Streetwise

In Streetwise, Elijah Anderson (1990) discusses the social forces at work in an urban area he calls the Village-Northton. His is a sociological field study of the daily interactions between the residents of an area encompassing two communities--in his words, "one black and low income to very poor (with an extremely high infant mortality rate), [and] the other racially mixed but becoming increasingly middle to upper income and white" (Anderson, 1990, p. ix). In keeping with valid sociological fieldwork, Anderson (1990) immersed himself in the community from the summer of 1975 through the summer of 1989.

Anderson makes a strong case for the inevitability of ghetto life--in other words, once "ghettoization" begins, it continues its course without regard to a neighborhood's tentative and transitory movement toward gentrification. The middle class and well-heeled whites and minority cultures who move into regenerating urban communities are attracted to city life for its vibrancy and "charm," yet they ultimately are playing with fire when it comes to sharing the same neighborhood which was formerly the turf of gangs, prostitutes, drug dealers, and other societal deviants. Such areas are frequently called "colorful," when they are, in fact, dangerous. Charm and color quickly turn to fear and suspicion after more than enough reports of car break-ins, gang retaliations, and drug deals gone bad fill the local news. As Anderson (1990) points out in his conclusion:

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ton's youth reveals that a great deal of work is to yet be done in the areas of education and re-education. Anderson (1990) paints a bleak picture of young man-woman relationships, interpersonal and sexual. He borrows the conservative argument that young women are having babies out of wedlock in order to produce an economic asset, i.e., a public assistance payment. Such a stance seems not only conservative, but reactionary. Young women have children they cannot hope to support for several reasons, and money is not one of them. Children can eventually become emotional support to young women whose husbands have inevitably abandoned them to further sexual conquests. Anderson (1990) maintains that young men are acting out a ritual of sexual promiscuity as a means of overcompensating for feelings of emasculation: "The lack of gainful employment not only keeps the entire community in a state of poverty, but also deprives young men of the traditional American way of proving their manhood--supporting a family" (p. 136). Without education and jobs, the cycle appears destined to repeat itself. A moral force within the community of Northton is lacking, except for those male and female old heads who still attend church regularl

Category: Psychology - S