Hallway Hangers Vs Brothers Analysis

Ain’t No Makin’ It’s groups of Hallway Hangers and Brothers each create their own informal social theories in their adolescence to prescribe the reasons behind their current circumstances, their aspirations, and the social structures that affect their lives. The Brothers’ social theory is largely in concert with the “achievement ideology” that dominates in the American psyche. This ideology assumes an almost complete meritocracy in American society where anyone can “make it,” i.e. live a successful life, if they work hard and follow social conventions. However, the American fantasy of true meritocracy does not match the American reality–a system where one’s class position at birth often determines their entire life due to larger structural inequalities. The Hallway Hangers at least in part recognize those limiting structural inequalities, finding that “the opportunity structure is not open,” which in turn “prevents them from accepting their position and the inequalities of the social order as completely legitimate”. This view, along with the Hallway Hangers’ intense communalism, in spite of a largely individualistic society, brings their ideology close to Marxism. Yet, the group “raise[s] no fundamental challenge to the fairness or efficacy of the system,” never quite getting to the final step of concluding that …show more content…
From the neo-Marxist point of view the white Hallway Hangers are openly racist, they use slurs, stereotypes, and violence against African Americans and other people of color and harbor a deep resentment for other races, yet they are still largely oppressed by their class. The Hallway Hangers’ feelings of public oppression are their point of access to racism in the first place. MacLeod notes that the Hallway Hangers “lash out at those by whom they feel threatened: black men,” and are still largely drug-addicted, unemployed, violent, and unhappy