I really appreciated discussing American Apartheid and segregation in class. I think oftentimes when segregation is discussed, Brown v. Board of Ed. is brought up and it seems as if segregation has ended.  Denton and Massey’s analysis of racial segregation seemed pretty in depth. I like how they defined hyper-segregation.  I think it was also interesting what they said about Blackness being the opposite of Whiteness. I think originally I was kind of shocked and slightly appalled. However, I think when thinking about it, there is some validity to the statement. This was something I addressed in my last blog post about what makes someone blacker and how my intelligence was seen as being anti-black. Overall, I want to actually read this book in its entirety one day.

I also really appreciated Mary Pattillo’s book, particularly her analysis of the relationships between youth and the ghetto aesthetic. I like how she had the three categories of consumed, thrilled, and marginal. I think it was a really interesting interpretation of things. Also, it’s particularly relevant given the conversations regarding cultural appropriation.

Our conversations about hypersegregation (as Denton and Massey describe it) and social isolation (as William Julius Wilson has termed his phenomenon) have led me to wonder about the effects of integration and gentrification on predominantly black neighborhoods with highly concentrated poverty, and whether Wilson’s or Denton and Massey’s theories will hold amid these trends.

Massey and Denton argue that segregation on the basis of race, class, or both intensifies poverty during periods of economic decline. Integration, it is implied, is the solution. Similarly, Wilson suggests (and Pattillo disputes) that, among other factors, out-migration of a stable black middle class has left black urban ghettos without strong role models or institutions. If this is indeed the case, what impact will an influx of middle class residents have––particularly if those residents are not white? Wilson seems to think that social isolation is one of the primary factors in ghetto poverty, but as Pattillo shows, many poor black neighborhoods are, in fact, surrounded by relative economic stability.

Despite the strong cases for integration into a broader social context that Wilson, Denton and Massey make, there are factors at play that they fail to consider. Their arguments could be refined with an analysis of gentrification’s effects – specifically its tendency to push working-class and poor residents out of areas that were just affordable, suggesting that, as harmful as segregation can be, there are ways of integrating neighborhoods that are equally as harmful.

As briefly touched on in class, the distinction Mary Pattillo made between being “thrilled” and being “consumed” by “ghetto” culture was particularly interesting. While some, even many, black middle class youths may dabble in street styles, listen to certain music, or adopt ways of dress or speaking, a few others engage in serious criminal activity, a decision that is sometimes tragically fatal. Pattillo takes care to describe her definitions of thrilled and consumed, but she does not really explain why a person might become consumed rather than simply thrilled, only insinuating at certain peer or social pressures.

This discussion is interesting when taken in the context of comparing black and middle class youths. Quinn mentions a quote from the Bouie article on DeSean Jackson and Richard Sherman that also struck me, detailing the difference between white and black middle class youths in their experimentation in delinquency. While “youthful experimentation for a white teenager in a suburb might be smoking a joint in a friend’s attic,” “youthful experimentation for a black teenager might be hanging out with gang members.” The comparison between the relative risks a teenager might undertake when toeing the line between being thrilled and consumed perhaps does not describe exactly where and why the line is crossed, but significantly asserts that black middle class youths come much closer to crossing the line by nature of their geographic proximity to areas of crime.

Beyond residential segregation and proximity to very poor neighborhoods, access to education is an important factor in the tendency of middle class black youth to backslide economically. Even with personal choices and wider housing discrimination that keeps middle class black families geographically near highly impoverished communities, education can help keep middle class black youth from illegal/dangerous activity and aid in upward mobility. Access to quality education and a school administration that puts students’ needs first can be invaluable for students’ success in school and beyond. In fact, a caring school environment is one of the 40 Developmental Assets for children and adolescents put for by the Search Institute and used to train tutors and mentors that work with children.

The problem, then, stems from the fact that many black students across the nation today do not have access to quality, well-rounded education. School segregation is still a reality and it was documented in a 2014 study of public schools in Tuscaloosa, Alabama by Nikole Hannah-Jones. According to Jones, “[i]n Tuscaloosa today, nearly one in three black students attends a school that looks as if Brown v. Board of Education never happened.” She explains further that while white students are no longer isolated in entirely white schools, Latino and black students are often segregated into almost entirely black and/or Latino schools. Between 1990 and 2011, 54% of black students in America were enrolled in schools with white populations of 1% or less. Integration is no longer a reality in many low-income (often Southern) school districts. Black students are cut off from youth of other backgrounds, limiting their cultural awareness and further isolating them within the black community (which includes those poor neighborhoods that they are likely to fall into). The black students interviewed by Jones in these Tuscaloosa schools understand the issue at hand, and seem uncertain that they are “learning as much as the city’s white students were” in their schools.

When cut off from access to a good education system – one that has many cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds present and is equal to the education system of white students  in the same city – black students can lose potential for upward mobility and economic progress. Even the best students in all-black schools face a shortage of resources and other roadblocks that can prevent them from continuing to higher education. This unfairness is a trend in many areas of life for black youth. I think that so often black youth are demonized for being violent, criminal, or lazy, when in fact they are systemically deprived of resources and opportunities that would allow them to avoid violence or crime and turn to other methods of financial gain and social interaction. Until we can come to this conclusion as a country and enact change in housing and educational segregation, it will be difficult for the black middle class to gain the stability and influence that the white middle class has. How might we bring wider attention to this issue in a way that can actually bring about effective social change? Is this something that the black community can attempt to remedy within itself, or must there be cooperation from multiple groups?

The argument that the problems that the black community experiences are a result of deficiencies of “black culture” is one that has been prominent throughout decades of sociological research on racial inequality. Prominent sociologists like William Julius Wilson and, perhaps most notably, Daniel Patrick Moynihan have embraced this theory, arguing that persistent racial inequality is a result of the breakdown of the black family and a “tangle of pathology.” These arguments are individualistic, focusing on personal responsibility and putting some of the blame for black poverty on blacks themselves. However, it is important to remember the role that structural forces play in not only racial inequality but also the “tangle of pathology” that Moynihan references.

The decision that many black youth in urban ghettos and even the middle-class neighborhoods that Mary Pattillo describes in Black Picket Fences to sell drugs or join gangs can be seen as an effort to gain the respect of others. Other pathways to “respect” as it would be earned in white communities—like doing well in school or getting a high-paying job—weren’t available to them because of the spatial mismatch of jobs and under-resourced schools. Thus, because of structural forces affecting their communities, the ways in which black teenagers attempted to gain esteem among their peers differed from those of white teenagers. As Jamelle Bouie wrote in the article about DeSean Jackson and black social mobility, “Youthful experimentation for a white teenager in a suburb might be smoking a joint in a friend’s attic. Youthful experimentation for a black teenager might be hanging out with gang members.” This is not because “black culture” values different things than “white culture,” but because of the differing context of white and black neighborhoods—i.e., structural forces.

Mary Pattillo’s Black Picket Fences highlights the unique challenges that face the black middle class community of Groveland, a neighborhood in the South Side of Chicago. Not only do black members of the middle class face structural, economic and institutional challenges that white members of the middle class do not, but high levels of racial segregation in the U.S. mean youth of the black middle class are proximate and more susceptible to the ‘allure’ of what Pattillo calls “antisocial” behaviors, like joining a gang or getting involved in the drug trade. These risks combine to create a unique social position for the black middle class, one that has serious implications for the future of the black community.

Pattillo interviews a number of young and middle-aged individuals in her ethnography to highlight the unique perils facing the black middle class. She highlights a number of people who, despite familial support and economic advantage, made a foray into the “antisocial” world of gangs, drugs, and violence. For many of these featured individuals, we see that despite a brief interlude into illegal activities outside of the mainstream, they still “make it,” to some degree and according to some middle class standards. Lauren Grant, for example, is able to beat her addiction to cocaine and leave the drug trade to become “part of the neighborhood solution” as a married, church-going, employed, home-owning resident of Groveland (Chapter 3). Spider is is a member of a gang, but he makes his mainstream work at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange his priority, choosing to abandon ‘antisocial’ behaviors like hanging out and smoking weed to pursue an employment opportunity (Chapter 8). The youth featured in Chapter 5 as susceptible to the pull of gangs and drugs and are, to varying degrees, connected to these activities all have “decent” plans to go to school, get married, and live a mainstream middle class life. Spider and Lauren are living proof that their plans to transcend “antisocial” behaviors are realistic.

This observation that many of these members of the black middle class do “make it” to some degree raises a number of questions for me. First, is this typical? Did Pattillo merely fail to include examples of individuals raised in a black middle class environment but were unable to stay there? She cites numerous statistics and studies that indicate that members of the black middle class are at a higher risk than whites of ‘falling down’ the economic ladder, but she doesn’t highlight individuals in these circumstances in her book. I am also wondering what kinds of social processes are behind the life trajectories that people like Lauren and Spider followed. How were they able to lead (their own somewhat unconventional versions of) middle class lives? What caused Spider to be so dedicated to work that he was able to choose more appealing aspects of life around him, and what allowed Lauren to escape the clutches of addiction? While Pattillo explores parental support and institutional involvement as factors that mitigate the risk of proximity to “antisocial” behaviors, I am still left wondering whether there is/are element(s) of black middle class life that effectively counteract the pull of the drug trade and gang life. I am also left wishing that Pattillo had explored these factors more in-depth and less speculatively (although I understand that this was not the focus of her book).

Note: I do not cite page numbers here because I read this book on an electronic reader that doesn’t have any pages.

Over the course of the semester, I’ve really been fascinated by the position of the black middle class. Being the more-privileged side of a marginalized group struggling with social issues presents some very difficult challenges for the black middle class.

One on hand, there is the DuBoisian (thanks Khytie for clarifying that this indeed is a real term!) idea that the most “talented” of the black community should strive to lift up the struggling masses. One could argue that DuBois was more referring to intellectuals, rather than the middle class. Still, though, DuBois gives a strong push for black solidarity, saying that the black community should stay together, preserve the race, and succeed in a unique, black way that isn’t just assimilation into the white community. One could assume that this ideal would require the black middle class to stay actively involved with the rest of the black community.

Yet, given Black Picket Fences, as well as the article Khytie posted, it can also seem that keeping ties with those with more disadvantage can be a huge problem for the black middle class. As Pattillo explains, keeping ties with people who are involved with gang activity, drugs, etc. is a huge risk to the social mobility of middle class members. Bouie in his article cites a lot of compelling evidence about how growing up in a neighborhood that experiences poverty can have very negative effects on social mobility.

So what is the black middle class to do? When thinking about social mobility, the best thing to do might be to move far away from the black lower class. There is a strong sense from Pattillo and the posted article that growing up around poverty is a huge risk, so it might make sense to just get as far away from poverty as possible. But what about the DuBoisian ideal? If the black middle class is able break free from these impoverished neighborhoods, are they abandoning the black lower class? Frazier seems to think so, implying that the black middle class is abandoning their roots and just trying to act like white people. How does the black middle class balance the evidence that living amongst poverty is bad for social mobility, yet also take leadership of the black community? Is the black middle class even obligated to take leadership of the black community?

I think the article Khytie posted below is incredibly important, because it offers a real-life and large-scale example of what Mary Pattillo is working to explain in Black Picket Fences. Due to extremely racially segregated housing policies of the 20th century, which continue work subtly today, Black Americans live and connect with other Black Americans of varying class status. While this is not inherently a negative thing, as Pattillo shows us in her work, it can lead to pulling middle class children into “delinquent behaviors” and associations that they wouldn’t have gotten drawn into otherwise. As the story of DeSean Jackson shows us, this can have long-lasting and hard-hitting implications.

I came across this article written a few years ago by a Harvard economics professor, Edward Glaeser, on changing trends in segregation in cities. He writes that cities have become much more integrated in 1970. In 1970, over 80% of blacks would have to relocate in order to have an equally integrated city. Today, that percentage is around 50%. While that is still an astronomically high number, Glaeser sees this as a sign of progress, with more to come. However, he notes that this integration is mostly due to black elites moving to white neighborhoods. If this continues, what will happen to Wilson’s “underclass” or “truly disadvantaged”? Their neighborhoods will continue to decline if wealthier people are moving out. At the same time, this exodus offers a potential better set of life outcomes for the children of these middle class families, the same population Pattillo studies and warns may not be achieving mobility, due to their proximity to people with very different priorities and values. Then again, would moving outside of these neighborhoods feel isolating? Just because your house moves, does that mean your house and your heart move with it? What is the real effect here?

Dyou all believe desegregation is taking place? And what do you think the impacts will be? Will it help the middle class? Will it hurt the poor? Is there a way to do the former without the latter?

Read the full article, which speaks to many of Pattillo’s points about neighborhoods, segregation, the spatial nature of racial hierarchies, the perils and privileges of the black middle class and their  close association with the poor, gangs and other behaviors Pattillo terms “deviant” or “delinquent.”

DeSean Jackson. Richard Sherman and Black American Economic Mobility

The black middle class has historically been referred to as the black elite, but after reading Black Picket Fences, I think I can say that large swaths of the black middle class don’t qualify with this “old elite”. The black middle class is much larger than it was in the late 1800s and has grown in heterogeneity. It seems as though there isn’t the same type of separation that there used to be between the black middle class and the black lower class. As shown in Black Picket Fences, they blur together. The places where the black middle class lives are in direct proximity to where the lower class people live. This causes there to be a lot of spillover culturally and structurally.

For example, you see the black middle class (especially the youth) perpetrating the behaviors that are generally associated with the lower class and most likely have their genesis there. It appears that the black middle class isn’t trying to distance itself from the black lower class, but instead is now embracing many parts of the culture. This appears to mostly be a phenomenon in the younger generations, as the respectability politics of the black middle class fade away to a certain extent.

I continue to reflect on the word “sophistiratchet” that Gabi brought up in Tuesday’s seminar. As I remember, we discussed it in the context of Pattillo’s argument that culture in black middle class neighborhoods represents a mix of “street” and “decent” practices. First, it is compelling that the word is applicable to both men and women, while “ratchet” in its noun form is often used to refer to women. Moreover, finding the word superimposed over two pictures of President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama, the first of the couple slow dancing and the second of them clapping and snapping to music, made me consider how concepts of sophistication may be so racialized that black people with “worldly knowledge or experience” have their sophistication qualified with modifying words. However, if simultaneously being “up on the latest developments in politics and foreign affairs” and being able to dance to rap and R&B bars us from being regarded as sophisticated, I’d like to think that we can gradually redefine notions of sophistication instead of adhering to mainstream mores.

More broadly, I was struck by Professor Bobo’s point that ethnography can sample on the dependent variable, analyzing a phenomenon of interest without accounting for cases in which the phenomenon isn’t observable. As I look ahead to my senior thesis, I am thinking seriously about the methods I will use and the potential benefits and drawbacks of each one. While I think ethnography can accurately capture the lived realities of interviewees, its findings are not easily generalizable, so I am thinking about historical and statistical approaches might provide for a more persuasive argument.