yup. he's excellent. i have some video taken of the philly neighborhood anderson studied. i'll try to hunt them down.
did you see this one, too? http://www.poverty.smartlibrary.org/newinterface/segment.cfm?segment=2500 It's the code of etiquette involved in muggings.
I'll tell ya, it was indispensable, knowing his work, and trying to understand how Testosterone Central operated. They are the group of ragtag boys and girls to whom I became one of the neigbhorhood 'old heads'. Since I was fortunate enough to work from home during Sonshine's middle and high school year, I was one of the only moms around. I'm known as "mama" or "ma" or "Sonshine's mom" to the gang of them, ranging in age from 8 - 20 at the time. Never had to worry about unloading groceries, see, 'cause I'd drive in and they'd all come running.
In some ways, it was (dubiously) nice being part of the kinds of codes they upheld, which was the code of decency melded with the code of the streets in order to survive. This was a neighborhood of working families, some of whom were sex workers (thus the underground economy aspect; while others hustled part-time jobs, and her hustling is a well-known feature of the urban economy. For a funny version of it, see White Men Can't Jump. But also see Katrina Hazard Gorden who wrote about all this in reference to street dance culture. Gordon notes that paired couple, free form dancing (from which soul train's line emerged) was a common form of street dancing when the economy was more stable and people oriented themselves toward coupling and marriage. When that fell apart, for her it begain with the legalization of gambling, it ripped out from underneath the urban economy an entire way of hustling to support oneself. Consequently, combined with deinudstrialization, Gordon sees the rise of solo dancing and the decline of paired, coupled street dancing competition -- which reflects a change in the normative patterns also going on in the rest of the country.)
anys, where was i? Oh, yeah. So, if anyone "dissed" me, I had to be careful that Testosterone Central didn't find out or there'd be hell to pay. You protect your own. There was one kid, he had some sort of learning disorder. He was kind of the runt of the group, always being picked on, but if anyone tried to hurt that kid, from outside the group, hell to pay.
I used to wrestle with that. How did I teach them that this wasn't the way to handle conflict in the wider world, but a way that they might have to in the 'hood? I did my best, no doubt the message was lost on some, but there was always a recognition among parents that we had to convey both messages. To fail to klew them to the code of the streets was to make them far too vulnerable.
Another thing I learned was how white people manage to get themselves "in trouble" -- a very arguable way of putting it to say the least. They did so, when they came in these neighborhoods and failed to look anyone in the eye. The 'code' in this case was that you always showed respect by looking at the other person and nodding. None of what goes on in white suburbia where you avert your gaze or stare off blankly. Why it was the code, I'm not sure. But I'd say that it was about exactly what the boys told me it was about: For whites not to look back indicated a sign of fear or racism or discomfort because of the person's own ambivalence. Hence, it could sometimes be an opportunity to play head games with the person. And some of these kids would get a little schadenfreude like joy out of it. Hard to explain and I'm in a hurry, but not knowing this code -- show respect, look, but not too hard -- could be a problem for a newcomer to the area. Which, of course, is unfair because codes are learned. But it's also unfair that plenty of people are penalized for not knowing the codes associated with the legit economy: how to speak, dress, act, comportment, what's appropriate and not, etc. If you don't know those things, you won't get decent jobs either.
I ramble.
On the other hand, if one of these kids went into a white neighborhood and didn't respect *their* codes, well, they'd have to deal with a similarly disconcerted or angry reaction. E.g., if you picked up a ball and start shooting hoops in a driveway, as was common there, Mr. and Mrs. Burbia would be pissed. Why would a kid necessarily know this was wrong.
Reminds me of the time I got lost in suburbania. Pulled into a driveway to turn around. A woman came out and shouted to me, "You just turn around in driveway like that? This is private property?" She was from eastern europe and quite unhappy that I'd used her driveway as a turn around. Of course, she didn't beat me up or torment me. But when you have kids who can't walk into a grocery store of Best Buy without being harassed by the security staff, I suppose a lot of pent up anger over racism can burn your ass. It burned my son's ass just to watch it happen and see how diff. people were treated.
Bitch | Lab http://blog.pulpculture.org (NSFW)