How well does Moore describe the culture of the streets, where young boys grow up believing that violence transforms them into men? Talk about the street culture—its violence, drug dealing, disdain for education. What creates that ethos and why do so many young men find it attractive? Moore describes the culture of the street in a very detailed manner. He shows the broken homes, drug supply, and the absence of education. With the help of the other Wes Moore, he shows how dangerous the streets were by discussing many different risky situations. He reveals the reality of East Baltimore by showing how easy it was to become apart of the drug business in order to sustain life. Young men are raised believing that having an image of being strong and fearless is what makes you a man, thus causing young men to defend their image at all times. As shown many times in the book, Wes never backs down and aggressively fights back even if there are severe consequences. Additionally, winning a fight gives you a reputation and the feeling of being dominant, which most young men want. Both Wes Moore’s talk a lot about expectations. To what extent do the expectations of others control our …show more content…
She looked at violence and drugs as normal things that would happen on the streets. She allowed her children to see what was going on. However, Joy Moore knew these were normal for where they lived, but she tried to shield her children from these activities. Mary accepted that she lost control when Wes stopped going to school. She thought there was no point in staying in school if Wes wasn’t going to go. When Wes Moore grades started dropping, Joy made sure that he did better. Mary Moore enforced no punishments for being a part of drug rings. On the other hand, Joy threatened to send Wes to military school and actually followed throught. Mary Moore was a carefree parent who didn’t enforce rules, while Joy had rules and
This African-American culture within Detroit shapes and gives meaning to the lives of Dude Freeman and Rodney Phelps. The overarching cultural element of African-American culture within Detroit affecting the two main interlocutors is the street drug trade. The culture of the street drug trade can be thought of as having three overarching effects on the adolescents which shape and give meaning to their lives, economic effects, kinship effects, and political effects.
In Baltimore and Harlem, many people have to deal with issues like the one I stated earlier. In The Other Wes Moore, we looked into the lives of two Wes Moores who lived in the same city and just a couple blocks apart. In this book, we saw how the two boys were starting off similar getting involved in drugs and dealing with family issues, and how
Both the author Wes and the other Wes both had difficult family issues. Both of the Wes’s had mothers that wanted best for them. Joy decided to Wes to private school, “My mother saw Riverdale as a haven, a place where I could escape my neighborhood and open my horizons. But for me, it was where I got lost”(Moore 48). Wes Moore's mother wanted the best for him.
Many individuals say that a person is a product of its surroundings. And for two young men from Baltimore, this could not be any more accurate. In “The Other Wes Moore” by Wes Moore, the author talks about two young boys who shared the same name and the contributions they did in their lives that made them turn out the way they are. Both Wes’ grew up in similar environment with tough childhood and without the presence of a father. Where one becomes very successful and a Rhodes Scholar, and the other is heavily involved in the drug game and receives a life sentence in prison for serving a part in a murder of a former police officer.
He sees African American youths finding the points of confinement put on them by a supremacist society at the exact instant when they are finding their capacities. The narrator talks about his association with his more youthful sibling, Sonny. That relationship has traveled
In Chapter 12 of Readings for Sociology, Garth Massey included and piece titled “The Code of the Streets,” written by Elijah Anderson. Anderson describes both a subculture and a counterculture found in inner-city neighborhoods in America. Anderson discusses “decent families,” and “street families,” he differentiates the two in in doing so he describes the so called “Code of the Streets.” This code is an exemplifies, norms, deviance, socialization, and the ideas of subcultures and countercultures.
Another aspect is that fighting amongst each gang is fostering a criminal environment. Throughout the book and when Mitchel turned his life around by contact of becoming friends with Elias Batrouney, I related with him, Mitchel. It has encouraged me to take a serious view of my life on what I wanted to do with my life and vocation, starting my apprenticeship in a school environment. Brendon Wild P.3 I enjoyed reading this book as the characters are boys and it is written in an area of controversy.
John Singleton’s film, Boyz N the Hood, displays the challenging upbringing of adolescents who have to live with harsh conditions around not only their home but also their surrounding town. The film compares the differences between the lifestyles of Tre Styles and his friends’, Darren and Ricky Baker. Darren and Ricky are half-brothers who are nothing alike. Singleton demonstrates the importance of male leadership in a home in the ghetto of Los Angeles by comparing the difference between the lifestyles of Tre and his friends. While many adolescents in the hood have close friendships, some form close relationships by assembling gangs and create a world of violence due to alcohol abuse, which together ultimately breeds discrimination.
The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates is a New York Times Bestseller by none other than, Wes Moore. This novel features an intriguing tale of two boys who grew up under the same circumstances, under the same names, and with the same chances; and yet one manages to become a Rhodes Scholar, decorated combat veteran, White House Fellow, and business leader while the other grew up heisting and selling drugs until he received a life sentence for felony murder after shooting a police officer. The more successful Wes Moore, Wes Moore, began to visit the less successful Wes Moore, the other Wes Moore, during his prison sentence in order to write the book. Furthermore, the book turned out to be great.
Victor Rios begins chapter six by describing the way the Latino boys he studied used masculinity as a rehabilitative tool. He describes how the boys are constantly “questioning” each other’s manhood as a way of proving their own masculinity. “The boys’ social relations with one another and with community members were saturated with expressions and discourses of manhood” (pg.125). Rios continues to describe the affects criminalization and its gendered practices has influenced these young boy’s mentality of what it means to be masculine. In chapter six, the author explains that although the boys had easy access to weapons, they rarely used them because of their clear understanding the consequences associated with such violence.
Geoffrey Canada does an excellent job of bringing his readers to the streets of the South Bronx and making them understand the culture and code of growing up in a poor, New York City neighborhood in the ‘50s and ‘60s. In his book, Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun, Canada details, through his own childhood experiences, the progression of violence in poverty plagued neighborhoods across America over the last 50 years. From learning to be “brave” by being forced to fight his best friend on a sidewalk at six-years-old, to staring down an enraged, knife wielding, “outsider” with nothing to defend himself but nerve, Canada explains the nightmare of fear that tens of thousands of children live through every day growing up in poor neighborhoods. The book
The movie “Boyz N’ the Hood” is a story centered on the issues that are seen in the urban areas of Los Angeles every day. Tre (the main character) is raised in a way that seems to be correct but he still ends up being a part of criminal activity. While watching this film in an academic setting it is easy to see the social and political reform messages that are being communicated to the audience. On the political side it is easy to see the race and ethnicity of the film maker while on the social side the audience can tell the filmmaker is spreading a message. All together “Boyz N’ the Hood” is a very good film that depicts the type of stuff that happens in the poorer parts of Los Angeles.
In her book, On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City, Alice Goffman provides a detailed account of the six years she spent living in and observing a poor, predominantly African American neighborhood in Philadelphia. This community, which she refers to as “6th Street,” directly experienced the immediate effects of mass incarceration in the United States. Thus, that reality caused 6th Street residents to shape their actions, socialization, customs and norms to avoid the police while simultaneously maintaining behaviors––that would otherwise be considered criminal––to survive in a rough and unforgiving environment. To further explore and to try to understand the conditions 6th Street inhabitants faced, Goffman conducted ethnographical research
Numerous scenes in the novel, The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien, are riddled with violence. Those horrid scenes shape the themes of a heightened mental state and revenge. The actions of the Alpha Company are driven by emotion and stress. These issues create great problems for the Company, stripping them of their civilized societal standards and leaving only natural human instinct.
The themes of violence and power in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ hold an important role in the criticism of 1940s American society. Conflicts perpetuated by violence and power, such as abusive relationships and violent oppression are projected through the characters within the play. Williams uses these conflicts to highlight his criticisms of faltering values and social norms, from the perspective of an individual constrained by the expectations of a strict, Southern society. To begin with, there is an indefinite violence between men and women within ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’. Stanley Kowalski, a focal character, is the epitome of male dominance and primitive aggression.