Alys Garrison Professor Heidi Esbensen SOC 310 US Society 7 May 2017 Righteous Dopefiend Analysis: Part 1 The United States has a history of poverty, class struggles, inequality, and homelessness. With poverty on the rise and bulky cuts to social service funding, homelessness is becoming more of a major social issue. As seen in Righteous Dopefiend, by Jeff Schonberg and Philippe Bourgois, the struggle throughout the daily lives of those living on the streets, extends beyond the lack of food in their stomachs or a roof over their heads. Schonberg and Bourgois experience life on the streets. They see the physical dependence upon heroin in the homeless community. As they insert themselves into the Edgewater community in San Francisco these issues …show more content…
take on a world of their own. Schonberg and Bourgois spent ten years using ethnography, a documentary type of research that includes photos, interviews, and the researchers being a part of the community they are studying. The homeless community of Edgewater shows that there are structural issues, such as marginalization, with the criminal justice and medical systems that are not addressed by the rest of society allowing these inequalities to continue. Schonberg and Bourgois follow dozens of homeless heroin and crack users through the streets of San Francisco.
These people, known as the Edgewater homeless, all come from different backgrounds and all have their own story. Even though the community is widely diverse, they share two commonalities: homelessness and addiction. Homelessness and addiction became the basis of their culture. Using firsthand interviews and accounts, this book illustrates the everyday struggles that the homeless population face. Schonberg and Bourgois give the oppressed an opportunity to have their voices heard. The lives of the Edgewater homeless were portrayed through characters like Frank, Sonny, Carter, and Tina. By allowing the voices of people who are actually living in the situation, such as the Edgewater homeless, a larger voice is given to the homeless community around the …show more content…
nation. Society is structured to disadvantage the homeless and those living in poverty, and keep them from moving up in the class system. The criminal justice system is a vast perpetrator of this. “…Law enforcement, and not public health services, has long been the dominate institutional regulator of poverty and drug use in the United States…On Edgewater fear of arrest and eviction was a chronic condition” (Schonberg and Bourgois, 111). Police target the homeless community, often by doing sweeps of known homeless compounds, and this only adds stress and causes tension and resentment towards the police. The War on Drugs added another way to oppress and reinforce the stigma towards the homeless. “The criminalization- not just of heroin but also of syringes- as well as the enforcement of local city ordinances against public intoxication, urination, and sleeping outside, pushes drug users into the farthest margins of public space” (Schonberg and Bourgois,113). When one marginalizes any group of people they oppress said group. This oppression and inequality leads to higher rates of conflict and unrest among those being oppressed, “High inequality fosters resentment and conflict, it undermines community and erodes a sense of common fate and mutual obligation among people… Social conflict and disorder are costly because of their directly destructive effects as well as the social control costs needed to contain them: police, prisons, security guards, and so on” (Wright and Rogers, 256). When the government began to go after the homeless drug users, instead of helping them, they only displaced them or arrested them which in turn, leads to withdraw when in jail and relapse when one comes out of jail. The relapse happens when coming out of jail due to the lack of public services funding to help, the homeless continue on clean of drugs. If the government wanted to actually help the homeless drug users they would switch from the war on drugs, which is a blame the victim mentality, to properly funding social service where they could seek help. The blame the victim mentality means that they got themselves into the situation because of who they are as a person. This places all the blame on the person themselves and punish them. It is not actually fixing the structural problem. Getting rid of this mentality would mean entering a blame the society mentality. Meaning that we would have to fix the structural functions that marginalize groups, such as the Edgewater homeless. Heroin addiction has many health and medical risk.
Frequently, heroin addiction becomes a physiological dependence on the drug, leaving users constantly in need for more when coming off. This is refer to as ‘dopesick’ to many of the users in the drug world. In Edgewater the need for heroin was a never ending cycle. Daily life was based on where and how to get the next fix. Psychical sickness such as when frank and Carter explain it, bone aches, vomiting, uncontrollable bowel movements, the feeling of spiders crawling through your bones, and the worst part is the anxiety (Bourgois and Schonberg, 81-82).While, the withdraw symptoms may not kill a person they are horrible to suffer through. With the chronic heroin use and the unsanitary living conditions, the homeless also face ailments such as, “Abscesses, skin rashes, cuts, bruises, broken bones, flues, colds, opiate withdrawals, and the potential for violent assault” (Bourgois and Schonberg, 5). When these cases become extreme they can end them up in the hospital or worse, due to the medical system the homeless postpone getting it looked at and will sub come to, death. The issue that Bourgois and Schonberg expose is the deep stigma in the structures of our medical
systems. “Overwhelmed by an onslaught of complicated and vulnerable people like Hogan, many of the frontline emergency room personnel became harsh taskmasters. A national-level institutional problem caused by federal cutbacks for indigent care reimbursement, initiated in the 1980s and exacerbated in the late 1990s, expressed itself in interpersonal confrontations and insults at the hospital gates, where desperately sick people with no health insurance clamored, often unsuccessfully, for care” (Bourgois and Schonberg, 98). The stigma around homelessness and drug use has given the hospital system to reject patients or to reject properly and fully caring for the patient till they are fully healed. Throughout Righteous Dopefiend it is often heard how the doctors refused to give medication, use anesthesia when cutting, or Homeless often when taken in, by the hospital, are discharged just as fast and not fully healed. Due to these challenges and the feelings of stigmatization some homeless, such as Hank “avoid dealing with the hospital by lancing his own abscess” (Bourgois and Schonberg, 101). The medical system does not properly take care of the homeless further marginalizing them. When one is marginalized they are, “Unable to get to the necessary means to acquire basic livelihood” (Wright and Rogers, 288).This marginalization in the medical system is the difference of life and death for some. The stigma in the structural functions of the system make it hard for the Edgewater homeless to get the help they need, let alone want to get the help. In the “Righteous Dopefiend” by Bourgois and Schonberg there are structural issues, such as marginalization, within the justice and medical systems. Bourgois and Schonberg use ethnographic research to study the Edgewater homeless. The ethnographic research was successful by: detailing the life of homelessness and addiction directly from the Edgewater homeless and showing the relationship between the structural forces and the impact upon the homeless. They gave a voice to those of the marginalized, oppressed, and unheard. Allowing their stories and experience to truly express the United States failures in the structural system. References Bourgois, P. I., & Schonberg, J. (2009). Righteous Dopefiend. Berkeley: University of California Press. Wright, E. O., & Rogers, J. (2011). American society: how it really works. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
This medicalized interpretation of heroin addiction heavily emphasizes a constant state of suffering for those who are affected (Garcia 2010, 18). Furthermore, Nuevo Dia employees take this framework into account when contributing their efforts to treat addicts, on the premise that relapse will soon follow recovery (Garcia 2010, 13). When detox assistants assure themselves that their patients will return to the clinic, as if they never went through a period of treatment, one can expect that the quality of such to be drastically low. The cyclical pattern of inadequate therapies, temporary improvements in health and detrimental presuppositions all widen the health inequality gap in New Mexico. Garcia shares that the “interplay of biomedical and local discourses of chronicity compel dynamics of the Hispano heroin phenomenon,” which is evident in how the judicial system handles the social issue of addiction (2010,
More often than not, the homeless are viewed as weak and helpless. They are seen in movies as street beggars, and are vehicles of pity and remorse to touch the hearts of the viewers. Moreover, the media trains its audiences to believe that homelessness comes from the fault of the person. They are “bums, alcoholics, and drug addicts, caught in a hopeless downward spiral because of their individual pathological behavior” (427). In reality, it is the perpetuating cycle of wealth that keeps them in at a standstill in their struggles. The media only condones this very same cycle because it trains the masses to believe that people are poor due to their bad decisions. This overall census that the poor are addicts and alcoholics only makes it easier to drag their image further through the mud, going as far as calling them “crazy.” This is highlighted in shows such as Cops, or Law & Order. With the idea that these people are bad news it is easy to “buy into the dominant ideology construction that views poverty as a problem of individuals” (428). Although some of the issues of the poor are highlighted through episodic framing, for the most part the lower class is a faceless group who bring no real value to the
In Righteous Dopefiend, Bourgois and Schonberg delve into the lives of homeless drug addicts on Edgewater Boulevard in San Francisco. They highlight the moral ambiguity of the gray zone in which these individuals exist and the institutional forces that create and perpetuate their condition. The authors liken the experience of the daily lives of the Edgewater homeless to living in an everyday “state of emergency” (2009:21). Throughout the course of their work, they expose the conditions of extreme poverty that the homeless experience, the institutional indifference towards their suffering and the consequences of their crippling addictions. Bourgois and Schonberg describe the Edgewater homeless as a ‘community of addicted bodies’ driven by a communal need to avoid the agony of heroin withdrawal symptoms and held together through a “moral economy of sharing”. (2009: 6) The “webs of mutual obligation” that form as a result of their participation in this system are key to the survival of the Edgewater homeless as they attempt to live under conditions of desperate poverty and police repression.
The documentary states that over 27,000 deaths a year are due to overdose from heroin and other opioids. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in 2015 prescription pain relievers account for 20,101 overdose deaths, and 12,990 overdose deaths are related to heroin (Rudd et al., 2010-2015). The documentary’s investigation gives the history of how the heroin epidemic started, with a great focus on the hospice movement. We are presented with the idea that once someone is addicted to painkillers, the difficulty in obtaining the drug over a long period of time becomes too expensive and too difficult. This often leads people to use heroin. This idea is true as a 2014 survey found that 94% of respondents who were being treated for opioid addiction said they chose to use heroin because prescription opioids were “more expensive and harder to obtain (Cicero et al., 2014).” Four in five heroin users actually started out using prescription painkillers (Johns, 2013). This correlation between heroin and prescription painkiller use supports the idea presented in the documentary that “prescription opiates are heroin prep school.”
Although most people know what homelessness is and it occurs in most societies, it is important to define because the forces of displacement vary greatly, along with the arrangement and meaning of the resulting transient state. The Stewart B McKinney Homeless Assistance Act of 1987 defined a homeless person as “an individual who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate night-time residence or a person who resides in a shelter, welfare hotel, transitional program or place not ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation, such as streets, cars, movie theaters, abandoned buildings, etc.” Resent surveys conducted in the U.S. have confirmed that the homeless population in America is extremely diverse and includes representatives from all segments of society, including: the old and young, men and women, single people and families, city dwellers and rural residents, whites and people of color, employed and unemployed, able workers and people with serious health problems. The diversity among people that are homeless reflects how difficult it is to generalize the causes of homelessness and the needs of homeless people. Robert Rosenheck M.D., the author of Special Populations of Homeless Americans, explains the importance of studying homelessness based on subgroups, “each subgroup [of homeless people] has unique service needs and identifying these needs is critical for program planning and design.” Despite these diversities, homelessness is a devastating situation for all that experience it. Not only have homeless people lost their dwelling, but they have also lost their safety, privacy, control, and domestic comfort.
There are many other cases of why the homeless are homeless like domestic violence, mental illness, addictions, and unaffordable health care. Homelessness is a problem which has been caused by many different aspects but mainly money because of massive unemployment rates. A hidden aspect to homelessness that we may not think of is ...
Homelessness is a vast predicament in America and around the world. It is severely overlooked as people don’t really think of homelessness as real world problem. However, there have been ways that people have tried to fix the problem. They have come up with homeless shelters, emergency shelters, food banks and soup kitchens. These solutions have limitations though, which will hopefully come to an end.
In america 3.5 million people are homeless, living under overpasses, in parks or even on a bus stop bench. there are many things that can make people homeless in America. With low wage jobs and high cost of living not everyone can make it. 1 out of every 7 americans could be at risk of hunger, and have to choose between shelter or food because they can’t afford both. 25 % of all homeless people have a mental illness, this means they are not fit to live independently, and instead of getting help from the government, they wander the streets and a lot of the time find closure in using illicit drugs or becoming alcoholics. 68% of people suffering from homelessness is addicted to drugs and/or alcohol.the leading causes of homelessness in america is Political, mental and economical reasons.WIth the economy down many Americans are unemployed and can barely sustain a life, and with all the layoffs and job cuts many families are put under terrible circumstances. Even people with good jobs can find themselves in debt from high mortgages, in recent years the rate of foreclosure rose 32%, and studies show that 10% of people looking for shelter in homeless shelters are doing so because of foreclosure. Homelessness is a cycle, once they get that low it is very hard to get themselves back
Thousands of homeless people live in the subway, railroad, and sewage tunnels that form the bowels of New York City. Jennifer Toth visits these communities to learn their stories and lifestyle beneath the city. Many of these homeless people are drug addicts, mentally ill, runaways, or gang members. The tunnels that these people live in are filthy, rat infested, diseased, and dangerous for anyone to live in; however, the homeless find these tunnels to be a safe haven from the world above. Most of these communities are tight knit and even function as societies with established leaders. The homeless act as a kin; there is a mutual understanding between each person and the struggle to live. Drugs, rape, mental illness, or so...
As technology advances and more countries join the developed world, we here in America have a forgotten population. Here in America, a land of great wealth and opportunity, we have a neglected homeless population. In a land so rich it is hard to believe that over half-a-million people are left homeless, leaving hundreds of thousands on the street. (National Alliance) New York City has been upsetting the national trend of a decreasing homeless population. (Facts about Homelessness) Many people find it easier to look the other way rather than take on such a monumental problem. Disregarding this problem will not make it go away, and will even exacerbate the problem. Homelessness did not happen overnight, nor will it go away overnight, but change is possible. The systemic reasons for homelessness have changed over time, creating the need for community groups and governments to tackle homelessness in different ways. Until we have a concrete plan for solving homelessness the problem will persist.
For most Americans, homelessness is an abstract and foreign idea, but in reality it isn’t. People walk by this inequality on their way to work and ignore those who are pleading for loose change. There are multiple reason why this social travesty exists, not just one. The general public’s opinion and researchers...
As the cause of homelessness has broadened and become more tied to fundamental economic changes in our nation, homelessness has become both a symptom of chronic poverty and an event that cuts across traditional defenses of income, education, and geography. According to Mary E. Hombs, author of American Homelessness, "The population of the streets has been democratized correspondingly" (Hombs 2). Many of the homeless are young ...
Homelessness has gained mass attention throughout the world. It’s an ongoing, insoluble issue that continues to exist and affect many in the Unites States. “Approximately 3.5 million people are homeless in the United States at any given time” (McBride, 2012). Sadly, due to the nature of homelessness, it is difficult to obtain an accurate number of the homeless population (McBride, 2012). Many people have negative prejudice views of homeless individuals. Self-worth, dignity, as well as trustworthy affects the homeless, often questioned by society. Through the testimony of John Doe, a better understanding will enlighten others, myself included, and bring awareness to this mass population.
Many believe that a common thread among the homeless is a lack of permanent and stable housing. But beyond that, the factors leading to homelessness and the services that are needed are unique according to the individual. To put them into one general category ? the homeless- suggests that people are homeless for similar reasons and therefore a single solution is the answer. Every homeless person shares the basic needs of affordable housing, adequate incomes and attainable healthcare. But a wide range of other unmet needs cause some people to become or remain homeless which include drug treatment, employment training, transportation, childcare and mental health services (Center 8.)
According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, there are nearly 554,000 individuals facing homelessness. (2016) Personally, this number, as big as it seems, only accounts for the ones that want to be found; the ones we have access to. However, there are several that cannot be accounted for; several we don’t even know exist. The growing concern for homelessness is its presence. Not only can we see this locally in areas of Scranton and the surrounding cities, but when we travel to other places, it is just as evident. My biggest concern with those facing homelessness is the stigma and biases associated with being “homeless.” Too easily are these individuals are referred to as beggars, bums, addicts, lazy, etc.