Scott Jacques and Richard Wright’s piece, Code of the Suburb, outlines the lives of middle-class drug dealers. While many of these suburban kids used drugs, few of them actually became dealers. It is this transition, from drug user to drug dealer, that Jacques and Wright explore. Their findings present a unique dichotomy between the drug dealers short-term, and long-term goals.

Jacques and Wright present this notion of “coolness” to highlight the middle-class drug dealer’s short-term goals. Irrespective of the consequences, these suburban teenagers only care about becoming cool in the eyes of their peers. It is through this notion of “coolness” that these teenagers disregard the law and the expectations of their parents, and become drug dealers. This made me think of Grace’s expert questions regarding the three dimensions of community that we have defined throughout the semester. I think this notion of “coolness” highlights the socio-structural sense of community. Specifically, the idea of “coolness” makes “invisible” groups “visible.” Before becoming drug dealers, these kids were largely invisible by their peers. They were not seen as cool, but instead were seen as “lame.” Further, the kids who took on the idea of being “lame” were disrespected and ostracized into their own social group comprised of other “lame-os” (Jacques and Wright 6). In order to gain some respect from their peers, and more specifically become “visible”, these kids resorted to selling and using drugs, showing their peers that they acted irrespective of the law and their parent’s rules (7). This contrast between being lame and being cool is correlated with the idea of making invisible groups visible. As drugs allowed them to transition from being lame to being cool, it also allowed for the once “invisible” group of “lame-os” to become “visible.” This representation of “coolness” satisfied their short-term goals and put them higher up on the social ladder.

There is a stark contrast between their short-term goals of being cool, and their long-term goals of obtaining successful careers and financial success. While these kids did engage in heavy drug consumption, they also knew that this was a temporary phase which would soon be replaced by careers and independence from their parents. However, one thing that we discussed in class was how this short-term phase led to the development of quasi-primary ties, in that these kids were only connected through the consumption of drugs, rather than deep personal connections. From my high school experience, I think this is true of drug dealers today. When I was in high school it was pretty obvious that the drug dealers were their own distinct friend group within the school. Looking back, it is more clear that these groups of kids were not friends through their similarities and interest, but rather through their habits of using and selling drugs. Now that they are much older, many of these drug dealers are no longer friends, as they broke out of their temporary drug phase, and went their separate ways. Conversely, the kids who did not consume drugs and had deeper and more meaningful relationships with their high school peers, are still friends to date. Through this, I think it is evident in both in Jacques and Wright’s, piece and my experiences that quasi-primary ties amongst drug dealers is a common phenomenon.

One thing that I found interesting in Karyn Lacy’s piece, Race- and Blass-Based Identities, was her discussion on strategic assimilation, and the black middle-class’ intentionally limited incorporation into the white mainstream. Further, I thought her idea of racial dualism was very interesting, as it showed the ways in which these middle-class individuals resisted the white mainstream, and instead were able to maintain their strong ties to the black community (Lacy 153). In contrast to the work of Jacques and Wright and the quasi-primary ties therein, I think Lacy’s piece showed a greater sense of community in suburban life by outlining the stronger and more meaningful ties to one’s culture.

This week’s readings by Murphy, Lee, and Rios presented themes on “The Iconic Ghetto” and the ways in which individuals navigate and interpret these spaces. Each set of readings, and their ethnographic studies therein, provided concrete evidence of the persistence of racial segregation in communities, and how this segregation, in turn, forces certain individuals to develop what Rios terms “organic capital.” In doing so, these individuals are unable to define themselves, and instead, are defined by societal perceptions.

I had never heard of the term organic capital prior to this reading, however, after reading Rios’ piece “Dummy Smart” it became clear that this notion persisted in the work of Murphy and Lee. First, in Murphy’s piece, we see how new members of the community are used as scapegoats for the on-going littering problem. As long-time community members had no one to blame the littering problem on, the turned to the poor black individuals who had recently moved to the neighborhood, arguing that they littered because they cared little about the health of the community (Murphy 211). This labeling, by white community members, had ramifications for the poor black ex-urbanites moving into the community. To me, it seemed like this stripped them of their identity, and instead of being able to redefine themselves in their new neighborhood, the community immediately labeled them as deviant and immoral. I thought this notion related well to our class discussion on housing programs and the rise of the suburbs. Murphy states that the Section 8 housing program was used to move poor families out of the city and into the suburbs (211). While in theory programs like these should cause few problems, Murphy’s study revealed how housing programs can often times do more harm than good. This made me think of a question posed in class, asking if federal housing policies have more positive or negative impacts. I think in this sense, and through this example, we see the negative impacts of such policies, as it allowed long time community residents to blame their persisting problems on poor blacks as they moved into the area. In doing this, these community members, unknowingly, were identifying individuals as deviant, careless, and immoral with no probable cause. In doing so, the newcomers felt rejected and unwanted within their social space.

The notion of organic capital was also evident in Lee’s piece on rap battling, and again, shows how certain individuals are stripped of their identity by the perceptions of society. The individuals who engaged in rap battles were often neglected by society, and were seen as deviant by locals, teachers, and administrators (Lee 594-595). Unsurprisingly, this made rap battles a form of organic capital, where these individuals could interact with one another outside the confines of society. To me, I thought this gave the rap battlers a new identity, as they were no longer ostracized by members of the larger community, bur rather, were identified by the smaller rap battling community, where everyone shared similar characteristics. Furthermore, this allowed them to escape from the unaccepting community, into a more private and hidden social space. This idea made me think of our discussion on cities, and how eventually over time, individuals form communities with whom they are most similar to. Often times this is based on race, as seen in the work of Massey and Denton, in which individuals congregate according to class and ethnicity. In this sense, the individuals neglected by society turned to rap battling to develop a sense of community in which they could temporarily take on new identities, and not those of society.

After these readings I was left wondering what could be done to move away from this notion of organic capital. Initially, I thought it this would be extremely difficult, and that most solutions would merely act as “Band-Aid” solutions that end up perpetuating the same problems over time. For example, we talked about an education reform in class, and how this might give these kids the opportunity to stay and school, and off of the streets. However, since public schools are funded through property taxes, to me, this reform would only temporarily solve the problem. While there is no easy way to solve this problem, reform efforts must be long-lasting and routinely monitored. Further, societal perceptions should not define communities from the outside looking in, but instead should work to help these individuals thrive in all social spaces.