In our class discussion on Wednesday we spent a lot of time trying to understand Alice Goffman’s position/role within the 6^th street neighborhood community and how her role may have informed the way in which she presented her findings. While it is clearly valuable to examine Goffman’s relationship with her subjects and it is important to be critical of how the information is being presented, I personally am more interested in spending a bit more time discussing the social relationships in the 6^th street neighborhood. My expert question focused on the conflicting descriptions that are presented regarding the practice of “riding” or not “riding” and what that may mean for a certain relationship between someone on the run and their family or friends. While conflicting arguments are presented, I do not think the conflict stems from Goffman not properly presenting an argument but rather that in the unique social world of the 6^th street neighborhood, the “culture of fear and suspicion” (Goffman, 90) gives way to social interactions that are specific to the people, time, and place.

Being on the run means that one lives in near constant fear of being caught by the police and so therefore the men of 6^th street go to great lengths to avoid any sort of interaction with an authority figure. This extreme avoidance of the law means that if one does choose to turn himself in or to go to an event or place in which he may run into a police officer, that decision is most often a calculated choice. In the section “The Social Life of Criminalized Young People” on page 131, Goffman states, “the giving and taking of legal risk becomes a way that people in the neighborhood of 6^th street define their relationships, honor or dishonor someone, and draw moral distinctions among one another” (Goffman, 131). I am intrigued by this concept/practice and how in a neighborhood such as 6^th street where the police presence is so constant, how the residents begin to adapt and use the police in a way that benefits their personal social lives. In a way, I think that one could argue this use of the police presence to one’s own advantage could be a form of a resistance identity. While it may not be the traditional sense of a resistance identity, because residents (often spouses or family members of men on the run) begin to use calling the cops on the man on the run as a survival tactic I think it does fit in with a larger definition of a resistance identity. Turning someone in who is on the run is often a power play used by a spouse when she feels that she is not receiving the proper respect from her partner. Furthermore, a spouse may turn in her partner when she feels it has become too dangerous for him out on the streets (Goffman, 94). I think these two practices count as resistance identities because they go against the grain of the typical system and show 6^th street residents using something that often oppresses them to their own advantage. Whether or not these practices do fit into the definition of resistance identity, I think Goffman has touched on a very intriguing part of the social world of 6^th street.