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The vulnerable African American male

Dickson Igwe. Photo: VINO/File
By Dickson Igwe

The following story is a narrative on African American society. It is the last of a series on criminality and deviance in the black inner city area of the USA. The story describes the research sociologists’ use of the low income US Black Neighbourhood and Inner City, as a model of study on crime and deviance in black community.

Albeit, the article views black criminality and deviance through a white academic establishment perspective: that viewpoint however, holds a number of valid and useful lessons for the Caribbean Society. 

The proceeding is an assessment of a narrative in The Commentary Magazine of May 21, 2015, penned by Amy Wax titled, "Negatively Sixth Street." 

The objective of the series of narratives is to determine whether deviance and social dysfunction are a choice, or whether they are behaviours that are controlled by factors outside of the deviant’s or criminal’s control.

Sociologist Amy Wax quotes researcher Alice Goffman who asserts that, “out of wedlock children and short term serial relationships are the rule for almost all the men in the neighbourhood.” This shows that contrary to received wisdom, reducing the number of black men in prison won’t restore committed fathers and stable families to black neighbourhoods.”

Goffman is resigned to the belief that black men in these areas are destined to run afoul of the law. “They are expected to,” resist and lash out at police and defy every effort to bring them to heel.”

So is criminality and deviance a choice? Or are these evils a product of an environment that puts the black male at a severe social and economic disadvantage?

Goffman puts it this way. “Although many young black men end up caught in a web of lawlessness, many others do not.”

This is evidence that these black men are “not inexorably trapped by impossible circumstances, or doomed by a stacked criminal justice system, or designed for a life on the run.”

Goffman hits the nail on the head when she writes that, “what seems to distinguish the fugitives, from the neighbourhood men that escape their fate, is poor judgment, an attitude of defiance, and bad choices repeatedly made.”

Key questions are asked and assessed in the research: “can making different choices lead to better outcomes? And are those choices available? Do young black men have a meaningful opportunity to take a different path?’’ According to the research, the answers to those preceding questions, based on young black males that made different choices in the same neighbourhood, is a resounding yes.

Goffman states that, “the road to self-improvement may be taxing and tedious, but it is not blocked by forces beyond the control of these young black males. Poverty makes things more difficult. However, bad habits, bad attitudes, and negative peer pressure can be surmounted and tamed. These men can achieve better lives.”

How? “The key choices are to work steadily, and stay on the right side of the law.”

“The odds can be improved by graduating from high school and getting married before having children.”

The researcher states that, “this success sequence does not guarantee riches or even comfort, but very few who stick to it are poor.”

On the other hand, “as long as so many young men choose crime, then the available options are grim.”

Wax ends her article with a sermon. Good neighbourhoods rest upon a law abiding citizenry. A society of lawbreakers can never be a decent one. There are no surrogates for rectitude. There are no substitutes for an upright populace. There are no fixes for a lawless society.

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4 Responses to “The vulnerable African American male”

  • .... (18/07/2015, 10:50) Like (0) Dislike (1) Reply
    I love the hat
  • I (18/07/2015, 17:40) Like (2) Dislike (0) Reply
    nothing has decimated the black race as much as christianity.
  • Hello?? (18/07/2015, 21:47) Like (0) Dislike (0) Reply
    so it seems like he will never touch local issues..oh well he has lost a reader
    • Yousay (20/07/2015, 08:54) Like (0) Dislike (0) Reply
      Local issues will take bread off his plate. Them done warn he he's a Civil Servant so he has to be civil as a servant of those who grant him his pay.


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