The Code Of The Street

Street Culture is known or may be called as A Code Of The Street (informal rules governing interpersonal public behavior, including violence).

Decent and Street. These two orientations socially organize the community, and their coexistence has important consequences for residents, particularly children growing up in the inner city. Such enviroment means that "even youngsters whose home lives reflect mainstream values, and the majority of homes in the community do, must be able to handle themselves in a street oriented envioroment" (Pg.75 from Adler text book).

Decent families "generally working poor" tend to accept mainstream values more fully and attempt to instill them in their children. Aware of the envioroment they live in, decent families tend to be strict in their child-rearing practices, encouraging children to respect authority and walk a straight moral line. And that's exactly why my family try to teach to their kids...for them moral values such as respect for others is one of the most important thing any human need to grow with in order to be good people in this society. My grandma says: "my family is poor but we are respecful and we understand the meaning of it".

They are polite and considerate of others, and teach their children to be the same way. In contrast, street parents, often show a lack of consideration for other people and have superficial sense of family and community (Pg.77)

The attitudes of our society are implicated in the code of the streets. Most people in inner city communities are not totally invested in the code, but the significant minority do (youth who are have to maintain the code in order to establish reputations) because they have few other ways to assert themselves. Some Young black people "will consciously invest themselves and their considerable mental resources in what amounts to an oppositional culture to preserve themselves and their self respect" (Pg.85). Less young blacks have assumed a stret oriented demeanor as a way of expressing their blackness while really embracing a much more moderate way of life; they, too want a nonviolent setting in which to live and raise a family. These decent people are trying hard to be part of the mainstream cultrue, but the racism, helps them to legitimate the oppositional culture.

Black Spaces,Black Places

According to the prevailing view, blacks have undergone cultural assimilation or acculturation, but racism impedes their structural assimilation, that is, integration into mainstream "social cliques, clubs and institutions at the primary group level" leading some theorits to the conclusion that the assimilation model is most useful for understanding the incorporation of voluntary immigrants, not native gorn blacks who entered de US involuntarily and were selectively incorporated through enslavement (Pg.202).

An example of growing up around blacks we can see it on Michael from Riverton(Pg.206). He stated: "I can tell black people that didn't grow up around other blak people, cause they are different...I haven't been able to put my finger on it. It's either the expression, the way they give five, I mean its just something they missed; and that's not positive or negative, they just don't have an ingredient (Pg.206)

Blacks who did grow up around other black people hold a more salient racial identity than those who did not. Both groups believe that racial identity is suturued primarily through social interaction in the black world, and that black who miss the experience fail to interpret correctly the cultural cues group members use to draw boundaries around the black world (Pg.207)

Gender Identity

In our society an infant's external genitalia are visually inspected moments after birth, and, in most cases, he or she is immediately identified as a boy or a girl. The psychiatrist Robert Stoller once observed that "one can see evidence" of children's "unquestioned femininity or masculinity" by the time they begin to walk (Pg.99 from Adler text book 2nd ed).
"Although adults sometimes instruct young children about the defining anatomical characteristics of males and females, those instructions are often more confusing than enlightening in a society in which bodies are typically clothed" (pg.101). Young children learn about gender once they start to observe themselves, observe parents and people surround them; also by "practical experimentation transforming power of appearance management encourages them to embrace behaviorally their sex class identities" (pg.106).

"People Like Us"

The film help us to understand why we are treated different depending of our social class, and education. People look at us sometimes differenty just because how we look, the people we are surronded with, our neighborhood, the food we eat and the social club we are enroll in. It's hard to believe but unfortunally we live in a world where we are judged by our looks.

Are Human Beings Free?

There is not freedom in the world when so much of what we do is caused by forces that we hardly even understand. I agree on what Charon states in pg.110 when he says: "Freedom is an illusion that people are taught". Freedom means control, understanding and choice. Control is the essence of freedom. For example, if it is a family, society, unconsciousness, emotions, impulse, habit, social class, culture that cause what we do or think, or severely limit our choices, then freedom does not exist (pg.113 from Charon text book, Chapter 5)

Freedom involves thinking. To act without thinking is to act without freedom. Also, to act with thinking that is controlled by others is to act without freedom. Without freedom to think, freedom to act is an empty freeedom because action is guided by ideas, values, and norm given to us by others or by the larger society (pg.116). To ilustrate, a child raised in an educated family may pursuit education no only because he or she wants to but, also due to the enviorement he or she grew on. What we see and learned from our parent usually stay with us. Another example: We do not eat because we just want to put something in our mouth, we do eat because our organism, our body feel for it and send some message to our brain that make us act in accordance to it.

About the way upper class institutions function to keep those at the top and keep others out, I do not agree with this. As Human Beings we all have a chance to decide, go and do whatever we want to. Opportunities "should be equal for everybody".

The only new idea that came to me across this reading is: Thinking is an important aspect of human behavior. If I am in control of what I do, then my thinking is central to that control. We can only be free if we can move without being controlled externally or internally, when only we as a person can control ourselves. Difficult to act like but, no imposible either.

Dumhoff "Who Rules America?"

1. What does the term ‘wealth distribution’ describe?

Has to do with the concentration of ownership of marketable assets, which may include tangibles such as stocks, bonds and copyrights, also insurance polices, houses, cars, and furniture.

2. Look at the chart on p. 197. Has wealth become more concentrated in the wealthy sections of the population of the U.S. since 1983? Has the net worth of the wealthy gone up or down during that time period?

No at all. From 1982-1992 Only 1% of the population has got some wealth, the other 99% has descrease. Comparing results from 1983 to 1992 the net has also decrease. As we can see on the table the net worth has decrease on the 80% of the population, by 1983 it was 18.7 and on 1992 it was 16.3. In other words it has decrease 2.4% But for the wealthy that is only 1% of the population we can see that by 1983-1989 the net worth increase 5.2% (1983 it was 33.8, 1989 39.2) but, by 1992 it went down to 37.2 There was not any significant change.

3. What kinds of schools do they go to?

They receive a distinctive education. This education begins early in life in preschools that frequently are attached to a neighborhood, church or high social status. Schooling continues during the elementary years at a local private school called a day school. During the adolescent years the student may remain at day school, but there is a strong chance that at least one or two years will be spent away from home at a boarding school in a quiet rural setting. Higher education will take place at one of a small number of heavily endowed private colleges and universities.

4. How are their schools different from public schools in terms of language and culture?

For example, in those private schools the principal is a headmaster or rector, the teachers are sometimes called masters, and the students are in forms, not grades. Great emphasis is placed on the building of "character." The role of the school in preparing the future leaders of America is emphasized through the speeches of the headmaster and the frequent mention of successful alumni.

5. What are their jobs?

Their job is to create a feeling of separateness and superiority that comes from having survived a rigorous education. Eving Goffman calls "total institutions," isolating their members from the outside world and providing them with a set of routines and traditions that encompass most of their waking hours.
"At school we were made to feel somewhat better than other people becuase of our class. That existed, and I've always disliked it intensely. Unfortunately, I'm afraid some of these things rub off on one." states a retired business leader.

6. How does their lifestyle become institutionalized, and made into a relatively permanent structure? What is an example of one way that this happens?

A majority of private schools graduates pursue careers in business, finance, or corporate law. For example, a classification of the occupations of a sample of the graduates of four private schools like St.Mark's, Groton, Hotchkiss, and Andover showed that the most frequent occupation for all but the Andover graduates was some facet of finance and banking. Others became presidents of medium-size businesses or were partners in large corporate law firms. A small handful went to work as executives for major national coorporations.

Why are people unequal in society?

Every time we interact with one another, inequality emerges in some form or another. Individual qualities, for example, not only will differentiate us from one another but also often will become the basis for inequality between us. Pg.78 (Charon text book)
Webber writes that we are unequal in three orders, in society: the economic, the social order, and the political order. Which it can be translate into class; race, ocupation, education, gender, and ethnic group membership; and political positon.

It's important to note that almost every sociologist who tries to explain inequality brings in the process called "the division of labor". To Karl Max this is central an it is economic: Economic activities eventually lead to a division of labor in society, where people do increasingly different things from one another. Division of labor inevitably brings advantages to some people over others. Pg.80 (chapter 4 from charon text book) Division of labor can also be found in families, in friendship groups, in school, in churches...wherever there is a social organization.
Immigration. The way some immigrants are treated, the way they live and conditions of work to what they are exposed to, is a good subject to show the inequality that exists in this world.

In the Garza article Pg232-239(addler text book) I could learn more about mexican immigration and I got to respect and appreciate even more those human beings. We are all immigrants and as human beings we should respect one another. We are all equals no matter status, race, gender, religion...we have to love one another. Love to be loved and respect to be respected. It's hard to say it but inequality in this world will never go away.