Detroit Lives

Detroit lives

http://www.vice.com/video/detroit-lives-full-length

Detroit Lives Johnny Knoxville

In this feature documentary by Johnny Knoxville we see how a broken down community can turn into a dream for hipsters. We see how gentrification has been an ongoing phenomenon throughout our countries histories. In this documentary johnny knoxville goes around places in detroit that used to be feared places but have now turned into areas where white youth are flocking too. Gentrification comes at the expense of minorities whose communities were ripped apart by private investors and building planners. As blacks and latinos were pushed out of neighborhoods they were forced into these city high rises that they could barely afford. Through decades of struggles these families were forced out of where they lived due to social construction. In the documentary we learn that even with young white suburban youths flocking to these types of living for that edgy lifestyles. The local communities love it. Through the youth moving to places such as detroit it give life back into a community that has not had it for years. With these youths businesses are formed co-operations are formed between local farmers. The community gets a facelift from the dark past that it has endured. I found this documentary interesting because it looks at the other sides of gentrification instead of the bad. With all of the good that these youths are doing you still can not overlook the fact that these communities were left to die when the factories left. People's lives were devastated all to the fact that these big corporations are doing what they please with no regard for human life. These factories are what these cities economy was based off of and for them to just close down the factories created a vacuum for crime to happen. With all of these people laid off it created the perfect opportunity for others to prey on the innocent.

Life in the Projects 10/12

http://narrative.ly/stories/life-in-public-housing/

This article narrates the personal accounts of people who have lived in the projects in New York and their take on what the “embarrassment and a stigma attached to it [and being] poor at that time” was and is still currently like to experience first-hand (Yvone). These stories represent another angle to the experiences of people coming from the projects as detailed in the film Pruitt-Igoe Myth we watched this week. Many of the people interviewed in this article realize there’s a negative stigma against coming from and/or living in the projects, but are not fully defined by it as outsider might fully define them by it. As Sharon says, “Just because I lived in the projects didn’t mean I had to become the projects.” One man named Yvone says living in the projects was similar to a prison: “It's just so confining to me that it feels like a compound. It feels like a prison. I guess this is how they regulate the poor” which supports reasoning that the ghetto and the prison cycle each other’s social environments and are very similar to one another in culture as Wacquant states in his article we read this week Deadly Symbiosis: When Ghetto and Prison Meet and Mesh.  This article also relates to the documentary by giving a realistic yet more positive view on life in the projects. These people have clearly had multifaceted experiences and their backgrounds are not all composed of negative memories. As Jayro says, “I can see the bad that comes out of the projects, but I can also see the bad that comes out of the wealthier side. Who's to judge which one is better or worse?” This article upholds the notion that public housing may not be exactly the best way to solve the issue of poverty and that these communities continue to cycle people in and out of prison. As Yvone says, “At one point in time, public assistance really helped you move on. Today, public assistance is about keeping you right where you're at. It's indentured servitude, but you never get the chance to work out of it.” Overall, it gives a more personal perspective on those who have experienced life in the projects and supports the ideas that public housing can cycle people into prison and the current system hasn’t solved poverty or racial issues in urban environments.

Wacquant Reading Response

ETHN 3102

Prof. Holmes

Katharine Martin

10/9/15

Reading Response: Wacquant

Upon watching the film, “The Myth of Pruitt-Igoe,” and learning about the demise of a monumental public housing project, the more I realized how similar this “ghetto” of St. Louis was in operation to that of a prison. Although the thought behind Pruitt-Igoe’s development was positive in its goal to house the city’s poor and working classes, the failure to plan for the financial burdens and maintenance of these eleven story apartment buildings, led to the eventual death of Pruitt-Igoe. Urban historians featured in the film discussed the 1949 Housing Act as one that “was used to reshape the city to best suit those in power” (T. M. O. P-I., 2011), as the city attempted to desegregate the projects after Brown vs. Board of Education. However, these attempts resulted in whites leaving the city and the ideal of urban renewal became that of ‘black removal’ from white neighborhoods, as segregation continued to persevere.

Wacquant’s essay, “When Ghetto and Prison Meet and Mash,” directly correlates with Pruitt-Igoe, as it discusses four critical elements of how the ghetto became more like a prison. Firstly, Wacquant discusses the ‘class segregation overlaying the racial segregation’, as low-income families are drawn to projects of public housing within close proximity to their occupations and unemployed welfare recipients are drawn to the opportunity to live nicely and raise their children with the help of federal aid; but what they failed to realize was the freedom they were also surrendering by agreeing to live under the constraints of public housing that coincidentally mirror those constraints of being incarcerated. Wacquant then talks about the ‘loss of positive economic function’ leading to the self-perpetuating cycle of poverty within the projects and Pruitt-Igoe serves as a perfect example of this, as the tenants were responsible for the upkeep of these buildings financially through their rent payments and the racism occurring left many African Americans without the funds to support maintenance of their buildings; thus, the quality of life and physical environment of Pruitt-Igoe began to fade. Violence and vandalism became common in Pruitt-Igoe, as the entirety of the nine building public housing units, gained its poor and dangerous reputations. The federal government’s failure to plan for multiple scenarios to occur as a result of building Pruitt-Igoe, left the government somewhat helpless in the matter; a notion relating to Wacquant’s third premise, ‘state institutions of social control replacing communal institutions.’ Many former residents of Pruitt-Igoe were interviewed in the documentary and one woman discussed how “the police, fire-fighters, and ambulances became the enemy and anything they could do to fight them off they would” (T. M. O. P-I., 2011). This woman’s recount reflects Wacquant’s point that “decrepit public housing that subjected its tenants and the surrounding population to extraordinary levels of criminal insecurity, infrastructural blight and official scorn” (107). Wacquant’s fourth point that the ‘loss of a buffering function and the depacification of everyday life’, perpetuates the ghetto and prison similarities, as the combination of the “wage-labor market and the welfare state (in the context of unflinching segregation)” (Wacquant, 2001: 107), has contributed to our society’s cycle of poverty. The welfare system was highly present in Pruitt-Igoe and it left many women and children without the resources to climb out of poverty; a cycle that convicts experience as well, in that removing one’s self from criminal activity isn’t as simple as it may seem to people who haven’t experienced living in places like Pruitt-Igoe.

References:

Wacquant, Loïc. 2001. “Deadly Symbiosis: When Ghetto and Prison Meet and Mesh.” Punishment and Society 95-121, Thousand Oakes, CA: Sage Publications.

Freidrichs, Chad. 2011. The Myth of Pruitt-Igoe (Documentary). First Run Features.

America's Racial Disappearing 'Act'

America’s Racial Disappearing ‘Act’

“1.5 Million Missing Black Men”  by Justin Wolfers, David Leonhardt, and Kevin Quealy (The New York Times)

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/20/upshot/missing-black-men.html?_r=0

“Deadly Symbiosis: When ghetto and prison meet and mesh” by Loic Wacquant (Punishment & Society)

Presently, increased attention on police brutality and the state-facilitated murder of African American men has brought the United States’ abysmal race relations to the forefront of media and politics. But somehow, the “1.5 million black men missing from everyday life,” as reported by the New York Times this year, is not eliciting sufficient concern from state officials tasked with the safety of American lives. By examining “Deadly Symbiosis” by Loic Wacquant, we see where these African American men have gone. Wacquant traces U.S. history to show how four ‘peculiar institutions’ have been “defining, confining and controlling” African Americans in what is essentially a process of racial engineering by the state (Wacquant, 98).

Wacquant’s theory is that there have been four institutions in American History that have functioned as ‘race-making’ devices which “[draw] and enforce the peculiar ‘color line’” (Wacquant, 98). These institutions are as follows: slavery, the Jim Crow South, the ghetto and finally, the 'hyperghetto' or prison. Wacuant argues that each institution was used as a new way to extract labor and socially ostracize stigmatized African Americans. After slavery was abolished there was a shortage in cheap labor, so the ruling southern class created Jim Crow laws, establishing “forced labor and police laws to get the freedmen back to the fields and under control” (Wacquant, 100). The aggressiveness of these laws forced a migration of African Americans to urban areas in the North for industrial work. White fear of miscegenation led to the creation of the ghetto, which along with restrictive covenants, kept African Americans secluded and segregated from society. Wacquant states that “the prison functions as a ‘judicial ghetto’ relegating individuals disgraced by criminal conviction to a secluded space harboring the parallel social relations and cultural norms that make up ‘a society of captives’” (Wacquant, 103).

Now, how does the disappearance of African American men effect African American women? Remarkably, “black women who are 25 to 54 and not in jail outnumber black men in that category by 1.5 million, according to an Upshot analysis” (New York Times). This was so significant to the division of class because it lead to the reality that in 1980, “three out of every four [African American] households were headed by women” (Wacquant). Single-mother households are statistically less financially stable than households with two parental incomes. I argue that this contributed to the depacification of black communities and the subsequent masculinization of young black men when interacting with each other. Finally, the degeneration of ghettos into “hyperghettos” was marked by a distinct ‘prisonization’ of public and low income housing. African American bodies were already secluded, segregated and then layered with additional state controls such as “police infiltration, random searches, …curfews, and resident counts” (Wacquant, 107).  

It is time for the American public to start examining the institutions that are causing an overwhelming number of African American men to ‘disappear’ from society.  This gap, “driven mostly by incarceration and early deaths, does not exist among whites” (New York Times). This signifies a serious race problem, not just with American society, but more importantly with the judicial & legislative enforcement of the State itself. The disappearance of 1.5 million African American men in the U.S. is not an accident or a magic ‘act.’ Let us call this ‘disappearance’ for what it is: racial engineering by our beloved United States of White Supremacy.

Million Dollar Incarceration raising several questions

Washington Post - Million $ Blocks

Something we discussed this past Monday from the reading on NPR in class is the process of creating these million dollar blocks in popular cities. One city that is drastically affected by these "million dollar blocks" is Chicago. Chicago has always been a center for crime - housing one of the most notorious Mafia bosses in history. Despite it's dark history with the Mob, Chicago has had an epidemic of incarceration ranging from basic drug charges to manslaughter and homicide. While most crimes such as homicide and manslaughter are deemed appropriate for prison time, many of the petty crimes are sucking up taxpayer money. For example, marijuana is classified as a schedule 1 drug, implying that it is against federal law to use and distribute. However, many other states such as Colorado and Washington, decriminalized Marijuana charges which drastically decreased the amount of incarcerations. In order to prevent these million dollar blocks, there needs to be massive reform. We need to figure out how we can properly incarcerate individuals who need it, and find ways to sift out those charges that are not necessary. We are pouring money into neighborhoods who will continue to have high rates of incarceration. This is because we do not have the infrastructure to properly invest into these neighborhoods (reducing crime rates over time), and instead we have taken the easy route out by just throwing the trouble makers in prison and having taxpayers pay for it - in hopes that prison time will prevent people from re-committing crimes.

So the main question is: What would happen if we re-directed our resources from mass incarceration costs, to investing in poor neighborhoods?

While it isn't as easy as it sounds, it is still feasible. By decriminalizing many charges such as Marijuana, we can reduce the amount of people going into the prison system drastically. With that money alone you can invest into struggling neighborhoods through institutions such as schooling and public works (parks and recreational maintenance). Many of the individuals in these million dollar blocks do not have the opportunities that others have. By investing and restoring struggling neighborhoods (obviously not through public housing - because that failed miserably) we can open up new paths for individuals who wouldn't of had those options prior. As a country that is shoulder deep in it's own debt, we need to find solutions like this where we can work to reduce our misfortune. The easiest way to tackle a large number of incarcerations is to decriminalize Marijuana. Until then, we are going to continue to see skyrocketing rates of incarcerations in today's society.

Kunzel: Blogpost #1

Katharine Martin

Blog post #1

Kunzel

            Ben Carson, a likely republican candidate in the upcoming Presidential election, discussed his views on sexuality in relation to the prison system during an interview he did last march and his conservative views reflect those similar to early penitentiaries trying to control homosexual activities. Carson claims that homosexuality is a choice “because a lot of people who go into prison go into prison straight—and when they come out, they’re gay” (Carson 2015), dismissing any possibility at sexual orientation being biological. In Kunzel’s reading, she discusses the early prison systems trying to regulate the sexual activity of its inmates by better understanding why they are engaging in homosexuality. The first ever federal inspectors of prisons, Joseph Fishman, was in important figure in this process of understanding, because he amongst others, was able to deem the homosexuality among men in their prisons as acts of despair and sexual deprivation overpowering their original attraction to women. Scientists also became monumental in understanding homosexuality under the larger realm of sexology (study of sex), as it became popularized during the late 1800s. Like Ben Carson, Joseph Wilson and Victor Nelson also didn’t see homosexuality as a biological differentiation, but as a constituted behavior in the specific setting of the prison. Clearly, we know much more than people like Joseph Wilson and Victor Nelson did, whom wrote about prison in their book, which is why Ben Carson’s comment is to problematic now a days. It is considered politically incorrect to refer to sexuality as a choice and if this man intends to run for President, he may need to change his mantra to gain any support from the LGBTQ community. The article states what Ben Carson needs to realize perfectly, “A change in sexual behavior doesn’t necessarily equate to a change in sexual orientation” (CNN 2015) and we have the prison system to thank as an outlet for providing us with this important knowledge.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/mar/04/ben-carson/ben-carson-many-prisoners-go-straight-come-out-gay/

In the reading the author talks about the two different types of prison. The two types of prisons are the Auburn and the Philadelphia style prison. The Philadelphia prison style is based off isolation and thinks that the individual that is isolated and has time to think and reflect on the crime they committed and often drove prisoner insane according to according to kunzel pt. 1 page 19. The auburn style allows prisoners to develop a community within the prison, allowing prisoners to comfort each other pains and often encouraged conflict labor. I was watching an interview on YouTube with one of my favorite rappers Kevin Gates. Kevin Gates has been in and out of prison and the way he described prison sounded like it was an auburn type of prison. Kevin Gates said that Prison was the best thing that ever happened to him, he later goes on to explain he earned his master’s in philosophy in prison and he said he seen more respect in prison than out of prison. He said “That’s the most respect on earth”  for example when he brushed his teeth he would spit in the toilet because he knew  if he spit in the sink that somebody has to come wash their hands or face in the same space in just spit. He said you have to think about it, there is people in here that are never getting out so this (referring to the prison) is there home and you have to respect it.  Sounds like his experience prison the Auburn style allowed him to build relationships with other cell mates and showed him how intelligent individuals are in prison. If he was in a Philadelphia style prison he may not have had the same experience since he would often be in isolation.