Against the Wall: Poor, Young, Black, and Male

314 Pages·2009·1.14 MB·English

by  Elijah Anderson (editor), Cornel West (foreword)

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Against the Wall
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THE CITY IN THE 21ST CENTURY
Eugenie L. Birch and Susan M. Wachter, Series Editors
A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher.
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Against the Wall
Poor, Young, Black, and Male
EDITED BY ELIJAH ANDERSON
PENN
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia
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Copyright © 2008 University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly
citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written
permission from the publisher.
Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
A Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication record is available from the Library of
Congress
ISBN-13: 978-0-8122-2017-9
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Contents
Foreword: Strong Men Keep A-Comin On ix
Cornel West
I. FACING THE SITUATION
OF YOUNG BLACK MEN IN INNER CITIES
1. Against the Wall: Poor, Young, Black, and Male 1
Elijah Anderson
2. David’s Story: From Promise to Despair 28
Raymond Gunn
3. Young, Black, and Male: The Life History of an American Drug
Dealer Facing Death Row 38
Waverly Duck
II. STRUCTURAL ANALYSES
OF JOBLESSNESS AMONG BLACK YOUTH
4. The Economic Plight of Inner-City Black Males 55
William Julius Wilson
5. Blacklisted: Hiring Discrimination in an Era of Mass
Incarceration 71
Devah Pager
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vi Contents
6. The Effects of Immigration on the Economic Position of Young
Black Males 87
Gerald D. Jaynes
7. Immigration and Equal Opportunity 102
Douglas S. Massey
III. ENGAGING URBAN YOUTH IN SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
8. Youth Entrepreneurship Training in the Inner City: Overcoming
Disadvantage, Engaging Youth in School 123
Luke Anderson
9. Black Male Students and Reflections on Learning and
Teaching 138
L. Janelle Dance
10. Fighting like a Ballplayer: Basketball as a Strategy Against
Social Disorganization 147
Scott N. Brooks
11. “Tell us how it feels to be a problem”: Hip Hop Longings and
Poor Young Black Men 165
Imani Perry
IV. SOCIAL POLICY MATTERS
12. Social Issues Lurking in the Over-Representation of Young African
American Men in the Expanding DNA Databases 181
Troy Duster
13. “You can take me outta the ’hood, but you can’t take the ’hood
outta me”: Youth Incarceration and Reentry 198
Jamie J. Fader
14. Suicide Patterns Among Black Males 218
Sean Joe
15. Why Are Handguns So Accessible on Urban Streets? 242
David Kairys
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Contents vii
16. What Do We Do Now? Toward a Brighter Future
for Young African American Men 252
Peter Edelman
Notes 269
List of Contributors 279
Index 285
Acknowledgments 297
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Foreword: Strong Men Keep A-Comin On
Cornel West
In 1932 Sterling Brown, one of the great black men of the twentieth
century, published a monumental work of poetry, Southern Road. In Part
I, called “Road So Rocky”—a phrase that still describes what young
brothers encounter in so many chocolate cities—is a poem called
“Strong Men.” In this catastrophic moment for so many black brothers
growing up in impoverished communities, we must recall and invoke
the tradition of strong men, men of courage, wisdom, and dignity, as did
Sterling Brown in his time.
I grew up in the 1950s and ’60s, and when I think of black men I think
of my grandfather, Rev. Clifton West, Sr., and my late father, Clifton
West, Jr. I always associated black men with tremendous style, elegance,
resiliency, and agency. I associated black men with being able to over-
come, to look darkness in the face unflinchingly and still smile like
Louis Armstrong, or “keep on pushing” like Curtis Mayfield. That’s my
conception of black men, but that is not a hegemonic or predominant
perception these days. Why so?
The current view of black men has something to do with the fact that
we have been living for forty years in an ice age where it is fashionable to
be indifferent to poor people suffering, the most vulnerable citizens suf-
fering. Young black men are a significant slice of the most vulnerable, so
they are rendered invisible. In the great metaphor of Ralph Ellison, they
become so invisible that the dilapidated housing, the disgraceful school
systems, the lack of access to jobs that pay a living wage, the underem-
ployment and unemployment that afflict young men in the inner city—
all these have now become part of the norm. When we hear stories
documenting racial discrimination in hiring today, we almost have to
laugh to keep from crying as we see how that legacy of white supremacy
still operates. We say to ourselves, my God, is the culture still that sick,
is society still that pathological, is the U.S. still that indifferent to the