Most recent public comments by Katherine Colver https://nowcomment.com/users/2825 https://nowcomment.com/documents/49884?scroll_to=482930 https://nowcomment.com/documents/49884?scroll_to=482930 I agree with Andrew. I am troubled by the use of the word 'decent' because it then creates the implicit understanding that the opposite of decent, being 'street,' is synonymous with indecent moral character. I think one of the things the Wire does so hard to represent is that people who pander to illegal or illicit behavior are not always, in fact, of poor moral character. The Wire seems to work really hard to show how these people are a product of systems that are forcing them into a certain lifestyle rather than just working in their own free will. For the most part, Anderson does go on to elaborate that many personal decisions to do wrong, while made by the individual, are justified and encouraged by a culture that is set in place by systematic forces. But the word 'decent' troubles me, because it seems to point to the individual rather than the broader forces which pull the strings of people. Tue, 01 Mar 2016 14:53:38 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/49884?scroll_to=482923 https://nowcomment.com/documents/49884?scroll_to=482923 I was struck by this reading in a similar vein, leaving with the distress that violence is the modus operandi for survival in street culture. Yet seeing Anderson unravel the layers of street politics, it becomes clear that in such a system, violence really is the only way to preserve dignity. In this system, there are no other incentives to stay on the straight and narrow because typically 'respectable' employments or educations are considered weak. It is clear that this system of street politics is entrenched in the psyche and social norms of the ghettos, and that is not going away overnight by some magical policy. So my main question after reading this is how can we change these social norms? No matter how inventive a policymaker or educator or city planner is, these social norms have overwhelming influence. How do you reign in people after they have been desensitized, or at least accustomed, to a lifestyle that walks the line of life and death more than any other we see in Western society? Tue, 01 Mar 2016 14:48:30 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/49884?scroll_to=482916 https://nowcomment.com/documents/49884?scroll_to=482916 The discussion of power and its importance in the politics of the ghetto is a thread running throughout Anderson's piece. Constantly in this piece, and also in the Wire, we are seeing ways in which men (and very occasionally women) are going up against one another using their physical bodies and, more importantly, the threat of harm to the body, the challenge the power dynamics of the situation. In almost every situation, guns define the power dynamic. The police hold guns to head routinely, just as Stringer or Avon will occasionally pull a gun on his own men, without shooting, to simply show who is in charge. It occurs so much in the show that men are not visibly afraid of guns- they don't even flinch when they have one aimed at their face. This is always shocking to me (and I wonder if it is an overstatement of the desensitization that an average ghetto inhabitant would have, but I digress...) because it demonstrates how physical and almost primal the politics of the ghetto are. Tue, 01 Mar 2016 14:42:25 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/49884?scroll_to=482605 https://nowcomment.com/documents/49884?scroll_to=482605 This notion struck me as a concise and accurate packaging of the aforementioned idealistic understandings of motherhood in inner-city areas: motherhood as fulfilling desires for maternal stability, as offering identity, and as empowering the woman with the promises of eternal reciprocal love from the baby and hopes that the child will incentivize a man to stay with her. Of course, in most cases this reality is impossible because economic strain and the emotional reality of abandonment by the father overwhelm the potential positive aspects of motherhood with great negativity. But the idea of middle class dreams v. ghetto reality extends beyond a strictly economic understanding of the American dream to encompass differences in cultural perceptions of the dream of motherhood. This chapter briefly mentions earlier about the influence of music on girl's perceptions of romance. I think it is important to recognize the extent to which pop culture influences perceptions of motherhood between black, ghetto cultural products such as rap and hip-hop music versus depictions of white middle-class mothers. In music, television, movies, etc. white mothers are often shown as older, more harried, matronly figures while black mothers are shown often as young, beautiful, and stylish. In a textbook chicken-and-egg scenario, these cultural projections of motherhood are simultaneously born out of and reinforce stylish views of motherhood that ultimately undermine the economic and emotional strife of motherhood. Tue, 01 Mar 2016 09:46:41 -0500