by with his decency-in deed as well as behavior-intact? But in the impoverished pockets of the inner city, the decent-acting kids do not form a critical mass. There may be overwhelming numbers of youths who in some settings-at
home, at work, in church, or in the presence of significant adults about whose opinions they care-display a commitment to decency, but they cannot always do so here. They are encouraged by the dominant youths here to switch codes and play by the rules of the street, or face sanctions at the hands of peers about whose opinions they also care.
And, as has been indicated, there is a practical reason for such a tack. To avoid being bothered, decent and street youths alike must say through behavior, words, and gestures, "If you mess with me, there will be a severe physical penalty-coming from me. And I'm man enough to make you pay." This message must be delivered loudly and clearly if a youth is to be left alone, and simply exhibiting a decent orientation does not do so forcefully enough. During the altercations between Tyree and his newfound friends, much of this was being worked out, and as a result Tyree got cool with the others, and they got cool with him. This outcome is essential for Tyree's well-being-and perhaps even for his physical survival.
T H R E E
Drugs Violence,and Street Crime
IN 1899 W. E. B. Du Bois published The Philadelphia Negro, which made a major contribution to our understanding of the social situation of African Americans in cities, although this was not appreciated at the time.
Like so much significant ethnography, this description has become part of the wider historical record, describing social life in the period under study.
In today's ghetto there appears to be much more crime and higher levels of violence and homicide than in the earlier period. In addition, an ideology of alienation supporting an oppositional culture has developed; this can be seen with particular clarity in the rap music that encourages its young listeners to kill cops, to rape, and the like. Nowhere is this situation better highlighted than in the connection between drugs and violence, as young men involved in the drug trade often apply the ideology glorified in rap music to the problem of making a living and survival in what has become an oppositional if not an outlaw culture.
Du Bois was concerned with the reasons why black Americans were poorly integrated into the mainstream system in the wake of their great migration from the rural South to the urban North after the abolition of slavery. The situation he discovered was one of race prejudice, ethnic competition, and a consequent black exclusion and inability to participate in mainstream society, all in the social context of white supremacy. This pattern of exclusion resulted in deep and debilitating social pathologies in the black community, the legacy of which persists to this day.
In making sense of the social organization of the black community, Du Bois developed a typology made up of four classes. The first were the well-to-do; the second, the hardworking, decent laborers who were getting by fairly well; the third, the "worthy poor," those who were working or trying to work but barely making ends meet; and the fourth, the "submerged tenth," those who were in effect beneath the surface of economic viability. Du Bois portrayed the submerged tenth as largely characterized by irresponsibility, drinking, violence, robbery, thievery, and alienation. But the situation of the submerged tenth was not a prominent theme in his study as a whole. Today the counterpart of this class, the so-called ghetto underclass, appears much more entrenched and its pathologies more prevalent, but the outlines Du Bois provided in The Philadelphia Negro can be clearly traced in the contemporary picture.
The growth and transformation of this underclass is in large part a result of the profound economic changes the country-especially urban areas like Philadelphia-has undergone in the past twenty to thirty years. Deindustrialization and the growth of the global economy have led to a steady loss of the unskilled and semiskilled manufacturing jobs that, with mixed results, had sustained the urban working class since the start of the industrial revolution. I At the same time "welfare reform" has led to a much weakened social safety net.2 For the most desperate people, many of whom are not effectively adjusting to these changes-elements of today's submerged tenth-the underground economy of drugs and crime often emerges to pick up the slack.3 To be sure, the active participants in this economy are at serious risk of violence, death, and incarceration. Equally important, those living near drug dealers and other hustlers are often victimized. Decent and law-abiding people at times become victims of random violence or are otherwise ensnared in the schemes of tlhe underground economy's participants. Sometimes even those from decent families, particularly the young, become seduced by the ways of the street.
In The Pbiladelphia Negro, Du Bois pointed to the problem that kept young African American men from finding jobs: the lack of education, connections, social skills, and white skin color, as well as the adoption of a certain outlook, an unwillingness to work, and a lack of hope for the future. Today it is clear what that persistent state of affairs has led to.
The severe problem of racial discrimination Du Bois uncovered certainly persists in Philadelphia and other cities, but, as will be discussed below, it has been transformed and at times taken on a more practical form. More conventional people often seek to place much social distance between themselves and anonymous black people they encounter in public. And many young blacks sometimes in direct response find it difficult to take white people or even conventional black people seriously, and they actively live their lives in opposition to them and everything they are taken to represent. Lacking trust in mainstream institutions, many tq,rn to "hustling" in the underground economy. This has implications for middle-class blacks, many of whom have remained in Philadelphia and often work hard to defend themselves and their loved ones not only from those espousing oppositional values but also from the criminal element.
In many working-class and impoverished black communities today, particularly as faith in the criminal justice system erodes, social behavior in public is organized around the code of the streets. Feeling they cannot depend on the police and other civil authorities to protect them from danger, residents often take personal responsibility for their security. They may yield, but often they are prepared to let others know in no uncertain terms that there will be dire consequences if they are violated. And they tend to teach their children to stand up for themselves physically or to meet violence with violence. Growing up in such environments, young people are sometimes lured into the way of the street or become its prey. For too many of these youths, the drug trade seems to offer a ready niche, a viable way to "get by" or to enhance their wealth even if they are not full-time participants.
Because the drug trade is organized around a code of conduct approximating the code of the streets and employing violence as the basis for social control, the drug culture contributes significantly to the violence of inner-city neighborhoods. Furthermore, many innercity boys admire drug dealers and emulate their style, making it difficult for outsiders to distinguish a dealer from a law-abiding teenager. Part of this style is to project a violent image, and boys who are only "playing tough" may find themselves challenged and honor bound to fight. In addition, the trappings of drug dealers (the Timberland boots, the gold chains) are expensive, encouraging those without drug profits or other financial resources simply to steal.
THE CULTURAL ECONOMIC CONNECTION
As I indicated above, anyone who wants to understand the widespread social dislocation in the inner-city poor community must approach these problems-along with other urban ills-from a structural as well as a cultural standpoint.4 Liberals and conservatives alike today tend to stress values like individual responsibility when considering such issues as drugs, violence, teen pregnancy, family formation, and the work ethic. Some commentators readily blame "welfare" for poverty and find it hard to see how anyone, even the poor, would deliberately deviate from the norms of the mainstream culture. But the profound changes our society is currently undergoing in the way it organizes work have enormous cultural implications for the ability of the populations most severely affected by these developments to function in accordance with mainstream norms.
The United States has for some time been moving from manufacturing to a service and high-tech economy in which the well-being of workers, particularly those with low skills and little education, is subordinated to the bottom line. In cities like Philadelphia certain neighborhoods have been devastated by the effects of deindustrialization. Many jobs have become automated, been transferred to developing countries, or moved to nearby cities like King of Prussia. For those who cannot afford a car, travel requires two hours on public transportation from the old city neighborhoods where concentrations of black people, Hispanics, and working-class whites live.5
With widespread joblessness, many inner-city people become stressed and their communities become distressed. Poor people adapt to these circumstances in the ways they know, meeting the exigencies of their situation as best they can. The kinds of problems that trigger moral outrage begin to emerge: teen pregnancy, welfare dependency, and the underground economy. Its cottage industries of drugs, prostitution, welfare scams, and other rackets are there to pick up the economic slack. Quasi-legal hustling is part of it; people do odd jobs under the table and teach young people to follow their lead. Some people have a regular second or third job entirely off the books.
The drug trade is certainly illegal, but it is the most lucrative and most accessible element of the underground economy and has become a way of life in numerous inner-city communities. Many youngsters dream of leading the drug dealer's life, or at least their highly glamorized conceptions of this life. Of course, drugs have been around for a long time, but they have become deeply rooted in the inner-city black community, a situation largely tolerated by civic authorities and the police. As law-abiding residents witness this situation, they become ever more cynical and alienated.
Here it is important to underscore the connections between jobs, drugs, and alienation. Many of the young blacks who have difficulty obtaining a job feel victimized by prejudice and discrimination. Such feelings of victimization may lead to a greater understanding, if not tolerance, of those who resort to dealing drugs to "survive." In these circumstances the drug trade, so dangerous and problematic for local communities and for society, becomes normal happenstance. In destitute inner-city communities, it is in fact becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish poverty from drug involvement. For example, many welfare mothers have become intimately connected with the drug trade, either as users or as what might be called support personnel, by allowing drug-dealing boyfriends or male relatives to use their homes as crack houses or drug depots in exchange for money or favors.
In addition, the young man who sells drugs is often encouraged and motivated to create new markets, sometimes recruiting his own family members into the drug culture, thus at times leading to their drug dependency. Why? Because he has come to covet the material things he sees dangled before him, things that become important not simply as practical items but as status symbols among his peers. A particular brand of eyeglasses or shoes or pants can indicate a person's social standing, bestowing on him a certain amount of self-esteem. Timberland boots, for example, which support a roughneck or macho image, are now being worn by many drug dealers and have come to be considered hip. The owner of such items, through his exhibitions and displays, is thus able to gain deference from and status among his peers. Media images-television, movies, the consumer mentality-fuel these desires as well. And when the regular economy cannot provide the means for satisfying them, some of the most desperate people turn to the underground economy.
But the despair, the alienation, and the distress are still there, and this condition encourages the development and spread of the oppositional culture. For those living according to the rules of that culture, it becomes important to be tough, to act as though one is beyond the reach of lawful authority-to go for bad. In this scenario, anything associated with conventional white society is seen as square; the hip things are at odds with it. The untied sneakers, the pants worn well below the waist, the hat turned backward-all have become a style. These unconventional symbols have been taken over by people who have made them into status symbols, but they are status symbols to the extent that they go against what is conventional.
Exacerbating the antagonism toward the conventional is the way residents of the ghetto become personally victimized by all this. Not only does their community get a bad reputation, but the people themselves, particularly black males, become demonized. They are stereotyped; everyone from that community who dresses and who looks that way is a priori seen as being at odds with conventional society. The anonymous law-abiding black male is often taken as a threat to it. Yet many ghetto males are caught in a bind because they are espousing their particular ways of dressing and acting simply to be self-respecting among their neighborhood peers. A boy may be completely decent, but to the extent that he takes on the presentation of "badness" to enhance his local public image, even as a form of selfdefense, he further alienates himself in the eyes of the wider society, which has denounced people like him as inclined to violate its norms, values, rules, and conventions-to threaten it.
Such cultural displays in turn make young people even less employable. Beset with negative stereotypes, employers sometimes discriminate against whole census tracts or zip codes where impoverished people live. The decent people are strongly associated with the indecent people, and the employers .often do not worry about making distinctions. They just want to avoid the whole troublesome situation, selecting whites over blacks. Joleen Kirschenrnan and Kathryn Neckerman conducted a study in Chicago to discover the extent to which employers discriminated against young black people.6 They found that discrimination was rife: many of the employers much preferred white women and immigrants to young black people.
Similarly, in Philadelphia, a great many black boys and girls, especially the boys, are feared by employers. Even when they do get work, there is often a racial division of labor in the workplace. Inner-city black boys and girls tend to get stuck in entry-level jobs and are rarely promoted. One very clear example of this in present-day Philadelphia is the restaurant business, in which an obvious division of labor exists. In upscale and moderately priced restaurants, blacks are conspicuously absent from the wait staff but overrepresented among the kitchen help. In addition, if a problem with stealing or some other trouble on the job arises, they are prime suspects and are sometimes summarily dismissed.7 Such experiences, and the reports of them, contribute to their working conception of the world. Their resulting bitterness and alienation then nurture the oppositional culture. To be self-respecting, many young men and women must exhibit a certain contempt for a system they are sure has contempt for them. When such factors are added to the consequences of deindustrialization, the result is an incendiary situation, as Du Bois appreciated. 8
The attraction of the violence-prone drug trade thus results from a combination of inadequate opportunity in the regular economy, on the one hand, and the imperatives of street life, on the other. The interplay between these two factors is powerfully at work in the social organization of the underground economy in inner-city neighborhoods.
CLOCKING: THE DRUG TRADE AS A LIVING
The transition from the regular economy to the underground economy, particularly to the drug trade, is not simple. Some young people are able to dabble in it for a while and then return to the regular economy, or they operate simultaneously in both. But the drug trade and the wages it pays sometimes become overwhelming and downright addictive. People may manage to quit when a better opportunity appears or when they confront death or jail (for themselves or for loved ones or friends) and begin to have second thoughts. More likely, however, working in the drug trade becomes a regular occupation for the most desperate, who are then said to be "clocking."
The introduction of crack has exacerbated the problem. Because it is cheap and readily available, it can support many dealers. Boys can acquire the needed skills-"street knowledge" and the ability to act on it-just by growing up in the impoverished inner-city neighborhood. 'Whatever a boy's home life is like, growing up in the 'hood means learning to some degree the code of the streets, the prescriptions and proscriptions of public behavior. He must be able to handle himself in public, and his parents, no matter how decent they are, may strongly encourage him to learn the rules. And because of various barriers he can often parlay that experience into a place in the drug trade much more easily than into a reasonable job. The relative ease of that transition speaks volumes about the life circumstances of
inner-city adolescents.
For many impoverished young black men of the inner city, the opportunity for dealing drugs is literally just outside the door. By selling drugs, they have a chance to put more money into their pockets than they could get by legal means, and they can present themselves to peers as hip, in sharp contrast to the square image of those who work in places like McDonald's and wear silly uniforms. In fact, the oppositional culture has dubbed opting to sell drugs "getting legal." Martin, the decent, law-abiding young man referred to earlier, was often accosted by his drug-dealing peers as he stepped outside his door and headed for his regular job with the remark "Hey, Martin. 'When you gon' get legal?" He would simply reply, "Later for that. Later for that." 9 When one needs money, which is always, this way of making it can seem like a godsend, and other boys encourage him to sell.
A common way of getting into the drug trade is to be part of a neighborhood peer group that begins to sell. A boy's social group can be easily transformed from a play group or a group that hangs around the corner listening to rap music or playing basketball-relatively innocuous activities-to a drug gang. The change requires a drug organizer to approach the group and consult the leader or "main man." The leader then begins to distribute opportunities to deal drugs-which is a kind of power-to various of his friends, his "boys." In time the small neighborhood group becomes a force to be reckoned with in the community, while taking an ever sharper interest in issues of turf and territory. The group then works to confuse concerns having to do with money and with protecting turf. The leader can paint an enticing picture for these boys, and he has an incentive to do so because the deed enhances his power. With "top dogs," "middle dogs," and "low dogs," the system resembles a pyramid scheme.10
Youths who have strong family grounding-very decent folks, churchgoing families with a nuclear or quasi-nuclear structure and with love and concern for the younger people-are often the most resistant. But those who are drawn by the group, who get caught up with the responsibilities of breadwinning, with little opportunity to do so in the regular economy, sometimes resolve the tension by joining the drug trade. In turn, as they become serious dealers, these boys will often sell drugs to anybody who will buy them, including their own relatives; money and group loyalty become paramount issues. In this connection they may develop not only an excuse but a whole rap, a way of cajoling people to try crack just to get them hooked, because they know how quickly one can become addicted. For instance, they may approach someone as a friend and invite him or her to share some of their own supply, saying things like "It's not going to hurt you, it's not bad, you can handle it."
Strikingly, they may even become customers themselves-it is easy enough to become hooked by trying it once. Through the posturing required to prevail in the street life, many young people come to feel invincible, or they develop a profound need to show others they feel this way. And the power that accrues to dealers compounds the sense that they can control anything, even a crack cocaine high. In these circumstances they become "the man." Sometimes such a dealer does manage on crack off and on for a couple of years. Getting high now and then, he feels he is handling it, but, as the wiser dealers say, there is a fine line between handling it and having it handle you. At some inopportune moment he may be suddenly overcome with an insatiable need for the drug. Such a person is said to be "jonesing" for it; he is filled with such an intense desire for a high that he loses control of his actions. The predator becomes the prey-a common occurrence.
Like any marketing enterprise, the drug trade requires production and distribution networks.ll Another requirement is social control. Among drug dealers that requirement is satisfied by the use and threat of violence. Violence is not always intended, but it occurs easily as a result of both the intense competition for customers and the general disorganization that marks the lives of so many young dealers. Misunderstandings easily arise, such as "messing up" somebody's money-not paying for drugs that one has been advanced, thus squandering the dealer's investment. The older and established dealers are obligated to "do in" the people who have messed up their money, because otherwise they would lose credibility and status on the streets. Attemped takeovers of the business of rival dealers are also common. Though there is room in the system for more people now than there was before crack, competition remains fierce, especially as the belief that anyone can get rich dealing drugs becomes increasingly prevalent. The push to get in on the drug trade can in this sense be likened to the gold rush.
It is understood on the streets that the drug trade itself is unforgiving. To make a misstep is to risk getting roughed up, shot, or killed. When a seemingly senseless killing occurs, people in the community immediately assume it is drug-related. Those who get into the trade realize they are playing with fire but, given the presumed financial stakes, may feel they have no choice or are up to the challenge. Often the people who get hurt "deserved it," in terms of the code of the drug trade: they "crossed somebody big," or they "thought they were slick." People in the community understand this rationale, and it seems that the police acknowledge it too. Once a crime is drug-related, there often seems to be little interest and accountability in bringing the people who perpetrated it to justice.
Arguments over "business" are frequently settled on the spot, typically on the basis of arbitrary considerations, unfounded assumptions, or outright lies. There is also an ongoing fight for turf because of the large number of dealers, some connected with an organization, others freelancing. When a gang is set up in a particular area, its members know the streets and control the turf. As the trade becomes profitable, however, would-be dealers from outside the gang may want to do business in the same area or even take it over. A person who tries to muscle in, however, is threatening not just the current dealer's economic well-being but that part of the community as well. The connections of many of these boys go deep in the community through extended families, who may rely on the money. If a dealer is pushed out, he and a portion of the community can face financial disaster. As a result, some dealers are ready to fight to keep their turf, and people often get wounded or killed in the process.
There are major and minor turf wars. A major turf war often spawns smaller ones. In a major fight-whether the weapons are words, fists, or guns, but especially if they are guns-the dispute gets settled, at least for the time being. But everyone has an interpretation of what happened. The interpretations are exchanged in the various neighborhood institutions, including barbershops, taverns, and street corners, where people gather and talk, and an understanding of the original fight is negotiated. Since at least some of the people involved know the principal participants personally, they may take sides, becoming emotionally invested in having their version of the event prevail, and the discussions themselves can become heated and lead to violence.
Some boys simply crave the status associated with being a dealer.
They want to wear a beeper, to be seen to be "clocking," to be associated with something hip and lucrative, even though it is an underground enterprise. Drug dealers are living tlhe fast life; they are living on the edge. Older people will give young dealers advice, telling them that they are "living too fast." But everyone knows that once a person gets into that world, it is very hard to get out. The dealer can get hooked on the money and the material things it can buy, just as someone can get hooked on the drug; the adventure, the thrill of danger, and the respect people give him are also addictive. Furthermore, his associates in the trade may not let him out, because he knows too much and might pass information on to the wrong people, or they may want to make him an example. Much of his ability to maneuver depends on his identity and connections (his cousins, brothers, uncles, his other associates in the trade, his gang members, his boys) and on his status. Often the higher his status, the more leeway and independence he has-the more "juice" he has. The truly independent people, those who have achieved a high level of respect, may be able to get out in ways other people cannot, because they have established that they can be trusted. But often the only sure way of getting out is to get out of town.
VIOLENT FALLOUT
Drug users also engage in violence. Many users start out as victimswhen family members or boyfriends who deal drugs actively get them hooked in order to expand their markets-but they then become victimizers, robbing others to support their habits. Although some of the violence is focused and some is not, the result is a constant sense of uncertainty, a belief that anything can happen at any time. The successful dealer must be ever vigilant, but of course this makes him jittery and prone to react violently at the slightest perceived provocation. Furthermore, under the influence of drugs people's behavior may become unpredictable or truly dangerous. In these situations innocent bystanders, sometimes small children, can be shot or killed. Since drug trafficking permeates so much of the inner-city community, all its residents, whether involved with drugs or not, are at risk of finding themselves the unintended target of a stray bullet. The awareness of this constant danger fosters anxiety and skittishness even among the decent people, who therefore become more likely themselves to overreact in an uncertain encounter; these people may move, if they can.
Also fueling the violence that attends the drug trade is the proliferation of guns, which have become for many people easily accessible. Guns were in the community in the past, but mostly in the hands of adults. Today kids fourteen and younger have guns, or they know how and where to get them. In the inner-city community, one can often hear gunshots in the distance but no sirens afterward. The likelihood is that the shots are being fired by young boys playing with guns, at times just shooting them off for the fun of it, usually in the middle of the night. Guns can have personality and status attached to them; they even have records. The price of a used gun indicates its history. A gun that "has a body on it" (was used to kill someone) is cheap because the person who is ultimately caught with it might be held responsible for murder. Moreover, in a society where so much economic inequality exists, for the severely alienated and desperate a gun can become like a bank card-an equalizer. Such a boyor, increasingly, girl-who desperately needs money may use a gun to stick somebody up without a second thought. In a peculiar way, however, the prevalence of and ready access to guns may keep certain strangers honest and more careful in how they approach others. In these circumstances a kind of Wild West mentality obtains in some of the more dangerous neighborhoods, in which the fear of getting shot can constrain people from violating others.
As a result of the general atmosphere of danger, even people with a nonviolent orientation buy guns for protection. In Philadelphia not long ago, a black minister and resident of an inner-city community shot and killed an intruder. The incident sparked a good deal of discussion, but the general reaction of his blacks neighbors was, "Well, he did what he had to do." In fact, such incidents do not occur just in the inner city. In the gentrified neighborhood adjacent to the minister's, a white doctor going to bed one night heard a rumbling downstairs. He carne down with his gun and in the darkness announced, "I have a gun." The rumbling continued, so he fired, killing an intruder in his kitchen with a bullet to the back of the head. He and his wife went to the police station, returned home at two in the morning, and cleaned up the blood. It turned out that the intruder was apparently trying to steal the small kitchen television set to sell on the street, which could have brought a few dollars for crack. But this white doctor was so disturbed at having killed a young black man in those circumstances that he immediately moved out of his house and left the community. Thus the casualties of violence include people who simply get caught up in it-not just those who get shot but sometimes those who perpetrate the violence as well.
THE CRACK CULTURE: RATIONALE AND CONSEQUENCES
It must be continually underscored that much of this violence and drug activity is a reflection of the dislocations brought about by economic transformations, shifts that are occurring in the context of the new global economy. As was indicated above, where the wider economy is not receptive to these dislocated people, the underground economy is. That does not mean that anyone without a job is suddenly going to become a drug dealer; the process is not that simple. But the facts of race relations, unemployment, dislocation, and destitution create alienation, and alienation allows for a certain receptivity to overtures made by people seeking youthful new recruits for the drug trade.
Numerous inner-city black people continue to be locked out of many working-class occupations. Lack of education and training are often at issue, but, as Du Bois noted long ago, so is the problem of employers' racial preferences and social connections with prospective co-workers. For example, the building trades-plumbing, carpentry, roofing, and so forth-are often organized around family connections: fathers and uncles bring in their sons and nephews. To get a certificate to work in these trades, a young man requires a mentor, who not only teaches him skills but legitimizes him as a member of the trade. So the system perpetuates the dominance of ethnic groups that have been organized a long time. Now, the inner-city drug trade is composed of uncles and nephews too. From this perspective working-class Italians and Irish and others have their niche, and many severely alienated and desperate young blacks, at least those who are enterprising, can be said to have their niche too-in the drug trade. As Du Bois would have appreciated, such behavior, while not to be condoned, is understandable as a manifestation of racism and persistent poverty.
In the inner-city community, drug dealing thus becomes recognized as work, though it is an occupation that overwhelmingnumbers of residents surely despise. Yet there are Robin Hood types among the drug dealers, who distribute some of their profits in the community, buying things for people, financially helping out their friends and relatives, as well as complete strangers. One drug dealer told me how bad he felt when he found out that a woman who had bought crack from one of his underlings had kids and had used all her welfare money for the drugs. He sought the woman out and gave her half her money back. His rationale was that business is business but that the kids shouldn't go hungry.
Crack's addictive quality has led to the rapid establishment of a crack culture and makes it easy to maintain a clientele.12 The belief in the COmmunity is that crack addiction is immediate and permanent. Once you try crack, it is said, you're always "chasing the ghost" -the high that you get the first time is so intense that you can never achieve it again, but the desire to do so is strong enough that you keep pursuing it. One drug dealer told me that he has never seen anybody walk away from crack permanently; even if a user gets off it for two years, he said, the right drug dealer can easily hook him again by talking to him in the right way. I said to this dealer, "Knowing this, why do you sell crack? Isn't this like killing people, annihilating your own people?" He replied nonchalantly, "Well, if! wasn't doing it, somebody else would." To many inner-city residents, crack has become a seemingly permanent fixture of life, and dealing is a way to earn a living-even, for a few, to become rich.
ALVIN AND JOYCE
When the young man obtains money, life can be very sweet. First, when it gets to be known in the neighborhood that he is clocking or "rolling," it is said that everyone wants to be his friend. Why?
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Commenting period (February 27, 2013 15:36 – May 20, 2014 00:00) is closed
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Respect is social capital. Those who are respected in the streets carry themselves as if they are wealthy, compared to those who aren’t respected. In order to walk the streets of inner city environments with some sense of security, one must feel respected. There is a social and cultural difference between the interpretations of respect. African Americans, as portrayed in The Wire, value street level respect in a way that outsiders do not consider valuable. In my opinion, the level of respect that inner city African Americans strive for is the same level that power driven, corporate world individuals seek. The only difference is the name of game, but the motivations of being respected, powerful, and financially wealthy are the same.
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You made a couple of good points that got me thinking. Does respect always lead to power? And is power typically rooted in respect?
I think respect is one route to attaining power, but more than just having respect, power is rooted in playing the system. Earning respect is just one way to play the game. In the Wire, I can identify Colonel Rawls as a man who plays the system without earning much respect. In the seasons I have watched so far, he seems to advance his career by using others and exploiting the numbers game rather than earning the respect of his peers.
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I really liked the comment you made about Colonel Rawls with regards to respect and power. Throughout the series i have noticed that Colonel Rawls is nothing short of power hungry. The one scene where he tried to exploit his power with regards to the 14 murderers and pin them on a substantially weaker police detail was quite ridiculous. He believed that he had all of the power to make these, as he called it, “14 who done its” come nowhere near his department. However, we find out later in a meeting with ranking officials that he will take these murderers because they were in his jurisdiction. I also noticed that not one of these men had any respect for Rawls. You need to give respect to get respect and Rawls is substantially short on self discipline and integrity that i believe his own lack of respect distinguishes him as weak individual.
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I agree with where this thread is going about Rawls and how he likes to play the system to ensure that he comes out on top but it’s important to note that the idea of respect as a means of gaining power is a concept based in street culture. The fact that the inner city community has found the justice system to be inadequate to serve their needs made them feel that they had to develop their own system for governance, for protection, for order ect. That is the whole point of the respect system. The higher the respect you command, the higher on the totem pole you are. That’s why when you hear the name Avon barksdale in season one everyone get’s scared and takes a step back. he is well known in the streets. Everyone is scared of him because he has the rep, he is the boss and he has all the respect and the power that comes with it. The cops are part of a different system entirely. Rawls doesn’t need to be respected to have power, all he needs is rank.
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I think there are many different kinds of respect. There is respect for being good at your job. McNaulty is respected for this, even if it is overshadowed by how much people don’t like him. There is respect that is gained through fear. This is Colonel Rawls’ type of respect. He is well-connected and knows the system, so people are hesitant to cross him. Soldiers in the Barksdale organization and Omar have this type of respect as well.
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You raise an interesting point about Colonel Rawls, but I would almost say he earns respect, even if superficial respect, from his peers purely through the power he holds. On the street as in the institutions of The Wire, power and respect are somewhat inseparable because there is such structure and bureaucracy that allows those with power to hold more-or-less exclusive veto power on others advancing their career (whether that be getting your own corner or a promotion or elected). Additionally, respect and power are contextual and relative judgements brilliantly portrayed by The Wire; Avon Barksdale is respected universally by ‘soldiers’ on the street, however he is not held in as high an esteem by Stringer, who himself is respected by the police but not the politicians and developers who dupe him out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
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I think it’s important to make the distinction as to who is respecting who and why. You say that Avon has the respect of the people on the street because he is a soldier and as a result he has earned the respect of his own crew as well as the other gangster crews in the city. But you said that stringer doesn’t respect him quite as much as the soldiers do and I feel that that isn’t due to any lack of status, rather it is a not to how much status string himself hold. When Avon is put in jail stringer steps in to fill the gap. Stringer is the right hand man and even though he starts scheming behind Avon’s back a bit he still answers to Avon’s request at the end of the day. The police respect string because of his ability to evade them, he is an true adversary for McNulty and the police department. That is what gains him respect. Not a fearful respect like with Avon and the soldiers but rather a mutual respect for an enemy. They say “well played” to each other at the beginning and end of season one like they are play a big game of chess. The politicians don’t bother to respect any of them, gangsters or police alike because they feel that they are above it all, the dirty one’s at least.
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You brought up some great points and agree with you. As portrayed in the Wire, African Americans value respect over everything else. In response to other comments, I do believe that power is rooted in playing the game, however one cannot stay in the game unless they maintain that level of respect. In terms of the street, I remember Antwon Barksdale explaining to Stringer Bell that their reputation was all that they had, once they lost that no amount of power playing or business terminology could shake that. I think that’s what led to Bell’s death. He forgot the most important rule of the game: mutual respect. That’s what separates him and Barksdale. Barksdale understood the importance of respect and that’s why he stayed alive.
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With The Wire, we only view the double standard on a white/black perspective. Today, we are well aware that this double standard extends way beyond these two races. How does this expand across other races? Would a show depicting a different inner city and highlight a different double standard be as successful, in an unconventional way as we have noted, as The Wire?
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I completely agree Remy. This idea runs across other races basically just depending on the geographical location. Im sure if this show were to be filmed in the ghetto of Miami, a few more Hispanics would be on the show going through similar things that the characters in The Wire do. Obviously some things would be different however I do believe that the main ideas could still be portrayed.
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These are both great points. I think it’s pretty inaccurate to say the criminal justice system is divided into just black and white. Going off Marcus’s Miami example, I’m sure whites would be a minority on both the criminal and law enforcement side. The same would probably be true if the show were about a city in southern California. While The Wire is praised for its ethnographic accuracy of “life on the street,” it’s important to remember it represents a subculture of a subculture.
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Revenge/vengeance drives the motives of people in all aspects of the game. Institutions such as politics, street level drug dealing, the police system, and the newspaper are exposed in The Wire. The petty struggles of street level drug dealing are similar to all other institutions, as demonstrated in The Wire. If someone does one wrong, there must be retaliation. People envision avenues for upward mobility once retaliation is achieved, when in reality retaliation is only effective short term. Long term upward mobility is nearly impossible for those who associate themselves with vengeance. The problem is that there are not many truthful leaders that act outside of the retaliation cycle. The youth pick up on the social norms and continue the cycle.
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The notion of retaliation to gain upward mobility is an interesting idea. I think that the opposite of that is also true. In this sense, the top players use retaliation to limit the upward mobility of others to secure their positions. This phenomenon is demonstrated in all the groups and institutions in The Wire. For instance, when Daniels was placed in the basement after Season 1. Although he did a tremendous job bringing down the Barksdale organization and showed a great amount of promise, he was punished, instead of rewarded. It is also seen when Mayor Royce reacts to Carcetti’s momentum and circulates a fake photo of Carcetti with a slumlord on the courthouse steps. In a way, retaliation is used for different motives, but it rarely produces the desired outcome
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Omar immediately comes to mind when thinking of a character that seems to embody this perverted rule. The citizens Omar’s community, as well as the surrounding gang members, have a deep respect for him. It is a kind of respect that is altogether different from – for instance – the way in which the school children see Marlo for his charity. Instead, it is a respect that stems from a fear of revenge. Consider three situations in which Omar is shown such a high level of respect: when the kids imitate him in the street following a shootout, when word spreads of Omar’s coming as he goes to obtain a box of cereal, and when Marlo and Chris carefully plan his demise. The last example is interesting, because it directly stems from the vengeance exhibited by Omar. If he was not true his word – and did not exact revenge to some degree – Omar would not be respected. For this, I point to his revenge on the Barksdale organization in the form of Stinkum and Stringer Bell.
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I completely agree that revenge and retaliation are used to secure individual positions. The act of retaliating when wronged helps to maintain the status quo of where an individual views the position he or she is a holding. There is the sense that if the assault is allowed then the status that was previously held is diminished. I think identity also plays a big role in talking about revenge because the characters in The Wire are so defined by their positions and professions. McNulty, for example, is so defined by being a certain type of police officer that, when, through retaliation, he is placed on the boat, he is lost and unsure of who he is anymore. The idea of revenge weaves itself into The Wire as part of the game and a necessity when wronged; however, it is also an attempt to make sense of and reassert who a person believes they are.
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You break one of the “unwritten rules” and the other team is undoubtedly going to respond by hurling a hardball into your back at 90+ miles per hour. And that’s our national past time we’re talking about. In the fantasy world of sports. If people can’t even recognize how absurd the revenge cycle is in BASEBALL then how the bleep does anybody expect it to get sorted out in “the other America?”
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Richard makes a pretty interesting comparison about revenge in The Wire and revenge in our national past time: baseball. If revenge is a part of a game like baseball, then is it really that strange for it to be a part of “the game” that The Wire deals with? Revenge is something that, as other students have mentioned, is a very common theme throughout The Wire in a wide variety of institutions. When Stringer Bell unsuccessfully tries to have Brother Mouzone taken out, it is no surprise that Brother Mouzone ultimately returns the favor and kills Stringer when he gets the chance. Revenge is a part of the game at all levels, and to be honest, I don’t think there is too much that can be done about it in real life.
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I would like to play off the point made by Richard. Revenge is a common occurrence in ALL sporting events, not just the national past time, baseball. I find that is part of what makes competitive sports so thrilling. If you put it in ice hockey terms, although it is not exclusive to ice hockey, Revenge comes in the form of trash talking; talking big in order to assert your manhood. There are players who are drafted and then recruiting primarily for their hitting abilities, much like we see how some major players in “the game” are used as the “muscle.”
It may be sort of sick to say this, but revenge is what keeps competitive games thrilling. If people were able to do what they please, without complications or consequences, it would all be pretty boring, wouldn’t it? Revenge is also what people want to avoid. People may avoid the fine line of crossing the other players in the game of hockey, and the street game in order to protect themselves. However, there are always people that cross the line because they want to present themselves as a worthy and honorable opponent, someone who welcomes revenge or even encourages it. I find that revenge is inevitable because there are people that are desperate to claim a particular stake in the social realm, and desperate to command respect. In a highly competitive arena, success is measured by how much you have to claim to your name. In this world, when possessions matter, people will go to great lengths to display all that their name stands for (money, possessions, women, material wealth, respect, intimidation, etc)
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Revenge in the Wire is a common occurrence. I think that with retaliation and revenge in the wire, nothing gets accomplished because people tend to keep going after one another. Its like when Rawls put McNutley on the bay patrol as revenge for his insubordination during the Barkesdale case. And then McNultely setting the scene for the 14 murderers to be dumped on Rawls department even though he had nothing to do with the investigating the murderers. Revenge and retaliation seem to be a never ending cycle of moving nowhere.
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I agree with Gregor’s comment about revenge being a common occurrence in the Wire and in the end accomplishes nothing. Yes, characters get their point across however it further escalates situations and creates and continues to create this never ending cycle. Could a character in the Wire ever ‘give-up’/ surrender to the game? Or would they have no chance of survival without being submersed with the cycle of the game?
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I agree that revenge and vengeance form an ongoing cycle in The Wire. To me the most interesting part of this rotation is its predictability. The threat of retaliation is so reliable that street people incorporate that knowledge into how they operate. The first instance that comes to mind is from Season 2 Episode 9 when the younger boy on a bike warns Bodie and his crew that the rival dealers they had run away had were coming back. The crew knew immediately who he was talking about. The rival dealers assert their legitimacy by being willing to fight back for their space.
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I went to a seminar at the Miller Center recently where former US Ambassador-at-large for War Crimes, David Scheffer told the audience that he often asked himself WHY people did “evil” things. He worked under former Secretary of State Madeline Albright and was the mind behind the War Crimes Tribunals in the Balkans, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Cambodia. He said he struggled with this question until he realized that in the poverty-ridden, politically violent countries where horrible things like genocide occurred, the only way certain people could get power and respect (and thus protection) was to intimidate, retaliate, and kill. This same thought process applies to The Wire. It is not that all who participate in genocide abroad or gang violence in Baltimore are inherently evil. Instead, they do evil things because the environment they live in betrays them. There is no avenue left for gaining a sense of stability besides the option of engaging in illegal activities and using threats and violence to earn respect. The use of threats/violence act as a substitute for other “traditional” ways to obtain respect when poverty and exclusion from mainstream society are involved. And respect is essential, as Anderson points out, for basic survival in such environments.
People are scared of Omar because he is ruthless. He carries around a shotgun and is a spitting image of intimidation. Baltimore in turn rewards Omar for his use of violence with respect and protection. Scheffer pointed out that the harsh reality is that certain harsh environments reward violence. And when respect, protection, and power are the rewards, the option to do evil things becomes even more appealing.
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Rose, you’ve hit on precisely what makes The Wire such a challenging show to analyze; shifting and incongruous contextual views of the same events. The soldier’s (generically speaking) desperate and often violent grasp for ‘respect,’ as it is viewed by his or her peers on the street, is the only way to survive and hope to prosper. From the outside, the actions of these individuals can be judged as amoral and illegal, however, after viewing The Wire’s portrayal of these violent actions from the viewpoint of Omar, for example, the viewer understands his motives, generating internal tensions between what is moral/decent/necessary in the eyes of the law and what is necessary to survive on the streets of Baltimore or a Third World Country. I wonder what else besides respect and safety drives the perverse incentive structure present on the streets of Baltimore.
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This point comes up again and again in the Wire, and occasionally in class, and I don’t think it can be emphasized enough. Nearly every character in The Wire takes actions which the viewer is meant to find as morally questionable. But The Wire addresses that “why” question more than any other piece of media I have seen. The cops pursue ineffective policing because that’s what generates stats. The bosses pursue stats because that’s what the Mayor orders. The Mayor orders the police to go after stats because that’s what the public wants to see during the election. Bodie and Poot execute Wallace because Stringer ordered it, and Stringer’s word is law. Respect is a large part of street life, and as Anderson says, it is important capital. When we ask ourselves why characters do evil things, we should be empathetic and remember what Gus Haynes says: “I think you need a lot of context to seriously examine anything.”
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Rose makes a very valid point. Interestingly enough, people do evil things, not because the environment they live in betrays them, but because it fosters the behavior. Christopher Browning wrote the book, Ordinary Men, about a group of German Order Police, who were used to round up jews for deportation and kill them. These men, rather than being Nazi fanatics, or violent anti-Semitics, were ordinary men, capable of some of the most extraordinary crimes.
Philip Zimbardo also conducted an experiment to reenact a Mock prison, where he took volunteers to serve as prison guards and others to serve as prisoners. The guards adapted to the confines of the Mock prison, and acted as authoritarian figures, psychologically torturing the prisoners. To torture was NOT an order, nor was it advised, but it so happens that these people conformed to the environment and the situation they were placed in effected the roles they took on in the prison (whether it was authoritarian or submissive). I feel that this parallels the roles individuals take on in the street game, and especially in The Wire.
To say Baltimore betrays them is definitely true, but I think that people like Bodie and Poot are looking no further than the drug game, although poverty should be taken into consideration. They are raised to orient themselves this way. Anderson explains that to become prosperous in the game, you have to command respect, for it is essential for survival. That is what happens in mass atrocities—people have to prove they are a perpetrator, because otherwise you will be an outcast, a fifth column, a subverter and an alien, someone who is out to sabotage the installed government. You’ll put a target on your own back. Going against the grain is risky. In The Wire, we see D murdered because he was a potential risk. Stringer had D killed for the sole reason of protecting him and his boys. Stringer may have acted unjustly, in our eyes, but in his eyes, it’s all in the game—the survival of the fittest. Perpetrators of mass atrocities have the same thought process, they must act in a certain way to protect themselves and their families. It isn’t at all that ridiculous to compare them, although there is a difference in severity.
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I think that Anderson’s commentary about respect in the game is very interesting. While it seems intuitive that respect is a necessary component for survival, it could also lead to an individual’s downfall. The reputation that comes with the respect earned on the streets can negatively impact a person in the drug game. I thought about this concept during the episode that we watched on Thursday. When Stringer Bell meets with Proposition Joe, Prop Joe tells Stringer about Charlie, a successful past player in the drug game from the 1960’s. Charlie “sold heroin like it was water” and made a lot of money, but Stringer had never heard of him. Prop Joe explains that Charlie kept under the radar, avoiding the controversy that comes with maintaining a street reputation. He was able to avoid police, stick-up boys, and other issues that could affect his business because he chose to forgo the “necessity” of street respect and reputation. Today and in the time of The Wire, competition and street violence seem inevitable due to fracturing crews and organizations, making respect and reputation necessary. So, is it possible for this type of business model to work in the drug game today?
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I find this intriguing because of the way in which how someone dresses and act can influence their reputation and how much respect they garner in a community. Choice of clothing and fashion can dictate how people look at you, and certain people can become known for a specific style of dress, and people who want to be like that person will dress similarly. One of the best examples in the wire is Omar, and his trenchcoat. People on the streets know that when they see someone with that big black trenchcoat, they know Omar LIttle is about to let loose and cause havoc. After one of the shootouts involving Omar, you can see little kids playing out a shooting scene using their hands, and they argue over which of them can be Omar. Omar’s trench coat is a sign of status and power, and although there are many thugs and murders in the Wire, the trench coat separates Omar as one of the most ruthless, and I would imagine that many of the little kids idolizing Omar will look to wear a trench coat as well.
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When I read this, I immediately thought back to Ziggy’s purchase of a two thousand dollar leather coat. Ziggy’s foolish purchase of this article of clothing can best be thought of as a failed attempt to reclaim respect and receive acknowledgment within his community. Ziggy seems to think that the coat will garner attention and esteem, but ultimately character shines through. Accessories and an internalized understanding of the code go hand in hand. The thugs that rob Ziggy’s car mock his jacket, because it is out of style and moreover out of his character to own such an expensive article of clothing. As Herc comically remarks in season 2, “it’s all in the props.” While the “props” might be enough to fool a drug dealer into selling to you, they cannot alone garner respect or social capital. However, they can certainly contribute to it.
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The article talks about how clothing can be a reflection of a person’s reputation and respect among black inner city members. This makes me also think of the way that dress is handled in the police department and according to rank. It seems as though the clothing/uniform that one wears in different levels of power and departments is very significant and is made apparent throughout the seasons. Once any member of the police force has moved up ranks, their uniform has changed and this change effects how people treat one another. Although this is a more hierarchical sense of rank, I think it is important to consider clothing among individuals not on the street and in higher socio-economic statuses.
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How does respect in the inner-city environment play a role in other institutions outside of that enviornment? If children learn the meaning and process of gaining respect in their environment at such an early age, how is it applied in a classroom, in a job, in the family, and when interacting with people outside of their community?
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What does Anderson mean by decent? What are the standards and family dynamics of a decent inner-city family?
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I think that one interpretation of what he means by decency and decent homes is where they fall on the street. Either you grow up in a house in the streets, in the middle of the game, or you don’t. I think by decent, Anderson means the people who are not right inside with the corners. Those that aren’t constantly walking out of their doors and looking out into drug trafficking and violence. The people with a “decent” upbringing are somewhat exempt from that, and find themselves with more money, opportunities and safety, just by nature of not being brought up on the street corners and away from the direct impact of the drugs.
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I think decency is just based on how residents delegate social status in their communities. Being decent as opposed to being street is leaning towards respect and being a better citizen, if that makes sense. Jack makes a strong point about where you fall on the borders of being born inside or outside the game is heavily dependent on how decent someone is, where in this case being born outside the game makes one a decent person. As The Wire has taught us, it’s easier to never be in the game at all than to be born in it and try to escape it. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think in terms of “the game” and following the “codes” of the street, people who are considered street are those who are more heavily dependent on the importance of these terms and claiming a stake in their social ladders, whereas people who are decent seem to overlook what it means to be decent or street at all.
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I think we are forgetting the ‘good people’ in the city; whether they are like Gant (the witness who was shot in the first season), working hard as a janitor on a low wage to provide for his kids. More often than not, I think people relate low socioeconomic class with dangerous activities, drug dealing, and gang violence, but I think it’s important to keep in mind that there are hardworking people, whether they try to uphold their religious moral standards or are immigrant families just trying to make it in the states, living in the city with hopes of social mobility for their kids. So perhaps, Anderson is referring to the hardworking families, probably marginalized by the dominating gang activities and in constant fear, who try to survive in the city without getting involved in the acts of violence and drug addiction.
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I believe Sun makes a valid point about ‘good people’. When reading this paragraph, I felt Anderson was referring to the law abiding citizens in lower socioeconomic circumstances such as Gant who you referred to. I believe characters such as Gant or the child who was shot in season 2 do not play a central role within “The Wire”. Many times the series wants to make audiences sympathize with those a part of “the game” instead of showcasing individuals who still maintain a high moral code regardless of their outside environments.
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I think Anderson goes in depth discussion street code, but purposely leaves the definition of “decent” somewhat ambiguous. Anderson remarks that decent parents “have the ability to see beyond the immediate neighborhood,” envisioning their lives and their children’s lives as more than the inner-city bubble, expanding into various institutions of family, church, schools, and wider society. In this sense, I believe decent culture arises from good parenting. Obviously, though, the answer is not so simple. I believe that Anderson dwells so heavily on street culture because even those engaged in decent culture and akin to it. The code, so long as it exists and is accepted within a community, is truly inescapable. Even those who identify primarily with decent culture must learn to put on a front and adapt to the code in order to physically protect themselves and prevent getting ridiculed/attacked. They might be “decent,” but they by no means immune to the tough reality of the streets that they live in.
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I think you bring up a very good question with wanting the author to define the word decent. Decent is defined as, “1.Conforming with generally accepted standards of respectable or moral behavior.
2.Appropriate; fitting.” If we use this definition, then the idea of what is decent becomes subjective; it differs person to person based on what they believe is moral and respectable. When it mentions “generally accepted standards” does that mean what is generally accepted in a white hegemonic society or what is generally accepted in a different culture, such as the street culture described in this article? Should we be critical with how the author uses the word decent?
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This sentence immediately reminds me of an interaction between Bunk and Omar during season 3, in which Bunk discloses that as a child he was made fun of by other children for being too “school.” He adds that while he didn’t understand why he didn’t fit in at first, he “couldn’t thank them enough for what they did,” in terms of the way Bunk’s life played out compared to Omar’s. This juxtaposition of “decent” versus “street” behavior is a very interesting one that we see illustrated a lot in The Wire. Unfortunately, it seems that Bunk’s case is so rare and that most of these children are caught up on the “street” side of things. As we have discussed so frequently in class, this makes social mobility even more of an issue – how are these kids supposed to get out of the Game if it’s all they have ever known? Moreover, how are “decent” parents and families supposed to help their children if the neighborhood’s street culture is so overpowering? I think this ties into what Major Colvin is trying to do by herding the corner drug dealers into “Amsterdam.” Aside from reducing the murder and crime rates, he allows for neighborhoods to become “decent” again.
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This sentence was particularly striking to me as it sparked memory of the discussion of Neymond Brice from last week. Neymond was obviously a smart kid on the show, but he was the only one of his peer group who ended up making it off the street despite the fact that his family background was by far the most street oriented that we saw among the kids. I think Anderson brings up an interesting point with this, and as realistic or unrealistic as we might see what happened to Neymond, it does seem important to note that ultimately there is some choice involved before a kid fully dedicates himself to the game.
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The last two sentences of this paragraph draw my attention to the character of Randy Wagstaff. To this point in my viewing experience, I have only seen him under the care of Miss Anna. This upbringing, in addition to the crew with which Randy associates, makes him a very complex character that raises questions of environmental influences. Randy passes out election day fliers, sells candy bars instead of drugs, and is constantly worried that he will somehow be deemed an accomplice in the murder of Lex. At the same time, however, he shows loyalty to the lessons instilled – presumably – within the home. For instance, Randy implores his friends to finish the job passing out fliers before they are paid. He is also, in my opinion, motivated by potentially disappointing Miss Anna by essentially disregarding what she has taught him at home.
How do different environmental influences help viewers to better understand the character of Randy?
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The respective environments put forth in The Wire allow for viewers to make preconceived notions about a characters socio-economic status. In the case of Randy, his home with Miss Anna is quaint and respectable. It makes initial reveals, or reassures the audience’s suspicion, that Randy isn’t cut out for street life in the way that the others are. Yes, he has been apart of larger, far less personal, foster homes which have revealed said environments thug-ish nature however, with Miss Anna, Randy is exposed to something greater, something more conventional and us, as viewers, can see the stark contrast.
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If every child goes through a “social shuffling process,” what can parents do to ensure that their child decides to move in the right direction? Especially when you consider that the families might consist of single-parent families in which the parent has to work to support the family. It seems like the street has a superior influence over the children, and if exposed the children can be persuaded to a more troublesome path. Is the only way to save the children from the street to prevent them from ever gaining exposure? The problem is not every family has the capability to enroll their students in “distractions” such as dance, little league or after school programs.
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I find this paragraph to be particularly interesting because it asserts that whether you come from a decent family or a street-oriented family, the outcome of interactions on the street is what determines a child’s chances in life. By the age of ten, inner-city kids are figuring out their identities by mingling on the streets, not in trying out different sports, the arts, or other after school activities that help shape the identities of many suburban 10 year olds. Rather, no matter who their family is, the fact that these kids must operate on the streets of inner city Baltimore every day has more effect on their identities. When they walk out the door in the morning, no matter who’s behind it, they enter into a world where they have to learn how to watch their backs, how to gain respect, and how to avoid trouble with others- in any way it may be. It is out of these interactions that their life chances are determined. Tyree is a good example of just this; regardless of who he is going home to, he has to walk the streets of Philly everyday in an environment that doesn’t care that he comes from a relatively stable, good family, and he has to learn how to navigate them because it is a matter of survival. Inevitably, that affects his future.
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Illustrations of the author’s comments on the importance of trophies in street-level social interactions can be found throughout the wire. In season two, Ziggy is driven to acquire and maintain trophies as proof of his machismo. His car, the items he lifts off the docks, and jacket all serve as trophies. It is also the beginning of his downfall when he loses control of his trophies. Cheese takes his car as payment on a package, and Ziggy requires the help of Nick in order to make that debt right. Then Ziggy finally snaps when double G attempts to take control of his stolen Mercedes without proper payment.
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I thought that this statement was very interesting. We see in the later seasons that the kids on the corner are getting younger and younger but why is that? Is it because they are exposed to it all the time therefore it is all they know? Or do you blame the parents and the school systems for not doing a good enough job on letting the kids realize the dangers of the drugs and violence? Whatever it may be, we can all agree that ten years old is far to young. What can be done to help change these ways?
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This is a particularly interesting statement when compared to the power structures of the police force in Baltimore, both in terms of internal relations and its interactions with “street people.” Within the department physical assertions plays essentially no role, with all power deriving from the chain of command structure and verbal communications. However, when dealing with non-police people on the streets, physical force becomes a much more integral part of asserting authority and establishing legitimacy. The people who usually carry of these physical interactions are those lower on the chain of command such as Carver and Herc. Similarly, it generally seems as though higher-ups in the drug trade as such Avon and Stringer Bell do not engage physically with opponents, reserving such skirmishes for those who report to them, such as Bodie. Does the importance of a willingness to use physical force decrease with status? How does this relate to the idea of “street” versus “decent” people?
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I think this comment brings up an interesting point about whether or not the actions of Avon and Stringer Bell’s gang members are reflection of the identity of Avon and Stringer directly. Although Avon and Stringer are not the ones physically engaging in fights, much of the time they are the executives making the order. Do the actions of the subordinate members have an impact on Avon and Stringer’s reputation and perceived identity within the greater community? I would argue that Avon and Stringer use the hired muscle to reaffirm their superiority and tough reputation over the competing gangs and customers. Just because they aren’t carrying out the violence themselves doesn’t mean it has no impact on their reputation because the gang members’ actions are viewed as an extension of their leaders’ order to the greater community.
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As children are gaining “street knowledge”, attempting to gain respect, and go through the social shuffling on the streets, it is important to also account for the role models and people that the children growing up in the inner-city neighborhoods look up to when they are outside of their home. These kids do not come onto the street knowing what the respect looks like or how to get it without witnessing or hearing talk about who it is that has the respect they desire for themselves. As the first paragraph says “children learn its rules early” and this learning process comes from peers as well as those already established in the neighborhood, on the streets as having the power and respect that is characterized as something everyone should strive to gain for themselves. As the following paragraphs discuss, children are redefining their understanding of the streets and the code by watching older children, listening to the street-oriented adults, peers, and others that they see as more knowledgable, understanding the game better, and/or having the power and respect that is their ultimate goal. The kids are inundated with examples of how to assert themselves, how to act in certain situations, messages such as “don’t punk out”, and demands to not cause trouble. However, in many cases, these guidelines that kids are trying to navigate their lives by are in conflict with each other. The kids, then, have to pick how to act or how to respond, and their decisions are based on the role models that they most closely align themselves with through the alignment of similar goals, status achieved, reputation held, or respect garnered.
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In Seasons 3 and 4 I believe the most disturbing thing for me to watch or comprehend is the amount of influence that peers and other street gang members have on the younger children in the community. In Season 3, many kids are seen in Hamsterdam witnessing drug overdoses, sex and violence. In many of the other seasons we see young boys helping to sell drugs and looking up to older gang members who are either family members or peers in the neighborhood. I believe this is a very important issue that needs to be addressed, yet the solution is complicated. With the lack of parental supervision and the ultimate street code of looking up to older peers or respected dealers, it makes it hard to pin point who is responsible for solving this. Is it the parents? The schools? Is it the government?
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The fact that many children do not have after school supervision by parents or teachers has a huge effect on young inner city youths’ gravitation towards the streets and ultimately towards destructive behavior. I believe that programs such as after school sports or involvement in other outlets is crucial in order for young people to learn of different interests that may save them from drug dealing and violence. I have done research on this topic in an Arts Administration class in which I had to come up with a nonprofit organization. My organization (since I am from Baltimore) was on implementing an after school mentor program in Baltimore City schools in which volunteers could use resources of the city, such as museums, aquariums and other creative institutions in order to spark interest in education in a different setting than the classroom. It is non profits like these and programs that should be considered by the educational system. In addition, it is not the fault of decent parents if their kids end up on the street because parents who are working night shifts at their particular job are unable afford after school supervision even if they wished.
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I found Anderson’s analysis to be particularly insightful about how children without much supervision often tend to engage more frequently in street-centered activity. As Hannah suggests, education and other extra-curricular activities can help to provide children with the supervision to help keep children out of the streets. My question would be: what type of activities would be possible to reach out to children before they start attending school? As Anderson points out, street-centered behavior starts even before education begins. Therefore, what can help bridge the gap and keep kids out of trouble until school supervision can take over?
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Kyle, I believe that you raise several very excellent questions regarding child development and supervision. You wonder what can help to fill the void when school is not in session that will keep students out of trouble. My answer would be distractions. When I say distractions, I am referring to activities or involvements that drastically – if not completely – reduce a child’s window of opportunity in which to spend time on the corner. It terms of a connection to the show, I immediately think of Cutty and his boxing facility. Yes, there are downsides to promoting boxing to young children. It might cultivate an unhealthy level of aggression, build a fighting/physically mentality, and/or be misinterpreted by students to suggest that problems can and should be solved with fists. However, the positives of such an activity far outweigh the negatives. Boxing – like Prez’s mandatory detention – is an involvement/activity that can keep kids off the street. Furthermore, teens can passionately immerse themselves in it, while learning valuable lessons of hard work and dedication.
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Brian, I think your point about having available distractions for kids is a good one. I know at my elementary school, there were several different after-school programs available for anyone who wanted to join was where kids whose parents worked until later in the day were able to stay. There were programs for chess, sports, art, etc. The problem is getting the parents and the kids to fully accept that these programs are better, or more valuable, than the status quo. It is also worth noting that cost is a big issue in starting and maintaining things like Cutty’s gym that make them a luxury that most neighborhoods can’t afford.
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I agree with Brian and Mattia’s point. Boxing is a perfect example because it molds an innate response, especially from inner-city street culture, without gutting it. Kids from inner-cities, like Anderson explained, are vying for their places on the streets. Like Tyree, these kids use fighting to prove they are worthy to be included in a group of “bold.” Boxing, like wrestling, molds this innate response in a way that teaches them restraint. It teaches them how to fight, but it also teaches them to keep the fighting within the ring, and when they are told to stop they are to promptly stop. It allows them to explore aggression, but teaches them teamwork and camaraderie. The most important aspect of these “distractions,” are a place to teach kids there is more to life than the corner. It is an outlet where children/teens are exposed to people who have done well for themselves, athletically, and can serve as mentors. It gives them another ruler to measure their self-worth.
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Hannah, what I think is so interesting about your suggestion is that taking students to public places like aquariums and museums is doing the job of a “good” parent. Those are co-curricular activities that are meant to educate children on a level of content (“I learned XYZ at the museum and can connect it to ABC in class”) but also on a social level (it is not appropriate for me to be loud in certain places). This is not a bad thing. You are right that working parents aren’t bad parents because they can’t be with their children after school. However, non-profits and school systems can fill the void left by working and absent parents through this sort of education. Imagine how different many of the students in The Wire would be if they had a teacher who took them places. We see the beginning of that education when Colvin takes his group out to dinner. There can be so much more to education than your standard 9ams-3pms, and in communities like these, there has to be.
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I took an education class last semester where we discussed some of the inequalities in the school system today. One article we read highlighted research that showed that learning gaps between lower and upper class children were largely due to summer learning. While lower class students stayed stagnant in their learning over the summer, upper class students were more likely to make gains during this vacation, due to educational summer programs or at-home learning activities. Lower class parents often do not have the resources or the confidence to educate their own children at home, and they see learning as the responsibility of the school. As Hannah mentioned, this is a cultural and social issue that these parents cannot avoid—therefore, the implementation of summer or after-school programs is necessary in order to close gaps and to keep kids off of the streets.
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I agree that after school programs are a very important aspect of a child’s education. The time after school is critical in constructing a student’s life path, because this a vulnerable time where students can enter the game. A mandatory requirement to participate in some sort of after school activity would ensure that kids spend time, outside of their students, in developing skills and insights that allow them to construct a sense of self worth and realization of their potential. Although an education is extremely valuable, the time outside the classroom is equally important since many times it helps students form their image and set life goals.
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I definitely agree that the after school programs would be beneficial to these young students. However, extra-curricular activities take resources, people and money. There is a huge educational gap between upper class and lower class students. The lower class students are at a huge disadvantage because their communities suffer from more debilitating financial constraints. As a result, the schools are not able to provide students with a lot of resources to distract them from entering the game.
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Why is it important for characters in the wire working the drug game to have violent behaviors? Does it make them more feared and less likely to be drawn in to altercations? Or is it a way move up the ladder in these gangs to make a name for themselves?
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I think the main purpose of violent behavior is to send a message that other people cannot mess with you. In season 1, Stringer criticizes D for not having Bubble’s friend killed, after Bubble’s friend tries to rip them off. In this case violence was not necessary in order to get their product back, but killing him would have sent a message that you cannot get away with stealing from Barksdale’s gang. In this same way, any violent action a person engages in sends the message that they will not allow others to disrespect them.
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Not only is it a way to send a message, but it is also a way to maintain the status quo. I think these people and the characters in The Wire fear that the status quo will be disrupted if they do not act, making them appear weak to the outside. I don’t think the strategy is used so much for upward mobility, which Gregor asked about, as it is to assert where someone stands and make sure that it cannot be contested. This definitely is sending a message, but it also reveals complicated power dynamics within urban groups themselves and also when considering what goes on in the “staging area” Anderson references later. Retaliation and violence are a way to stay secure and in their comfort zone in a place where power dynamics are being constantly challenged.
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Violence is an integral component of the “game.” As stated above, it plays an important role to send a message and maintain the status qou. But what if you begin to think about the alternatives? It only makes sense that their were violence in the drug game because there are no other resources or outlets for the players to utilize. If the drugs were legal and sold in a regulated marketplace, the rival gangs would have to compete based on supply/demand drivers with price and quality being the two most important. But since the drugs are illegal and sold on the black-market, rival gangs can use other resources to compete. Violence is the easiest way to ensure financial success in a marketplace where intimidation and strength prevail.
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Characters in The Wire, as we see with the real-life example of Tyree in Anderson, are essentially forced to behave violently. If they don’t put up a “tough guy” front, other dealers may assume that men like Bodie and Poot are pushovers. Consequently, these characters have to constantly show strength and fearlessness, regardless of their actual feelings or emotions.
At the same time, this doesn’t always prove to be effective.
Spoiler for people who haven’t watched Season 4
As we see when Bodie dies as a result of two gunshots to the head near the end of the 4th season, there are always others in this community of dealers who are able to undermine or remove men like Bodie from the scene. In an instant, the work and “success” of street figures like Bodie are destroyed because someone had an upper hand (ie a gun, better aim, more backup, etc.) And here, we see that despite violent acts, displays of strength, and adherence to the rules of the street, Bodie does not continue to move up in the game.
So I don’t think one can definitively say that violence has a single purpose or even multiple purposes that always hold true.
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Violent behavior serves several purposes, but the main purpose is to reinforce. As Anderson points out here, the type of violent behavior is very situational, although easy to make a routine in order to develop a reputation of “toughness.” Looking at the difference of leadership between Avon and Stringer, especially in the third season, we can see how Avon “thinks in red” and wants to resort to violence to gain respect through fear. On the other hand, Stringer is working to use his education and intellect to have his people respect him for his knowledge and confidence. I think that it is interesting that as Anderson points out, our criminal justice system can seem to have 2 different codes of dealing with things: one for whites, and one for blacks. Avon’s trigger-happy manner represents the type of crimes that the police departments in many cities, Philadelphia included, expect to see from inner-city blacks. On the other hand, Stringer is engaging in more white-collar activity, which seems to get him respect among Baltimore’s higher-ups – something Avon cannot have and recognizes. In the end, I think the contrast of how one gets respect – whether it is through fear and violence or earned through intellect – is an interesting conversation and one that lends itself to many different characters on The Wire and many different leaders (of gangs or city councils) in cities around the U.S.
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The victor in a fight gains social capital. In this sense, physical presence and a proclivity for aggression and fighting can earn earn you respect in the minds of others. After all, if an individual knows you have won several fights or are prone to violence, they will respect you in an unconscious attempt to avoid trouble. One thing I find interesting concerning this front of “toughness” is Avon Barksdale. For being the man in charge, we never really witness him putting on a mean countenance or engaging in physical scraps. Could this be because he is so elevated in status that he no longer plays by the rules of the street? Do you think at one point, in order to get to where he is today, he had to partake in this culture of toughness?
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The first thing I thought of when I read this paragraph was the moment when D’Angelo’s mom comes to visit him in jail, and he tells a story from his childhood. Two other kids that he knew came to his home one day and were picking on him, but when he tried to get into his house his mom wouldn’t let him in until he stood up for himself. In the end, he was beat up by the two boys. The interesting thing about this conversation is that D doesn’t resent his mother for what happened. They actually have a very affectionate and emotional moment as a result of the story, and he reminds her that she always said that she “brought [him] into this world, but [he] was the one who would need to learn how to live in it.”
This entire exchange between D’Angelo and his mother gets to the core of what this article talks about. Respect is a huge issue in The Wire and it has to be earned. It is also taught at home from a very young age. Parents teach their children that they need to be tough and that they have to stick up for themselves. For most of the families The Game is all they have ever known, and what seems like harsh parenting to us is actually the only real option in cities entrenched in crime. Parents know that only the toughest individuals will survive and the children who are taught this lesson from a young age will have the greatest advantage. What seems harsh and cold to us is in reality one of the sincerest forms of love.
It is easy for us to be appalled by the situations these children are raised in because most of us have be born into better environments, but for the parents we see in The Wire is there really any other way?
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Ally brings up an interesting point. For as much violence and gang activity that kids feel obligated to participate in order to earn this so-called respect, D’Angelo is still pretty respectful towards his mother. It makes me wonder where priorities are for a situation like this, putting family first (those who brought you into the world), or complying with the social expectations and pressures of peers and other characters in the environment? The essence of being in the “game” is that a kid really has to play his cards right and treat people the right way, which is very complex dependent on the different characters involved, to get ahead in their bubble they were raised in.
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I think the example of D’Angelo’s childhood and also Namond’s upbringing (as seen in the fourth season) are good examples of parenting that reinforces aggressive behavior. In both cases, I think we need to understand their situation within their culture of being raised in a tough urban America. First of all, the parents see aggressive behavior as a medal of their child’s respect in the society. Their respect in the street is not only a necessary survival skill, but more importantly a key to success in the community that they live in. Also, the parents of the kids probably don’t know other modes of survival in the city. Namond has to be physically pulled out of his parents’ supervision to even understand that there’s different opportunities and a variety of options for his future. If the parents survived the city by earning respect through violence, and that’s the only method they know, I don’t know if it’s fair to expect a better outlook for their kids’ future from them. So, to answer your question, I think most of us need to keep in mind that we probably don’t understand their street culture, and the inevitable situations that leads the Moms to reinforce aggressive behavior.
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I don’t think that parents could bring up their children any differently in these situations. They are not teaching their children to be this way on purpose, instead they just want to ensure their children’s survival. I agree that this is a form of “tough love” and that the social structure of these urban neighborhoods requires a different form of parenting. We may be appalled and think these people are horrible parents, and some of them, like Wallace’s mother really are, but in all honestly the way they treat their children is what keeps them alive on the streets.
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This paragraph made me think about whether parenting is really good or bad. For instance, in this environment, it is almost better that a kid can stand up for himself and gain the respect of his peers. As you move up the socio-economic ladder, the type of physical respect life requires goes down. When I first read this and saw examples of it in the show, I thought, “wow, that is bad parenting.” But in reality, that might be the best advice and lesson a parent can give a kid who, for better or worse, has to grow up in that neighborhood. This can tend to create a vicious cycle, but ultimately, a parent looking out for their kids might be better off trying to toughen them up.
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I agree that the children are better off when their parents bring them up using questionable methods. The streets are dangerous and teaching their kids to be tough and violent is not a means of choice, rather it is for their kid’s survival. I think bringing the question of good and bad into the equation is also really interesting, especially when considering the many articles we have read about David Simon’s mission in writing for The Wire. He wants us to question the parents’ techniques simply so we do ask ourselves these questions and realize that the social structure of urban neighborhoods dictates what must be done, not the individual choices of the parents. Just like wrestling with the question of whether Rawls is a good cop or bad cop, we must also asks ourselves if it’s fair to question if these parents are good or bad parents.
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With this paragraph about parenting, I don’t know if it’s fair to apply it simply to “street-oriented” adults. In my experience (personal and through observation), standing up for yourself is not limited to the inner city. Perhaps some parents wouldn’t claim they were going to beat their child if their child didn’t beat up someone else, but that doesn’t mean that the same sentiments (and possibly actions) are not present across the board. Given the context, it seems the street may place more value on “respect” as a currency because they don’t have much else of monetary value to their name. This circumstance creates a skewed understanding of parenting in the inner city versus in other locales. However, that doesn’t mean that the approach to keeping respect makes these people “good” or “bad” parents. I think social context is worth examining, but I also think the scope needs to be widened to compare responses outside of the inner city.
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For me this article epitomizes Namond. When we are first introduced to Namond he is depicted as the ultimate corner boy and seems to have internalized the code of the street. So it makes me wonder what is so special about Namond’s situation that made him take the opportunity he was given- Especially when the same forces that were supposed to be restraining him (his father) let him go? Through out The Wire, we have seen characters that could have escaped the streets. For example, Wallace could have stayed at his grandmother’s house or even Michael and Bug could have turned to their aunt that Bug eventually stays with. Obviously, those are not easy transitions, but neither is Namond’s. So, why was he the only character to take the opportunity?
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Many people do not take the opportunity to leave a negative environment because they are comfortable. Specifically, Wallace decides to come back to the Westside of Baltimore because that is all he knows. His experience in the country was safe and quiet, and he could have started a new life in his new environment. The dilemma is safety is not enough to drive a person away from where their heart lives.
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I think that Namond takes the opportunity he was given because he is weaker than the streets. At a few different moments, we see the difference in strength and desire for street-respect or engagement between Michael, for example, and Namond. In the fourth season, when Kenard steals Namond’s stash and is told by his mother that he needs to give him a beating to send him a message, Namond looks on hesitantly while Michael does the dirty work. Even though he realizes the need to send a message, the viewer can see Namond’s resistance to actually enforce it, whereas Michael fully realizes what it takes to make it on the streets and commits himself to it in situations like this. Another example is when Namond calls Colvin instead of spending the night in baby-booking, again showing his weakness for street norms- in this case, accepting that you might have to serve term every once in a while as part of the bigger picture. Even later in the season when he cries and says he has no where to go, he turns to Colvin, an ex-police and teacher for help instead of to someone like Marlo, to whom Michael turns in a similar situation. I think Namond takes the opportunity because even though it’s his heritage, he’s not strong enough for the streets and doesn’t have any real desire to be a part of that game. Up until savior Colvin came along it was all he knew, but he seizes the opportunity to escape.
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This reminds me very much of season four of the Wire and how these kids are socialized at home to behave and to treat others in this self-reliant, almost aggressive manner. To the point that the kids are almost afraid to not act in this way, they will be punished by their parents if they do not comply. There was a scene where an administrator was talking about how the kids are happiest on Wednesdays because it is the middle of the week and they are as far from being at home as possible but then Friday comes and they are sad because of the weekend. That is depressing and honestly it’s hard not to feel for these kids. Some of them never had a chance. So for these kids who only know what they have been taught at home is there hope for social mobility for them? or does the fact that they chose their parents poorly reflect their eventual fate?
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Anderon’s reference to parental influence on aggression in the street may seem unbelievable to most middle class readers. However, The Wire provides a clear example of this type of parenting in De’Londa Brice. Namond Brice stands as an interesting character within this debate. He struggles to fit into the street life, opting rather to give up his position to Michael and skip out on the opportunities to advance in the drug game. Namond is, at heart, a decent kid. He has the power and potential to succeed beyond the streets, but is ironically held back by his mother. De’Londa constantly pushes Namond to work harder on the streets, placing him in harm’s way and forcing him into the drug game, a world he does not truly wish to enter. She yells at him or punishes him for not stepping up in the game, or for being “too soft.” For example, De’Londa disregards Colvin’s generosity in taking Namond in, and is instead ashamed that her son was “too afraid of baby booking.” The drug game tends to reproduce a specific lifestyle, and many inner-city families cannot imagine life beyond the game. This is why De’Londa—and other parents who influence life in the drug world—push their children into such dangerous positions, instead of working to influence them to attend school or live a “decent life.”
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The importance of being able to fend for oneself is evident among the males of the street and within the police department, but it is equally important for the women in The Wire. McNulty’s wife Elena, Donette, and Beatrice Russell have all learned to function as single mothers, to varying degrees of success, Donette being the least successful of the three, as she relied heavily on the support of Stringer Bell when D was in prison. I would argue that for The Wire’s women, being capable is generally stems from as being unreliant on men and financially independent. How does the concept of family in The Wire tie in with this concept of self-sufficiency, especially as it relates to the Barksdales?
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I think the role of parents in the outcome of a child’s life cannot be understated. I believe that parents can mold their child however they want, regardless of the social environment they grow up in. Unfortunately some environments are more difficult to traverse for so called “decent” parents. In the Wire, Wallace stands out in this regard. By all standards, Wallace’s mother was a terrible person, and even though Wallace had a good heart, he got caught up in the drug game. I can only pin this on poor parenting; I don’t think it would have taken much work from a parental figure to get Wallace out of the low rises and into the classroom.
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I agree that parents play a huge role in the outcome of their child’s life, but it also the external environment. A prime example is Michael and Bug. Like Wallace, they had an awful mom, but Michael took on the responsibility to take care of Bug. Michael is very smart, athletic, talented, etc., and tries to stay away from the street by working out in Cutty’s gym. Yet, when his external environment required him to make more money to keep Bug safe, the only thing he was able to do was to join Marlo’s crew. A lot of children in The Wire are resilient, but they are forced to the street since they do not have any other options.
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I agree with Kiley in the sense that for kids in a fragile situation, who they become is determined by the sub-cultures they are a part of at integral, turning-point moments. I do not believe that if Michael or Wallace had good mothers they would have necessarily stayed out of the drug game. If they lived in a different part of Baltimore, if they went to school with straight-edged privileged kids, or lived in a different town, maybe. But when you walk out the door and immediately enter into a culture in which drug trade seems to be the only industry, in which you are targeted by police by nature of the kids you associate with, in which in order to gain the respect of the people you have to walk by on the street every day you have to show strength and violence, I don’t think it’s a question of who their parents are. At critical moments, for example when Michael needs school supplies money for he and Bug, he turns to the streets because that’s the culture he lives in. Or, when Michael is having trouble at home, he feels that the only person he can turn to is Marlo, and I believe that is a direct result of institutional failures.
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I completely agree that one of the most important influences a child can have growing up is that of a good parent. Like many of the teenagers in the Wire, they lack this kind of influence growing up and end up surrounding themselves with the wrong crowds. However, i do not completely blame poor parenting. I would also argue that the environment, Kylie stated has an enormous effect on the outcome of right and wrong. Since characters like Wallace had absent parents, he was drawn to other teens like Bodie to join the drug game. Even though he had a good heart, he was still mixed up in criminal acts which eventually led to his murder. Growing up in areas like that, Wallace did not have a chance to make his own way and fell in to the criminal scene.
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Anderson points out something that I have really overlooked when watching The Wire: that something like a person’s appearance and/or body language is a crucial element of earning respect. This image of toughness sends a powerful message to others not to mess with that person. My question is: how important do you think the tough appearance is to earning respect? Are there characters in The Wire that exhibit this “tough” image moreso than others?
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Although The Wire never explicitly discusses the importance of image, I think it can be observed through how some characters dress and act. Although it’s pretty hard to quantify, most characters seem to dress in a way that conveys their toughness, which includes large shirts and baggy pants. I think one way to look at image is to think about how out of place a character would look if they dressed in a completely different way. If Bodie showed up to the corner one day wearing Fratty clothing, it seems safe to say that he would at the very least get severely beaten and lose all credibility.
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I believe clothing can play a role in the tough image presented in “The Wire” however, I feel there are significant characters that go against the status quo of street apparel. For instance Stringer Bell is presented as a tough character but is typically always dressed in business casual. Also, characters such as D’Angelo’s mother maintain a professional look, but are still respected and seen as tough in “The Wire”. I believe when analyzing different images, it is important to also examine the role people are playing i.e. the queen, the pawns, etc.
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I agree that image is very important for earning respect in The Wire. Clothing and apparel definitely play into the “tough image” factor, as Bert mentions. However, clothing is always a factor for fitting in to every situation. The right dress is a prerequisite for social acceptance in any situation, whether it be the street, a frat party, a country club, the office, or any other location. Image can also be defined by the vibe that an individual puts off. As a gay man, Omar must exhibit the “tough” image on a different level than other characters. When he was in jail, Omar had to set up a fight in order to send a message to the other inmates and to signify himself as a tough and dangerous individual. Within the realm of the street and the drug game, a tough image sends a particular message and helps to make that person feared by others, allowing them to gain respect in return.
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I think this is a good point about how much appearance matters. One example that stands out is when D spends a long time getting dressed. He puts on one outfit, looks in the mirror, and then changes into something completely different. He understands that his clothing and “style” matter when people look at him. I think a good example of the body language you referred to is Omar. On spec, Omar shouldn’t really be that intimidating. First, he is gay, which based on the language that Stringer and Avon use to describe him, shows that they don’t respect him for that reason. He also doesn’t role with a larger crew, so the muscle he has is really all his own. Not typically what you’d consider a threat to an operation as big as Avon’s.
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I found myself re-reading this comment over and over again, because I was incredibly confused when I tried to relate this reading to Ziggy. Zig not only bought a duck, but cavorted the streets, walking the damn thing on a leash. While reading Anderson, the statement, the “code directly revolving around the presentation of self” stuck out to me because I cannot understand why Zig would present himself in that way. Anderson claims that public image displays a “certain predisposition to violence.” What is violent about walking a duck on a leash? Unless, Simon used the duck as a way to show how Ziggy is viewed and respected to his coworkers and peers—he isn’t really respected nor is he ever taken seriously.
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It wasn’t until I read this line that I began to think about the fact that the school the children attend in The Wire has a dress code and uniform. (It looks like the different grades wear different colored polos.) Dress could potentially be considered an outlet that allows children of decent families to express themselves and their identities more freely than children from lower families. This passage also reminds me of a Childish Gambino lyric, “White kids get to wear whatever hat they want/ When it comes to black kids one size fits all.” Those lyrics refer to social mobility and self-expression, but let’s take them literally. Do the school uniforms create an environment void of hierarchy? Do they force the students to find new ways to create respect? Or are they meaningless, seeing as the students change out of them immediately after school? What would be their street “uniform,” and does that essentially make them immobile as part of the streets? It seems to me that while there are many sub-cultures for affluent white kids to express through dress (preppy, goth, emo, punk, etc…), but there are considerably fewer sub-cultures for street kids to identify with. (Is “hood” the only thing acceptable within a sub-culture like The Wire’s neighborhoods?)
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I’m glad that you brought up the idea of uniforms in The Wire and the purpose they serve. When I was watching Season 4, I was struck by the fact that Namond insisted on wearing a new jersey to school even though he knew that the teachers would make him take it off. For some reason this scene really stuck with me and after reading this paragraph on the role of appearance on respect, I can see how this ties into The Wire. I wonder if David Simon deliberately put this scene in the episode in order to make a point about The Game and respect. Namond was making an obvious statement by wearing his jersey in deliberate disregard for school rules. He was making it known that he is a street kid and he stands in stark contrast to all of the “stoop” kids at his school. This distinction is pushed even further when the school launches a program that separates the stoop children from the corner or street children.
Additionally, everyone knows who Namond’s father is and it seems like throughout Season 4 he is trying to live up to his dad’s name, but continues to fall short. He is constantly pushed and forced into a role that he doesn’t seem to have the desire or heart to fill, but he has no real choice in the matter.
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I think it’s interesting to think about the value of clothes, shoes, cars and weapons in the street. Yet, the same individuals will live in the worst conditions. The values are placed on things that are very temporary and fleeting instead of things that can increase in value. It’s also your respect lies within the amount of material things you hold to emulate a certain image.
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If you do not hold these items then you cannot enter the game, you won’t be respected. This is the importance of image and the game and another element of gaining respect. You must have a certain facade and reputation in order to be on top of the game. In terms of Sherman, I think this is extremely important because he is not accepted by the street game he is so desperately trying to be a part of.
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Having significant exposure to studies of the Bystander Effect, it comes as little to no surprise that people involved in breaking up the fight are increasingly rare. However, given our exposure to the concept of The Game – both its reach and a person’s perceived level of participation, I wonder how that affects intervening in the fight over the “beef.” I think adding weight to the scale of an argument does more than just keep the peace. When it comes to matters of payback, then those who intervened could be interpreted as disrespecting another side. I also feel level of respect will affect who intervenes – a perso who is highly respected can interfere (even if their physical strength is very low) because their reputation extends beyond their physical stature.
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Tyree’s story struck me in particular because he, like many who endure similar predicaments daily as well as characters on The Wire, has no real choice when it comes to the life he leads. This paragraph that describes his first encounter with the “bols” ends with the line, “He must face this situation.” While one could read that line and argue that Tyree technically could have turned around and run, the reality is that had Tyree done so, his “cowardice” would have cost him dearly at some point down the road. And that beating would have topped the one he ultimately received.
This line also resonates on a broader scope, for men like him and their fictional representations in The Wire have limited power and options when it comes to living on the streets. Conflicts like Tyree’s are inevitable, so in those moments, how can one realistically respond? Does Tyree have any real choice in evading beatings from the bols? Does he have legitimate means for removing himself entirely from the mere possibility of these run-ins? Similarly, do characters in The Wire have viable options when it comes to facing or running away from a fight? What are the consequences of running? Remember what happened to D’Angelo, Wallace, and Randy (Season 4) when they tried to leave behind and/or avoid life on the corners and streets..
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Tyrees motivation to take the beating in this situation was to gain the respect of the bols so that he could potentially enter their crew. While he could have turned around, he would have severely damaged his chances by labeling himself as a coward.
However, we have to question Tyree’s motivations in the first place. I don’t think he really sees any options other than getting involved with this bad crowd. Why this is the case, I can only guess. The article states that his main goal is to “get cool with the boys who run the neighborhood”. It seems like his family life is relatively stable, his mom has a job and Mike is a fatherly presence. Maybe the streets have gotten to him despite his potentially “decent” upbringing. It is this type of flawed system that prevents decent individuals from escaping the street culture. Tyree simply didn’t have a choice.
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I also find it interesting that most of the characters in The Wire do not see any other options besides joining The Game. The Wire shows that even someone who grows up in a relatively stable household can get involved in The Game. The example that comes to mind is Nicky. Even though his father refused to every take part in “the dirt,” Nicky still goes down this path. In order to support his family and make a decent living, he has to enter The Game. This shows how none of the characters really have control or a choice in the matter. They either have to play or be played.
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I also think there is a level of respect that comes from what The Game can provide. When Nicky got involved with the Greek and his people, it was because he wanted to have “decent respect” by providing his girlfriend and their daughter with a real house and proper family life. It is incredibly ironic that those who come from “clean” families (so to speak) feel the need to enter The Game in order to do well outside of The Game.
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I think a possible answer to the question of whether or not a choice actually existed/why he felt he had to choose to face the situation comes in paragraph 113. Is says there that “the code is seen as possessing a certain justice, since everyone supposedly has the opportunity to learn it, and thus can be held responsible for being familiar with it.” What this seems to be saying is the fact that there may or may not be a choice ends up meaning nothing in the long run in this context – regardless of whether an individual wants to live by the rules of the code and establish a place for themselves, sooner or later they will probably run into a situation where others involved expect them to know the code. Even if Tyree had run in this situation or had refused to attempt to incorporate himself into the bols group altogether, when the point came that he was forced into an interaction with them, he would not be able to use the excuse of not knowing how the code works.
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Throughout Anderson’s reading and the anecdote of Tyree, the idea of the code becomes a prevalent and permanent factor of life in the inner-city. The code revolves around respect and a hierarchy based upon physical strength and worthiness. It is necessary to abide by this code in order to go about a particular neighborhood unscathed. In the Wire, a code is present in the streets of Baltimore, but as well within the various institutions explored, The Baltimore Sun, the police department, the mayor’s office. A code isn’t just a street term, its applicable to every hierarchical setting. Does a code detract from an institution or bring about a form of respect and organization?
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Codes serve as guides in the midst of the institutional cycle. One must acknowledge the code in order to survive, and those who ignore the code do not last. Codes can be negative or positive, but the reality of any situation is that institutions breed codes. Whether directly stated in a rule book, or unspoken, codes are prevalent. I believe that codes bring about respect and organization. There are those who openly break the code; some can be seen as heroes or rebels. There are those who follow the code; they can be seen as respectable followers, or ignorant bystanders.
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O’Shea, your comments are quite insightful and raise some interesting questions. I completely agree with you regarding the prevalence of codes, both written and unspoken. Furthermore, I would say that the repercussions of not acknowledging said code(s) are unique to the particular environment in which the codes governs. If codes are so in-grained in institutions, is there any hope for social policy to change them? Is it even possible to alter these codes? Concerning Tyree, for instance, is it possible to develop social policies or programs that undermine the code that respect is gained through violence?
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I would argue for a separation of codes, unspoken rules, and written rules. A code is an individualistic choice, normally based in personal moral beliefs, that guides individual decisions in the larger context of an institution. Unspoken rules are analogous to common law. They are peer-wide or institution-wide, off-the-book imposed and generally accepted with some room for interpretation. Written rules, while largely ignored in The Wire, are a flexible framework in which individuals are forced to morph their code and peer groups are forced to morph their unwritten rules. The Game is an unwritten rule, as is Sunday Truce and protection of fellow police. As Raymond mentioned below, Frank Sabotka’s decision to continue to facilitate shipping for the Greek is a part of his personal code to protect his brothers.
It’s interesting to watch the clash between these three concepts throughout the arc of the show. McNulty has no respect for unspoken or written rules as his personal code transcends these in personal importance. Carv is constantly battered with internal tensions of unwritten rules and the code, with the code boiling over the unwritten rules when he decides to write Colicchio up for violating the written rules. Stringer’s personal code overwhelms the unspoken rule of Sunday Truce when he makes the call to shoot at Omar on a Sunday morning and this ultimately ends up costing him his life as well.
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That is a really neat question because at least in the context of The Wire, for me, I think of “code” as a mostly bad/dangerous notion. But in reflecting on this idea more now, I agree with you in that occasionally, it adds structure to lifestyles that desperately need that. For example, in season 1, Poot and Bodie form a pretty solid partnership and trust, in part due to their similar positions as dealers and distributors for drugs. They have each others’ backs when no one else really does.
At the same time, though, the problem that Anderson doesn’t address too much is that not everyone seems to follow the same “code” and set of rules. To illustrate, in season 1, the innocent civilian is shot, and some players of the game (Omar comes to mind) question and criticize whether this was “right” or part of the rules.. Later, we see this a bit in season 4 when Marlo Stanfield gets his people to kill at people on the street because they’re from New York. In both situations, viewers don’t get an idea that there is an overall consensus among gangs for what constitutes fairness and the “right” way of doing business on the streets.
Thus the code, while providing organization, can simultaneously be the source of chaos and confusion since it’s assumed that people will adhere to it, though different groups understand and follow this “universal” code in different ways.
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I think O’shea had it right, but even more than institutions breed codes, I believe that institutions are codes. When the institution is flawed, it is because the code is flawed. We see characters in the Wire who try to accomplish the morally acceptable thing all while battling against the constraints imparted by codes (written or unwritten) and institutions.
The first character that comes to mind is Frank Sabotka. Among the longshoremen, Frank is tasked with making sure that all the workers get hours and money at any cost. The longshormen union is a brotherhood of sorts, constantly showing a strong code of loyalty. However, this code seems flawed in the face of a declining shipping industry. Frank has to resort to smuggling and crime even though he is simply trying to help his fellow stevedores. In this context, such a strong code of loyalty doesn’t really make sense, and it ultimately ends up costing Frank his life.
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I like this comment a lot because it made me think about the discussions we have had in class about whether or not Rawls is a good policeman or if we would rather have someone like McNulty in a position of power. The code that we see in the Baltimore police department on The Wire is one in which officers are supposed to follow the orders of their superiors even if the orders seem morally skewed. The code also encompasses the idea of self preservation. This is especially apparent in Season 4 when Rawls tells Landsman to put Detective Greggs on a murder case even though she is new because of politics. Landsman follows order even though he does not like the idea and as a result saves his position in the department.
In contrast we see how McNulty’s failure to stick to the code results in his downfall and demotion in the department. Landsman tells him at one point that he never learned that self preservation is key.
As far as your question goes, I would say that codes definitely contribute to organization and respect. Rawls’ focus on order and self preservation allows the department to continue to run smoothly and we can all imagine how disorganized the department would be if McNulty were in charge. Additionally, although the detectives might not always morally agree with Rawls’ decisions, it is clear that they at least respect him as their superior.
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This sentence reminds me of a theme we keep coming back to in the class. Tyree is not trying to get in with the Bols simply because of social status, but rather because if he does not he risks his own safety. He has to make the calculation, as a sixteen year old, that the pain and suffering he has to endure to join the group will make him better off than if he stays out of the group. Tyree’s choice is to try to join the Bols or spend the rest of his youth looking over his shoulder and on the brink of violence. Though this social relation isn’t exactly an institution, it comes back to the common theme of the class: overarching factors dictate the framework individuals find themselves making decisions in. We have seen this trend when examining “the game,” the nature of street level bureaucracies, and the unemployed and we see it again in the web of social relations to which Tyree belongs. My question to the author and the class is what would it take to dismantle Tyree’s situation? Is it even possible? It is possible to reform any of the other institutions we have studied?
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Quite frankly words like “respect,” “honor” (used earlier in the reading as a comparison between the code of the street and the code of chivalry), “manhood,” etc. are oftentimes funny to me because they’re so intangible that they can’t actually be defined. It’s like the speech at the end of A Few Good Men where Jack Nicholson tells Tom Cruise he uses words like honor, code, and loyalty as the backbone of his institution, whereas Cruise uses them as a punchline. And those circumstances (the military setting) are one of the only ones I have ever been able to think of where those words have a tangible meaning. And in trying to apply them to this reading, I still don’t think they do in the setting of “the streets.” However, the problem is that the people involved believe them to be tangible, and this sentence from Anderson expresses it perfectly: the battle becomes one between two words (respect and manhood) that nobody can actually define, yet the results are without question tangible (ie. physical violence). The fact that Anderson goes to such great lengths to demonstrate how these qualities are second nature for kids from the streets by the time they are as old as somebody like Wallace or the borderline-toddler that shoots Omar at the very end of the series is what is really alarming. Maybe people strongly disagree here, but I feel like the root of the problem is that the protagonists in this reading are working under a set of rules completely centered around concepts which no one can actually define- like “respect” and “manhood.”
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You bring up an interesting point.I’m having trouble defining the differences between manhood and respect myself. When is a child really old enough to understand the meaning of gaining respect from their communities per the community’s expectations, versus coming into manhood and having that individual desire to do so. Unfortunately in most cases, the more physical violence that is involved in an instance permits more respect for those who partake in it, which I deem as the opposite of manhood but clearly the characters in The Wire do not. I believe that kids learn early on this is how they must behave on the streets; Anderson brought up the point how children couldn’t enjoy school too much or dress too white because that is simply a loss of respect by their peers. The same thing goes for acting violent or selling drugs; they are expected to do those things in order to be considered “men.”
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With this last sentence, Anderson is drawing a connection between manhood/physicality on one hand and respect/psychological well-being on the other. Is this link something singular to the lower-class setting this reading is concerned with, or is it something experienced by all classes? It seems to me that this is another interest of middle- and upper-class privilege that I had not considered before – that physical safety and psychological safety can be somewhat separated from another, and danger to one is not necessarily a danger to the other. In The Wire, this connection seems particularly clear for D’Angelo, who comes into the physical danger of being killed because he is psychologically in danger of walking away from the game. Is the same true for other characters? What about the police officers and politicians?
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I think it is fairly clear that for the “taxpayers,” those who are not in the lower classes portrayed on the streets of the inner city, physical and mental well-being are very disconnected (the police are an exception, because their job requires them to face physical dangers). Politicians like Clay Davis and developers like Krawczyk negotiate a game that is potentially risky financially, and even psychologically, but not physically. When Stringer tries to order a hit on Clay Davis, Avon stops him, recognizing the attention it will bring. Clay Davis is, in a sense, protected by his socioeconomic status, despite the fact that he is directly dealing with criminals. Krawczyk is directly confronted with violence only once, and only by chance; he is not killed, because he is not (directly) a part of The Game that takes place on the streets. Stringer comes to realize this, as he becomes increasingly wealthy; his conflict with Avon, who values the traits espoused in this paragraph in particular, represents Stringer’s realization that physical and psychological well-being no longer need to be connected when one has acquired wealth. Marlo, on the other hand, does not realize this; despite his wealth, he cannot escape the street code that enforces reputation and manhood; at the end of the series [SPOILER ALERT!] he cannot just accept his money and move off the street, which makes him somewhat of a tragic character (and the antithesis to Stringer).
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spoiler alert
How much respect does Kenard, age 12, garner for killing Omar Little? He has (sadly, but not surprisingly by the end of the series) embraced the street code in inner Baltimore before reaching middle school. I don’t necessarily agree with the last sentence of this paragraph, wherein school becomes a “primary staging area for the campaign for respect.” I instead think that students who truly campaign for respect transcend the schoolyard, especially by their teen years. It is seen again and again in The Wire that ‘street kids’ abandon the schoolyard by the end of elementary school while decent kids like Naymond more firmly commit themselves to the traditions of a wider society. The Wire, through the studies conducted by Bunny Colvin, draws attention to how quickly inner-city schools lose kids to the code, and we are seemingly helpless to stop the bleeding. This all relates back to the idea of survival in your native environment; Naymond manages to seemingly break this cycle, but most are not well served by how to use a computer or do advanced math, but are better served by being feared and respected on the street. This is depressingly portrayed by The Wire as the final season comes to a close and nothing has changed; there is no catharsis, there is no closure. The real question coming out of this class is where can we break this destructive cycle. It requires a paradigm shift in mindset, an elevation above physiological health and safety in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
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As young people in an inner-city attempt to find their identities, external environmental factors play a huge part. In the Wire, some choice words from Colvin in Season 3 exemplify this. He comments that the kids know what is expected of them; that society expects them to live out short lives on the street, to live a life of crime and poverty. The stone-faced administrator responsible for overseeing Colvin’s program replies that she expects them to be students; Colvin scoffs at this remark. Just how important are these external factors (i.e., the community in which a child is raised)? Is it realistic to expect every child to be a “student,” as the administrator claims? Can we treat all students equally with a standardized test? “Tracking” is mentioned disparagingly several times, as it creates different expectations for different students. Is this not something that is already occurring?
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I thought it was interesting how teachers were described as viewing their students as “adversaries”, due to the street behavior exhibited by many students. I think this statement relates to the idea that our inner city schools are fundamentally broken institutions. Many poor children do not have parents who are willing or able to take the time to help them learn, so when these children get to school they do not have the same advantages that kids in more wealthy neighborhoods have before they ever step foot in a school. Worse, because inner-city schools have less money than schools in wealthier neighborhoods I would assume that they have pretty bad teacher/student ratios, so even if students wanted to learn they probably wouldn’t have the level personal instruction necessary to do so. Instead, we get a system where the teacher’s primary job is to regulate the behavior of their kids, rather than actually educate them.
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I, also, found this really intriguing to think about. I think beyond these children not having parents who take an interest in their education is a major point because the parents are often where the kids get their opinions on school from. If the parents see the schools as failing, wastes of time, and useless in the grand scheme of things, then the students are bringing these attitudes with them to school. The teachers are having to teach not only the material to help them succeed, but they are also having to fight against a mentality that the student is bringing with them. The kids are unable to understand schooling because of the lack of respect that schooling may receive in their neighborhood and community. If there is the opinion that school is not important or cannot help, then the teachers and schools are having to fight against an entire environment that believes this before they can even get to the information the students must learn.
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Once the code of the street becomes a part of their identities, these kids become more likely to reject school and the structure that comes along with it. They were raised in an environment that teaches them that drug dealing and other illegal activities are the way to earn a living. In their eyes, it’s lucrative and it’s the only way. So why else would they want to do well in school, or even go to school, when they are taught that drugs and income go hand in hand? Not to mention they probably rarely see anyone from their neighborhood succeed in escaping the “vicious cycle” by going to college and being accepted into the mainstream job force.
The code of the street also encourages these kids to not only “act tough” on the streets, but also at school. And the teacher is no exception. Their behaviors learned from the streets are so ingrained in them that they cannot view the teacher as someone to be respected; they can only view teachers as a part of the institutions that have failed and excluded them.
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[spoilers] Season 4 contains some evidence of “progress.” By this I mean, Prez becomes more acquainted with his occupation; by Season 5 he is able to maintain discipline with students, who at least respect his authority (for example, when he accosts the kid who knocks a sandwich out of another kid’s hand). But this progress is barely cause for hope. Prez learns that more students than he expected are “proficient;” of course, this means that they are at least two levels behind where they should be. Just getting kids to sit down and listen is a challenge. And the teachers are not given the resources they need to provide enriching material, particularly when they have to worry about the standardized tests. Higher level administrators outside the school are not even named – they are so far removed from the actual classroom setting that they are collectively referred to as the “puzzle palace.” The point is that the institution of inner-city public education is so broken that we cannot hope that teachers will be the ones to fix it. They are faced with an impossible situation. Just as with the newspapers, one cannot do “more with less.” Thus the adversarial attitude often taken by teachers should not be surprising nor unexpected, but it is certainly a strong hint that the institution is need of serious reform.
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This idea of code-switching is really interesting. In linguistics, code-switching is what happens when individuals shift between different dialects or complete languages based on their audience to create a connection both verbally and on a level of personal understanding. Here, though, it’s being used in a behavioral way, saying that the children have to learn the change their actions based on their physical context. In what way is this played out in The Wire? It seems to me that the code-switching seen there is more a group effort than something practiced by individuals – certain members of Avon’s gang are the street people responsible for maintaining the group’s honor and respect, while others like Stringer are responsible for portraying a decent exterior when McNulty and other authorities come to talk to him. Other characters, like Bubbles, deal with both the street gangs and the authority figures, but he does not change his personality much when dealing with either. Are there characters that obviously code-switch themselves during the series?
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I think the prime example of someone who code-switches in The Wire is Stringer Bell. He is intimately involved in the drug trade, but also takes classes at the local community college, invests in real estate, and interacts frequently with the world outside the drug trade. When McNulty enters Stringer’s classy apartment after he is killed, he asks himself: “Who the fuck have I been chasing?” This statement demonstrates Stringer’s versatility of character. Beyond this, something I think is interesting to consider is how Stringer addresses higher-ups in the drug trade, such as Avon and Prop Joe, versus his inferiors in the trade, versus people such as his teachers in econ class who are have are far removed from the ways of the street.
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The schools in the urban environment (e.g. Baltimore or Camden) need to acknowledge the fact that their students constantly face the gap between the expectations from the school and expectations from the street. To survive in their neighborhood, kids like Tyree or Michael from The Wire will inevitably have to abide by the street code. If the school does not acknowledge the kids’ cultural differences, then the kids will inevitably feel alienated, having to choose street code to survive in their neighborhoods. In this perpetual cycle, I agree, “the mission of the school is called into question”. As the problem of standardized tests arise in the fourth season of The Wire, I think it’s interesting how standardized tests play into the idea of the school’s expectations from students to ‘act white’. How are the statewide tests ‘standardized’ if the standard is predominantly set up according to the middle class neighborhoods? Kids who are unable to follow the standard expectations from the class may only continue to feel hopeless in achieving social mobility through education if they are simply not ‘good enough’ in comparison to kids from privileged backgrounds. Does standardized tests only reinforce the idea that social mobility is almost impossible for the kids in these urban environment?
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This comment reminded me of many moments in season 4, but specifically when Mr. Prez is teaching standardized practice problems to the class and one states something like: “you get your allowance from your mom and need to spend..”. One of his students immediately comments that she’s never received an allowance, which to me highlights the bias in these tests that further alienate the students. I don’t think standardized tests necessarily tell the students that social mobility is not possible, but I think that they don’t relate to students like in The Wire in a way that is going to engage them and be pertinent or effective in their learning. Really, this is a problem of standardization and trying to make broad-scale assumptions that as seen in The Wire, are not true. Learning occurs in different ways for different people or groups of people, and standardized tests can detract from learning for this reason.
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I completely agree that standardized testings can reinforce the idea that social mobility is almost impossible for the kids in urban environments. Taking examples from Season 4, it seems like with the distractions of misbehaved students, the disrespect for teachers, and expectations of street code, inner city children in public school will inevitably have a disadvantage to peers of more privileged public schools and those of private schools. Although standardized testing may at times give an accurate reading of the academic aptitude of an individual, the learning environment has a large effect on the chance of a student succeeding. In addition, this leads me to reflect on the SATS. Even though I understand that a national test taken by all applicants may be important for colleges to compare students, the academic environment in which a student grew up is often disregarded by higher education institutions. I believe it is very unfair to judge students on the same scale when in certain schools SAT tutors are hired to teach classes or individuals who are able to afford it will get individual lessons before taking the test.
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The other problem that standardized testing faces is listed in the first sentence here: the students don’t care. They don’t see how education can better their lives. I think the other thing we see in Prez’s class is an attempt to equip the students with skills that they can care about. We see that through the dice that Randy bets on with his knowledge of probability. On a societal level, I think this demands a look at the value in vocational education. SATs and liberal arts educations are not for everyone, regardless of race or economic status. But it’s amazing to think about how these kids could get off the streets by learning a trade. Instead, they are learning a trade that is illegal.
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The fact that the students don’t care and don’t see how education can better their lives is true, but it doesn’t just stem from education not being for everyone or not wanting to learn a legitimate trade. The environment that these kids are a part of is one in which they see traditional routes to success and achievement as out of reach of even the adults around them. Because of the lack of examples of success through education and traditional tracks, the students cannot connect education to their lives. The lack of seeing their environments connected to the information they are learning and the requirements placed upon them is what keeps them from understanding the importance education can play in their lives.
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I agree with your comment. The concept of having one standard for people coming from such diverse backgrounds seems so clearly unreasonable that it is surprising that we almost take standardized tests for granted in the U.S.. I think part of the problem is that it’s easier to pretend that everyone can be held to the same standard than acknowledge how severely disadvantaged some children are, because acknowledging those disadvantages would mean that we would have to figure out a way to fix the system.
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After reading this segment of Anderson I can’t help but think about D’angelo Barksdale and his relationship with Avon Barksdale. Although D’angelo is not a child he is still young and has never known anything about the outside world from the close-knit neighborhood he comes from. I envision D’Angelo as a younger kid being incredibly impressionable to his relatives. As we see in the first season, he is trying to break away from the drug dealing, or “the game,” but cannot because he is so embedded in his relationships with family members. While he is (or should be) guaranteed safety and protection for his upbringing, he is also largely held accountable by Avon. Is it to D’Angelo’s benefit or disadvantage that he was brought up in the net of his uncle’s drug dealing?
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Alison makes a great point about how the Anderson reading relates to D’Angelo Barksdale’s experience as a young man. D’Angelo does try to break away from the “family” business, but he is ultimately unable to because of the support that the family enterprise provides him. His mother and Avon both encourage him to take the 20 years and then remind him that he will be rewarded for his loyalty in the end. D’Angelo might have reaped the benefits of being Avon’s nephew early on, but ultimately, his close ties to Avon made it virtually impossible for him to break away and live the life he hoped to live.
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I agree with Kyle that early on, D’Angelo actually did reap some advantages from his uncle. Because Avon is well-known and respected (or maybe feared might be a better word…), D’Angelo is born into a position of prominence and importance in Baltimore. People typically don’t “mess with” D’Angelo out of respect for his uncle and concern that violence might befall them if they offend anyone connected to Barksdale.
However, this is a double-edged sword: with great power comes great responsibility. In D’Angelo’s case, this was not something he wanted or chose for himself, but escaping his circumstances ultimately proved too difficult for him.
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I think what we see with D’Angelo and Avon and this greater issue of creating a family on the street goes back to the idea of choice, or a lack thereof, that was talked about earlier in the article. From a young age, D’Angelo’s choice was to either distance himself from his family and accept the physical danger that would come when he had no one to look out for him, or to remain in relative physical safety under Avon’s watch but accept whatever role that placed him in within the family structure. Understandably choosing the supposed physical safety at the beginning, then, changed the options he would have for the rest of his life, because he was forever indebted to Avon and the rest of his family for the help they provide. This also goes back to our conversations about social mobility and the misconception that people can make choices to gain themselves a better social position, because in reality these individuals do not have the wide range of options available to them that outsiders often assume they do.
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I see how D’Angelo’s situation equates almost perfectly to this article as a child’s physical and social geography have affect what they are exposed to as normal. However, I don’t think that D’Angelo had a choice as to distancing himself from his family. Brianna is clearly very fond of her son (as is rational for a mother), so if she brought him up with Avon as a part of the Barksdale enterprise, I don’t see a point in which he can break away. I agree with a lof of Katie’s points about the unrealistic nature of assuming people in these circumstances can break away at some point and choose to live independent of these strong family ties. Where can they realistically go? No one really knows any different way of life. D’Angelo had a child and baby mamma that needed caring for – all of these aspects complicate individual situations before the players realize or can feasibly explore an existence outside of The Game.
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Anderson clearly delineates young people who are either “decent” or “street.” However, several characters in The Wire seem to be exceptions to this rule. For example, in season 4 Namond’s mother portrays a very aggressive street attitude, while Namond expresses disinterest in continuing his family’s legacy as members of “the game.” Namond clearly does not have the same street mentality as his mother, nor would he be classified as a decent young person. The same could be said for other characters like Wallace and D. Certain characters are forced to stay in “the game” because of their family ties and legacy. If someone comes from a street family, is it impossible for them to be considered decent even if they try to separate themselves from the street mentality?
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I’ll never forget a column Jason Whitlock (Fox Sports) wrote about trying to define the modern black athlete. He asked Ray Lewis why so many professional athletes have children out of wedlock, and Lewis’s response was “because so many of us are children out of wedlock.” So I read this section about the children of the streets adopting everything from the most important Tenets of street survival to how they are going to dress themselves on a given day, and the biggest glaring absence is parenthood. A little before this sentence I selected to comment on, Anderson writes in more general terms that family members usually become quickly disinterested in the actions of the street kids…to me that’s the most compelling case for causality here. In terms of The Wire, I think about the kids from season 4, and who fits most closely into what Anderson might call the “decency” category. For me it’s Randy, and the funny part is that his caring guardian is not even his real parent. Miss Anna, as he calls her, puts him on a short leash and makes sure he stays in line. In season 5, however, we see Randy has completely fallen in line with the code of the streets because? He loses contact with Miss Anna after being put back in a group home. I guess the point I’m hovering around is that it’s not even about the parenting so much as the question of whether there is/are a parent/parents present at all.
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I agree with this. I think a telling element of the strength of familial ties is not whether they are good or bad, but whether they are present at all. Sometimes the parents are physically there, but still absent (like Michael’s mom). I think in many cases when the parents are absent, the children are forced to assume more adult roles before they are ready. This includes things like being a breadwinner for siblings, and wrestling the physical and emotional changes that accompany adolescence. Randy is a good choice to represent “decent” here. It is almost as if he and Namond switch levels of guidance, and thereby switch circumstances. Namond’s behavior changes dramatically when he has a parent assuming a parental role (not depending on him to bring in income). I also think it’s interesting that you mention Ray Lewis, and below the boys think they have a considerable shot a basketball career. (Recall Hoop Dreams?) For a lot of street kids, athletics is a way out. This reinforces Anderson’s emphasis on physicality and respect: two things a lot of youngsters see in athletes.
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First of all, HAH! Yes. Hoop Dreams. Lord have mercy, Paige…
But anyway, the consideration of athletics- like these kids with basketball- as a way out is incredibly problematic. The esteemed sociologist Harry Edwards (also, fantastic beard, check it out) calls it the “treadmill” theory. He believes that athletics are a huge detriment to the black community in America for the very reason that so many kids view it as their way out of the lower class. Basically, the one field they can look to and see majority representation from their race is that of professional sport. As a result, they pour all of their energy into trying to emulate these pro athletes- who mistakenly become their role models. However, every study points to the fact that the percentage chance of making a living in sports is negligible. Therefore, all of these efforts are essentially a treadmill, or running in place: there is a lot of hard work going on, but the individual is not actually going anywhere as a result.
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Unskilled and semiskilled manufacturing jobs have economically sustained the working class since the inception of the industrial revolution. The shift from a manufacturing economy to a service-based economy, and now perhaps to a high-tech economy, has undoubtedly had a profound impact on the availability of work. The inner-city working class and particular neighborhoods that comprise this demographic have been devastated by the effects of deindustrialization. This structural transformation is indeed a major theme of Season 2, which begs the question, as Professor Williams has remarked, “What happens when work runs out?” Considering the racial prejudices of many hirers, the dysfunction of inner-city schools and the sheer difficulty in finding a paying job, why would a lower-income, inner-city adolescent not want to pursue the glamorized life of the respected drug lord? After all, it seems to be the only viable, if not logical, path to achieving both monetary gain and social capital. As Anderson later remarks on page 120, “the facts of race relations, unemployment, dislocation, and destitution create alienation, and alienation allows for a certain receptivity to overtures made by people seeking youthful new recruits for the drug trade.” Therefore, when the works run out and people aren’t getting paid, it seems the only way to get paid it to “get legal.”
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I find the idea presented throughout this reading that decency and the streets are polar opposites to be very intriguing, particularly in light of all of our conversations about good vs. bad in The Wire. To begin with, it implies a middle- to upper-class lens through which these social phenomena are being explored and seems to assume a position of superiority over the people it’s describing. Further, the choice of the word “decent” goes beyond the typical good vs. bad debate, because it suggests something deeper about the moral character of a person beyond their actions. In a great number of instances, people who might be considered “bad” by legal authorities do things that I would consider to be decent. Is decency something categorically separate from the code of the streets, or is it intertwined here as in the context of a middle-class neighborhood? Is there an argument that decency, in terms of following rules like not hitting another person in the face and not killing on Sunday, plays an even larger role on the streets than in other contexts?
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As a news junkie, I couldn’t help but remember this special I saw on ABC News before I started watching The Wire. It’s about gang violence in Chicago. There are so many aspects of this article that apply to what is revealed in these news segments, and it’s really interesting to watch after reading this piece by Anderson:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWwg-i5Cnv4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MGHU_BOHPw
-Notice how the Chicago Police Superintendent says: “There’s no way to reinvent the family structure that doesn’t exist so that we don’t have 13 year olds on the street at 1 o’clock in the morning engaged in a gun battle.”
The fact that he says that there is “no way” for change not only points to the idea that mainstream society ignores these black inner-city youths, but it also emphasizes how easily young children are pulled into the vicious cycle of gang life/ drug-dealing.
-Community members speak about the “Code of Silence” and how it is linked to the mountain of unsolved crimes in Chicago. This is a direct reference to the use of intimidation and threat of violence to prevent people from snitching.
-A mother of a child shooting victim says, “We need to show these kids that there are other options out there that there are other options besides joining the gangs” BUT after being in this class, how optimistic are you that this is feasible?
-When several Chicago gang members are asked to talk to ABC News, they say:
“It’s so deep I don’t think anything can solve nothing really.”
“It’s never going to stop because it keeps growing like a disease.”
“Everyone wants to be famous and everybody wants to get their name out there.”
“An hour could be your last hour” (in response to the question of why not wait an hour and think about another option besides killing to get revenge?)
-You’re either going to get played or be the player. Which one are you going to be?"
All of these quotes above parallel many lines in The Wire. They also point to what Anderson is arguing in this article: that because the code of the street is so ingrained in poor gang members/drug-dealers. From a young age, violence, retaliation, and building a reputation of respect for protection are normal things. Because these behaviors and perceptions become a part of who these gang members are as people, it becomes even harder for them to change “for the better.” It seems impossible for the violence to stop because they are brought up in a way that fuses the code of the street into their DNA. It’s hard to change someone’s identity, how someone gains self-worth… and that’s why gang violence and drug dealing seem so impossible to end.
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Overall I felt the essay had interesting points on the ‘code’ and the ‘culture’ of the street. My favorite portion of the essay however was when Anderson pointed out that violence and asserting oneself is not only in urban African-American culture but in Scottish, Irish, Italian, etc. Many times we can generalize ethnic groups esp. African-Americans as violent individuals, but violence in our society applies to many as H. Rap Brown said “Violence is as American as apple pie.”
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I agree with this post and I think that’s a very accurate quote for Anderson’s point. Ethnicity or nationality isn’t the only glue that holds together a violent group; the strongest glue is the shared interest in violence. The fact that these groups usually have a predominant race or nationality is just the result of de facto segregation and is a secondary reason as to why these groups are formed.
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