The 6th Street Boys were the gang that Goffman spent six years in Philadelphia with, and who she wrote her book about. While Goffman mainly focuses on a handful of the 6th Street Boys, one could assume that the gang consisted of almost every young male who lived on, or near the block. Everyone who she encountered during her time living in this neighborhood was an African- American, and this includes the young men who were in the gang. This being said, however, the gang lets Goffman become a “member” and even give her a nickname. This leads us to believe that the 6th Street Boys allowed women who lived on the block, and their girlfriends who may not have lived on the block to join the gang as well, but not as on official 6th Street Boys member, …show more content…
The age range is mid-twenties and up. The members of the gang that we saw were all white men. Women were referred to as “old ladies”, and this could mean either a wife, mother, girlfriend, etc., but they were not full members of gang. Before one could become a member of the gang, they had to go through a one year probationary period. The symbols they used were a reaper, crossing an AR-15 rifle and a scythe in its hands. The gangs was involved in many violent acts, such as murders, robberies, and gun running. The Sons had an alliance with the 1-9ers, and their main rival was another motorcycle gang known as the Mayans, and the white supremacist group, also located in Charming. This gang has more than five members, ample amounts of organization and permanence, members identify as a member of the Sons, involved in criminal acts, and they have a subculture and use …show more content…
The neighborhood of Philadelphia in which the 6th Street Boys reside is not the poorest neighborhood in the city, however, it can still be classified as poor section. The young men being examined have never really had a positive male role model in their lives, and were exposed to crime at a very young age. Institutional bodies are also at play here. The gang did commit crimes, however, the police that patrolled the neighborhood were portrayed as bad guys, who just wanted to make these young men’s lives a living hell, by harassing them, their loved ones, and neighbors. The other institutional body at play was the high school that the gang members went to. A simple schoolyard tussle was blown out of proportion, thus leading the men to not trust authority figures. Drug use also seemed to run rampant throughout the neighborhood. This led to one of two things, either becoming a junkie, or becoming a dealer. While some people emerge from these backgrounds as successful adults, many do not, and Goffman made sure to ram that point home. The in depth description of Miss Linda’s (a drug user and abuser) home almost made me sick. According to Goffman, it was a mess, smelt like animal urine, and had cockroaches roaming all around it. This leads us to assume that this was the state of many of the homes in the
This book was about a street gang called the Mighty Vice Lords. They were the second largest gang in Chicago with about 30,000 members. The Vice Lords started in the Illinois Training center (Juvenile Correctional Facility) for boys in St. Charles Illinois during 1958 and was led by Edward “Pepalo” Perry and Alfonso Alfred. This group was known to be brutal and violent. It discussed how a violent gang can become a community organization and change the way things were done for the betterment of the community. This information is important because it showed that gangs can become a positive force.
Elijah Anderson’s Code of the Street book depicts two opposite communities within Philadelphia, the poor inner city black community and the residential middle class community. The majority of the book revolves around describing how the inner city functions on a ‘code of the street’ mentality, respect and toughness. Crime, violence and poverty run high in the inner city and following the code is a way to survive. Having a decent family or a street family greatly influences the path an adolescent will take involving delinquency. Anderson divides the book up into different themes and explores each one my not only giving factual information, but he also incorporates real life stories of various people who survived the inner city life style. Some of the themes include territory, survival by any means necessary, toughness, separate set of norms, campaign of respect and the mating game. Some criminological theories are also noticeable that take place in the inner city community.
The book emphasizes the idea of how difficult it is to leave the gang lifestyle. There are frequent cases of relapse by individuals in the book, who were once out to again return to gangs. This case is brought by what gangs represent to this in the book and what leaving entails them to give up. The definition of gangs presented to the class was, three or more members, share name, color, or affiliation, or must exist in a geopolitical context. To members associated with gangs, this definition can include your family members, neighborhood, everyone that they associate with. Take for example Ronnie from Jumped in by Jorja Leap it states,” Ronny’s role models are gangbangers. His family is a hood. His mentors are older homies in county jail.”(102). Ronnie and other gang members like him do not
Starting off the discussion we will start with chapter one. Chapter one is about Decent and street families. Decent families are families who live by society’s norms and try to avoid violence, drugs, confrontation, whereas street families embrace violence and fear because it is a way to stay alive within their neighborhoods. In the chapter they discuss how many families in the inner city actually have the decent family values, but can also harbor the street values. For example in the chapter they actually discussed an instance where Marge a women they had interviewed had a problem with others in her neighborhood. Her story s...
What Lafeyette refers to is frighteningly true. In the inner city, gangs often recruit young children to do their dirty work. Shortly after joining, a fourteen-year-old friend of Lafayette's allegedly shoots and kills an older man in an alley half a block north of Lafayette's building (31).
McGuire, Danielle L. At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance- A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power. New York, New York: Vintage Books. 2011.
In life, people set goals that they try to reach, whether they are short or long term ambitions; what are yours? This question can only be answered by knowing who you are, and who you want to become. To find your true identity, you must first get an idea of how other people succeeded in doing so. By doing that, you will motivate yourself, and relate your situation and your problems with theirs, and apply what they have done to reach those goals to at your turn be successful. In the book Bad Boy, an autobiography written by Walter Dean Myers, a minor class boy teaches us to never stop fighting for what is right in order to reach our objectives.
For this assignment, this review will be about the documentary The Central Park Five by Ken Burns. Ken Burns the director of the movie is also known for his style of using archival footage and photographs in his documentary films. Other documentary films he is known for is The Civil War, Brooklyn Bridge, and Baseball. His other works don’t seem to be significant to the analysis of the film because they are mostly just about different types of topics that aren’t like this one but with the way that he does his types of films will help could help with the analysis because it gives an idea at the way that he convinces people. The Central Park Five are 5 young men who were convicted of a crime of raping a jogger in Central Park. They implicated themselves in the crime after hours of pressure and aggression during the integration. They were all released at different times but they spent six to thirteen years in prison. The goal of this documentary was to revisit what had happened and to review the injustices of what had happened. In this review, I’m going to be talking about how Ken Burns uses pathos and ethos to convenience the audience/whoever
“Boys” by Rick Moody summarizes the life journey of two stereotypical boys and how they gain power from the experiences they face. The boys face both positive experiences and tragedies that impacts their amount of power. In the short story, the author is conveying the idea that as the boys mature they obtain more power. He shows this through the literary devices conflict, tone, and repetition.
The Bloods and the Crips are the two well-known gang families that started in the 1940’s in Los Angeles as a defense approach by the blacks against the whites (Dorais, Corriveau, 2009, p 8). Gangs are most often visible in specific areas such as restaurants, bars, metro stations, etc.: “The appearance of street gangs in Quebec and Canada dates from the 1980’s, when these groups started to become larger, more visible, and more disruptive to authorities and residents (Dorais, Corriveau, 2009, p 8-9). There are six definable features that can be used to identify the presents of a gang: “ a structured or degree of organization, an identifiab...
Gang involvement has been quite higher than past years. The 2008 National Youth Gang Survey estimates that about 32.4 percent of all cities, suburban areas, towns, and rural counties had a gang problem (Egley et al., 2010). This represented a 15 percent increase from the year 2002. The total number of gangs has also increased by 28 percent and total gang members have increased by 6 percent (Egley et al., 2010). This shows how relevant gang related activity is in today’s society. More locations are beginning to experience gang activity for the first time. Gang crime has also been on the rise in the past...
Tobin, Kimberly. Gangs: An Individual and Group Perspective. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2008. Print.
The Bowery Boys originally consisted of volunteer firefighters, though through the years they had members in all walks of life from butchers to mechanics though most importantly they were born and raised in New York City many residing as middle-class workers during the day and abiding by the law. They were one of the most notorious gangs in New York City during the 1800’s and were strictly nativist as well as being anti-catholic and anti-immigrant.. As seen in most gangs they had a sort of dress code that paid respect to their origins as volunteer firefighters.
Lost Boys of South Sudan was a name given to the thousands of young boys orphaned or torn from their families by the Sudanese Civil War. These young boys walked sometimes as much as a thousand miles to reach refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya. The US allowed as many as 4000 Lost Boys to emigrate to America providing them with endless opportunities. Gia Nyok and Lopez Lomong were able to reach prominence in America and help their communities in Sudan despite the struggles they endured as Lost Boys.
Hallswort, S. And Young, T. (2004) Getting Real About Gang. Criminal Justice Matters [online]. 55. (1), pp 12-13 [Accessed 10 December 2013]