{"id":282,"date":"2017-10-01T16:49:30","date_gmt":"2017-10-01T20:49:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/?p=282"},"modified":"2017-12-05T22:09:46","modified_gmt":"2017-12-06T03:09:46","slug":"resistance-identities-within-the-ghetto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/cities-and-society\/resistance-identities-within-the-ghetto\/","title":{"rendered":"Resistance Identities within the ghetto"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This week\u2019s discussion and readings by Murphy, Lee and Rios picked up on our previous conversations about the \u201ciconic ghetto\u201d. Elijah Anderson coined the term \u201ciconic ghetto\u201d and asserted that despite legislation that has made racial integration and incorporation possible, racial segregation persisted in neighborhoods, restaurants and schools throughout the United States. The \u201cghetto\u201d in turn starts to become associated with the places \u201cwhere blacks live.\u201d When outside of \u201cthe ghetto,\u201d African Americans have to figure out how to navigate these primary white and segregated spaces. In their works, Murphy, Lee and Rios explore how African Americans navigate not only these white spaces but also \u201cthe ghetto.\u201d While each author highlights different passage through these areas, an underlying theme throughout all of these works is the notion of a resistance identity. \u00a0My expert question based off of these readings focused on how s<span style=\"font-size: 1rem\">ociologists might be focusing too heavily on the negatives of the ghetto and are abandoning or ignoring cultural benefits of these communities such as resistance identities.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Rios\u2019 article \u201cDummy Smart\u201d is the only article in which the concept of a resistance identity is explicitly mentioned. Resistance identities according to Rios, \u201care those identities created by subordinated populations in response to oppression\u201d (102). \u00a0These identities are used as a way of creating a sense of agency and power within a society in which those included feel displaced or mistreated. In Rios study, the members of this society are Latino and Black men from Oakland, California. Rios examines how obtaining this sense of power and agency often becomes entangled with legal trouble. For example, in order to assert his dominance and power in the community over a local storeowner, Mike, a Latino teenager, steals a bag of chips when he feels as though he is being disrespected and mistreated by the owner. Mike had more than enough money to pay for the bag of chips but he was determined to prove a point to the members of the community that try and exclude him from mainstream society. By acting against the law and traditional norms of society, the young men are trying to \u201cone-up\u201d these \u201cexcluders\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 To the men living in Oakland, the notion of power and dignity is more significant than spending a few days in juvie. \u00a0Although I do not believe that sociologists should encourage or praise the criminal actions of these boys, it is impressive and important to note and explore how these men find spaces for themselves in a society that has marginalized them for years.<\/p>\n<p>This idea of a resistance identity is further echoed in Murphy\u2019s article about \u201clitterers.\u201d Murphy claims that those who litter are perceived by their community as being \u201coutsiders and disreputable\u201d (1). After readings Rios\u2019 article, I began to examine the litterers in a broader context within the ghetto. When thinking about the litterers in this framework, I started to ask myself if littering could be used as a way of creating a resistance identity. Was it possible that by littering these members of the community felt as though they were taking control of their community and re-claiming their space? Was throwing trash on the ground and consequently disrespecting the physical space of the community, a mechanism for acquiring respect in the eyes of the litterer? The litterers in this community, feeling that the label of outsider has been placed upon them, could be determined to gain back a sense of power and respect. As a result, they are driven to cling onto these resistance identities, which propel them to rebel against societal norms. Ironically, by continuing the behavior that has warranted the reputation of \u201cdisreputable,\u201d the litterers believe that they will be seen in a more esteemed manner.<\/p>\n<p>It is easy to write off the litterers in this community as disrespectful but when examined in a larger context, it is important to think about the different ways in which people go about acquiring power and dignity and how the traditional forms of achieving these characteristics may not be equally available to everyone in society. The resistance identities, similar to the rap battles discussed by Lee, offer the people in the ghetto a sense of respect and almost a release from the daily burdens that they feel have been imposed on them. To the members of the ghetto, resistance identities are a way of reclaiming a feeling of pride that they rightfully believe have been stripped from them by mainstream white society.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week\u2019s discussion and readings by Murphy, Lee and Rios picked up on our previous conversations about the \u201ciconic ghetto\u201d. Elijah Anderson coined the term \u201ciconic ghetto\u201d and asserted that despite legislation that has made racial integration and incorporation possible, racial segregation persisted in neighborhoods, restaurants and schools throughout the United States. The \u201cghetto\u201d in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":500,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cities-and-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/500"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}