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5 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Crack in Spanish Harlem
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Their day-to-day struggle for survival and for meaning as they exist as the people behind the extraordinary statistics on inner city violent crime in the United States
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Crack in Spanish Harlem
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The author is investigating the very same people that Oscar Lewis in La Vida declared to be victims of a "culture of poverty," enmired in a "self-perpetuating cycle of poverty." This is a concept that has been highly criticized for its internal inconsistencies, its inadequate understanding of "culture", and ethnicity, its ethnocentric/middleclass bias, its blindness to structural forces, and its blabme-the-victim implications.
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Crack in Spanish Harlem
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While Lewis's study is highly criticized, the alternative discussions either tend towards economic redustionism or else ultimately minimize the reality of porfound marginalization and destruction-some internalized-that evelop disproportionate share of the inner city poor. More importantly, the media, public policy-makers, and a large portion of inner city residents themselves continue to subscribe to a popularized blame-the-victim/ culture of poverty concept that has not been adequately rebutted by scholars.
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Crack in Spanish Harlem
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These people seek their income and subequently, their identity and the meaning in their life through what they perceive to be high-powered careers on the streets. They partake of ideologies and values and share symbols which form the basis of an inner city street culture, completely excluded from the mainstream economy and society but ultimately derived from it.
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Crack in Spanish Harlem
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Most of the people in these areas have a few direct contacts with non-inner city residents, and when they do it is usually with people who are in a position of domination; teachers in school, bosses at work, police officers, and later parole and probation officers.
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