Against the Wall: Poor, Young, Black, and Male PDF
Preview Against the Wall: Poor, Young, Black, and Male
00Anderson_FM i-xvi.qxd 2/20/08 11:20 AM Page i Against the Wall 00Anderson_FM i-xvi.qxd 2/20/08 11:20 AM Page ii THE CITY IN THE 21ST CENTURY Eugenie L. Birch and Susan M. Wachter, Series Editors A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher. 00Anderson_FM i-xvi.qxd 2/20/08 11:20 AM Page iii Against the Wall Poor, Young, Black, and Male EDITED BY ELIJAH ANDERSON PENN University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia 00Anderson_FM i-xvi.qxd 2/20/08 11:20 AM Page iv Copyright © 2008 University of Pennsylvania Press All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher. Published by University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 A Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication record is available from the Library of Congress ISBN-13: 978-0-8122-2017-9 00Anderson_FM i-xvi.qxd 2/20/08 11:20 AM Page v Contents Foreword: Strong Men Keep A-Comin On ix Cornel West I. FACING THE SITUATION OF YOUNG BLACK MEN IN INNER CITIES 1. Against the Wall: Poor, Young, Black, and Male 1 Elijah Anderson 2. David’s Story: From Promise to Despair 28 Raymond Gunn 3. Young, Black, and Male: The Life History of an American Drug Dealer Facing Death Row 38 Waverly Duck II. STRUCTURAL ANALYSES OF JOBLESSNESS AMONG BLACK YOUTH 4. The Economic Plight of Inner-City Black Males 55 William Julius Wilson 5. Blacklisted: Hiring Discrimination in an Era of Mass Incarceration 71 Devah Pager 00Anderson_FM i-xvi.qxd 2/20/08 11:20 AM Page vi vi Contents 6. The Effects of Immigration on the Economic Position of Young Black Males 87 Gerald D. Jaynes 7. Immigration and Equal Opportunity 102 Douglas S. Massey III. ENGAGING URBAN YOUTH IN SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS 8. Youth Entrepreneurship Training in the Inner City: Overcoming Disadvantage, Engaging Youth in School 123 Luke Anderson 9. Black Male Students and Reflections on Learning and Teaching 138 L. Janelle Dance 10. Fighting like a Ballplayer: Basketball as a Strategy Against Social Disorganization 147 Scott N. Brooks 11. “Tell us how it feels to be a problem”: Hip Hop Longings and Poor Young Black Men 165 Imani Perry IV. SOCIAL POLICY MATTERS 12. Social Issues Lurking in the Over-Representation of Young African American Men in the Expanding DNA Databases 181 Troy Duster 13. “You can take me outta the ’hood, but you can’t take the ’hood outta me”: Youth Incarceration and Reentry 198 Jamie J. Fader 14. Suicide Patterns Among Black Males 218 Sean Joe 15. Why Are Handguns So Accessible on Urban Streets? 242 David Kairys 00Anderson_FM i-xvi.qxd 2/20/08 11:20 AM Page vii Contents vii 16. What Do We Do Now? Toward a Brighter Future for Young African American Men 252 Peter Edelman Notes 269 List of Contributors 279 Index 285 Acknowledgments 297 00Anderson_FM i-xvi.qxd 2/20/08 11:20 AM Page viii 00Anderson_FM i-xvi.qxd 2/20/08 11:20 AM Page ix Foreword: Strong Men Keep A-Comin On Cornel West In 1932 Sterling Brown, one of the great black men of the twentieth century, published a monumental work of poetry, Southern Road. In Part I, called “Road So Rocky”—a phrase that still describes what young brothers encounter in so many chocolate cities—is a poem called “Strong Men.” In this catastrophic moment for so many black brothers growing up in impoverished communities, we must recall and invoke the tradition of strong men, men of courage, wisdom, and dignity, as did Sterling Brown in his time. I grew up in the 1950s and ’60s, and when I think of black men I think of my grandfather, Rev. Clifton West, Sr., and my late father, Clifton West, Jr. I always associated black men with tremendous style, elegance, resiliency, and agency. I associated black men with being able to over- come, to look darkness in the face unflinchingly and still smile like Louis Armstrong, or “keep on pushing” like Curtis Mayfield. That’s my conception of black men, but that is not a hegemonic or predominant perception these days. Why so? The current view of black men has something to do with the fact that we have been living for forty years in an ice age where it is fashionable to be indifferent to poor people suffering, the most vulnerable citizens suf- fering. Young black men are a significant slice of the most vulnerable, so they are rendered invisible. In the great metaphor of Ralph Ellison, they become so invisible that the dilapidated housing, the disgraceful school systems, the lack of access to jobs that pay a living wage, the underem- ployment and unemployment that afflict young men in the inner city— all these have now become part of the norm. When we hear stories documenting racial discrimination in hiring today, we almost have to laugh to keep from crying as we see how that legacy of white supremacy still operates. We say to ourselves, my God, is the culture still that sick, is society still that pathological, is the U.S. still that indifferent to the
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