Khytie’s video of members of the Black Guerrilla Family, specifically members of the Bloods, speaking with the newscaster helps to cement the idea that mainstream narratives often unfairly portray the black community, and black gangs, in particular. The Bloods make a point to distinguish themselves from the rioters causing disorder and violence in the community, attempting to construct an alternative narrative to the one put forth by the mainstream media in the coverage of the protests surrounding the death of Freddie Gray. They emphasize the effort of the gangs to put aside their feuds and join in unity as one community protesting against police brutality.

As several people brought up on class, the books we’ve read in the past couple of weeks are very much in line with the theme of constructing alternative narratives. Black Citymakers paints a picture of black Philadelphia as a historic community that has continually played an enormous role in shaping and influencing its developments. Black Picket Fences gives a glimpse into a black middle class neighborhood whose plights and struggles are sometimes overlooked by the narrative that the black middle class is a simple example of the success of greater civic and economic equality. On the Run speaks of a marginalized community of black youths in Philadelphia and their attempts of living in and out of a highly policed system. Finally, Renegade Dreams perhaps best parses through this idea of the alternative narrative, giving voice to those who survive gang violence and to a community so often rocked by violent and tragic incidents.

It is frustrating that in the case of the Baltimore protests, the media so firmly denounced the rioters as violent and destructive, and that even a clip as the one in Khytie’s post barely made it to mainstream media. It makes me wonder how it’s possible to construct and spread alternative narratives when the primary streams of communication are controlled by so few people. How can alternative narratives make it to the masses?

Professor Bobo noted in class that biology has become a virtually taboo realm for the social sciences to draw upon. Given that the hard sciences provide crucial means of explaining human activity, this appears to be a significant loss for the field of sociology and for the study of the African-American community. Such a loss can primarily be attributed, as our discussion suggested, to the suspicion generated by scientific racism.

Eugenics and Social Darwinism have made social scientists reluctant to account for biology in examining race, for fear that biological approaches have become inextricably tied to racism. Yet physiological factors account for universal human responses to stress and adversity; to recognize these responses as typical requires an understanding of biology that Social Darwinism has made difficult. Scientific racism, in other words, has held social scientists back from a comprehensive understanding of health in the communities they study.

It is also possible that the barriers scientific racism imposes are self-perpetuating. Sociologists’ unwillingness to include biological considerations in their analyses may have it difficult, for instance, to counter claims about a “culture of poverty” (often a racially coded term for African-American culture) that attribute poverty to individual decisions and cultural tendencies. Bringing in biological and psychological analysis would demonstrate that such a “culture” in fact consists of behaviors and health effects broadly observed when individuals of any background are confronted with scarcity. Because many social scientists hesitate to employ biology, it is difficult to meaningfully engage with these arguments, lending racist claims more power than they would wield absent the damaging legacy of scientific racism.

I thought it was interesting to see how important sneakers play in the gang. It reminds me of how today in the Black community sneakers still play an important part. It was interesting to see how much where you buy the shoes, type of shoe, and the price of the shoes matter. Even to this day, Jordan’s are still very prominent sneakers. When I was in high school, I remember my friends being very selective and careful of their sneakers. They would make sure their sneakers weren’t dirty. They would make sure the sneakers matched their outfit and everything. They were also not involved in gangs so I think it’s interesting how even outside of gang life sneakers matter so much.

Something else that was interesting was the symbolism of the gang items. It was ironic how Mr. Otis’s favorite symbol was the cane because the cane was used after gang members sustained injuries from gang violence. For me it was also weird how the cane was a symbol of gang unity. What about a cane is so symbolic for a gang? Is it because of the fact that cane had to be used after the members sustained injuries or is it something else?

I thought overall the book gave a nuanced look to gang life that is hardly ever seen and I really appreciated that.

In the wake of the killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Tamir Rice in Cleveland, and many others in cities across America, there has been an increased focused on life in overpoliced, underresourced black communities. While many have pointed out the harmful ways in which the criminal justice system has affected these communities, the response, particularly by conservatives, has all too often been to point out the high levels of black-on-black violence in these communities, and the blame is often put squarely on the shoulders of the gangs that operate in these neighborhoods. Yet readings like On The Run, Black Picket Fences, and Renegade Dreams have painted a more nuanced picture of the role that gangs play in these communities, which can often be positive. Lawrence Ralph describes how the Divine Knights had roots in the civil rights movement, and continued to play an important role in pushing for policy changes on behalf of community members. Alice Goffman described how drug dealers used the money they made off the drug trade to fund funerals, help residents pay their rent, and mentor youth in the community. And Mary Pattillo wrote that both gang members and law-abiding residents “share many of the same values for an attractive and safe neighborhood, and both groups want socioeconomic security, but they have divergent strategies for achieving these goals.” (88)

It is true that gangs are involved in a great deal of violence in poor black communities, as these authors also documented. Because of this, many outside observers assume that the gangs are responsible for the violence. But just as the high levels of poverty in black communities aren’t a result of individual shortcomings of residents of the communities but of structural forces, high levels of violence are also structurally constructed. Because of the context of poor black neighborhoods—characterized by extreme levels of poverty and isolation from wealthier neighborhoods and jobs—gang life fills a vacuum that would otherwise be filled by legal employment. In order to address the problems that black communities confront, a paradigm shift is necessary in the way we view gang life, from a negative force in the neighborhood to a product of structural forces, which can play both positive and negative roles.

One part of the book that I found particularly interesting was Justin Cone’s story. Throughout the novel, Laurence Ralph sets up the narrative of Justin, occasionally implying his connection to Kemo Nostrand. Justin, now confined to a wheelchair following a shooting, opens the narrative by expressing his dream of telling his story to better his community. He hopes to literally live through injury in order to do what he can to alter the life course of the young men in Eastwood. As the book progresses, Justin’s story becomes the main and continuing example of a “renegade dream”. From his decision to exhibit his agency by turning his misfortune into a proponent of the actualization of his dream of a non-violent community, Justin becomes a quintessence of the resilience of Eastwood.

My favorite aspect of Justin’s story comes in Chapter Four when the author makes the realization that Kemo played a role in the shooting that paralyzed Justin. This connection between these seemingly different characters shows the way in which two members of the same community chose to react to this injury. While for Justin, this involved tunneling his efforts into public speaking in order to prevent gang violence, for Kemo, this involved exercising his power to aim toward the same goal as Justin, even within a different context. Within his life of gangs and drug dealing, Kemo was still able to exercise agency in the same way as Justin in that he did what he could to achieve their shared dream within the context of his life situation. The contrast between the two paths that these men chose to take show the heterogeneity of this community in not only their experiences, but also in their reactions to their situations and challenges. I really liked the way this book was able to show how different the goals and hopes of individual members of the community were but at the same time, show how the rebuilding and advancement of Eastwood was a goal desired and worked toward by everyone.

Reflecting on this week’s seminar, I’ve spent some time thinking about Williams’ discussion on key social determinants of African-Americans’ health. In his article, he notes that “a small body of research suggests that the prevalence of negative stereotypes and cultural images of stigmatized groups can adversely affect health status” (185). This point makes me wonder whether minorities’ re-appropriation these images might blunt their negative health effects. For example, a student group recently repurposed an image of Nicki Minaj that some felt that objectified and exotified black women’s bodies for a party invitation. I question whether such an action can counter the psychosocial stress that some black women may feel as a result of other discriminatory media depictions. Indeed, this may provide a feeling of empowerment for those who believe that black women should be able to expose their bodies in the same way that white models and other icons do, often without reproach.

Furthermore, I am interested in the finding that black-white morality ratio for “flu and pneumonia” was 1.44 in 1995. Such a disparity is shocking because death from a communicable disease like the flu is often regarded as a problem associated with the developing world. Recent data from Arizona in 2015 shows that this gradient has endured, which was particularly surprising given the proliferation of flu vaccines. I wonder how state and federal agencies will go about expanding flu vaccine access for minorities, as CDC data from the 2013-2014 flu season showed that 45.4% of white adults 18 years old and above got vaccinated, while only 35.6% of non-hispanic blacks and 33.1% of Hispanics did. Moreover, the fact that the coverage rate amongst children 6-17 years old was higher for Hispanic children (66%) than non-hispanic whites (55.2%) was all the more surprising, underscoring the need to tailor the way we address racial health disparities to specific age groups.

Through Pattillo, Goffman and Ralph we’ve discussed how the authors have portrayed a more nuanced relationship between neighborhood gangs and their communities. In particular, Ralph’s work presents an even more in depth view of a neighborhood gang like the Divine Knights. They are not simply deviant members of the neighborhood,  but they can and do play constructive roles in shaping the community and its institutions as well as providing counter-narratives to concepts like injury , disability, memory,  historical consciousness and activism,

The following news clip,  prominent during the Baltimore uprising,  features members of the Black Guerrilla Family, the Bloods and the Crips talking to the channel  11 News, representing themselves and their communities and providing a counter-narrative to media portrayals and allegations which stated that they came to a  truce for the express purpose of harming police officers.

While there are aspects to critique, it nonetheless speaks to much of what Ralph’s ethnography elucidates and highlights the strategic and political elements of street gangs, as well as the idea of “renegades”  i.e. members that the old heads cannot necessarily control.