In fact, everyone in American society has to read this book, because it allows the reader to understand the segregated American society throughout the history of Charlotte. Hatchett’s book is a type of book that gives an “aha moment” for the reader to understand why history is important. It lets the reader to make connections between the past and the present and makes us think how we become what we are right now. The author allows to do so by sharing his insightful analysis of the change of Charlotte from 1875 to 1975. His information not only helps to learn about history of Charlotte at that specific time but also the notion of the “segregated” social structure of our
Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America In the book “Ghettoside”, Jill Leovy talks about black-on-black crimes, which is a very relevant issue today in the United States, blacks are suffering from the lack of effective criminal justice system, the lack of cooperation from the witnesses, and how sickening it is for a family to lose someone because of homicide. An officer named John Skaggs, who is the main protagonist of the story. Leovy described John Skaggs as compassionate and relentless. Skaggs would be assigned to solve the murder case of Bryan Tenelle, a son of a homicide detective named Wallace Tenelle.
Laurie Anderson’s historical fiction book, Fever 1793, takes place in Philadelphia during the 1700s. This book mentions about a girl and her family living during the Yellow Fever epidemic. Throughout the story Mattie loses and gains family members while they are trying to protect her. Mattie goes through one of the worst epidemics in the history of Philadelphia, and her family tries to take care of her during it. Anderson uses description and imagery in the story to portray the theme, family is always trying to protect each other.
Larson’s use of juxtaposition between the “Black City” and the “White City” displays the different effect of the fair. Contrasting “garbage” and “clean,” he displays a new and improved Chicago after the fair commenced. This conveys to the readers as a significant change from a polluted devastation to a refreshing and “pure” society. Furthermore, the new “White City” introduced many benefits from the fair such as ambulance services and electric streetlights, this serves as a positive and innovative effect for the readers. Moreover, Chicago’s major transformation from the “smoke and garbage” of the “Black City” shows how much of an impact the fair exhibited on the readers and the
In his Book, Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor, Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh, explains that in the early-nineties while doing field work in the Southside of Chicago he gravitated to a predominantly working-poor black community near his field site (ix). Venkatesh describes the ten-squared block community as being in disrepair very much like the high-rises that were being torn down in the surrounding area (iv). In the presence of some “greystones” and “brownstones” Venkatesh noticed vacant lots, beat-up homes, and what he perceived to be inadequate city involvement in the community -streets need fixing, and trash pick-up was lacking (x). There were also closed storefronts and burned-out buildings in the area (Venkatesh, 92).
Elijah Anderson is the William K. Lanman professor of Sociology at Yale University with special interests in urban inequality, ethnography, special deviance, cultural sociology, race relations, and theory. He has held many leadership roles such as being one of the top leading urban ethnographers and social theorists in the United States. He has served on the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. His other leadership roles include being the vice president of the American Sociological Association; editor for professional journals and publications such as Qualitative Sociology, Ethnography, American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, City and Community, Annals of the Society of Political and Social Science, and the International Journal of Urban and regional Research; and consultant to the White House, U.S. Congress, National Academy of Science, and the National Science
Have you ever felt safe somewhere, but realized your only protection was ignorance? In Jacqueline Woodson’s When a Southern Town Broke a Heart, she introduces the idea that as you grow and change, so does your meaning of home. Over the course of the story, Woodson matures and grows older, and her ideas about the town she grew up in become different. When she was a nine year old girl, Woodson and her sister returned to their hometown of Greenville, South Carolina by train. During the school year, they lived together in Downtown Brooklyn, and travelled to.
Anderson begins the section by explaining that there are two separate cultures in inner-city neighborhoods. The first are the “decent” this group is defined by commitment to “middle-class values,” (101). However, they are not mainstream in that they
In each Wes’s life, their peers had indeed often influenced them for the worse. The peers from the environment the Weses grew up in had spread the customs, values, ideals, and generally the entire culture of that environment to them. This environment the Weses were born into were the streets of the Baltimore region in Maryland in the latter half of the 1970s. While by 1984 the author Wes and his family had moved in with their grandparents into the similar environment of the Bronx, New York, where his grandparents had a similar positive, protective influence on him as his mother, the other Wes for the most part remained in the Baltimore area. This environment is that of poverty, drugs, and crime, and its culture has formed from these conditions.
The settings portrayed in City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit, a novel by Elmore Leonard, and The Maltese Falcon, a detective novel by Dashiell Hammet were closely related while occurring in to cities on complete opposite sides of the country. Both Raymond Cruz and Sam Spade are sharp, old fashioned, and gritty characters. When it comes to the descriptions of these characters, the correlation between them and the city that they are in is iconic. The way they act throughout the novels relates to the city’s historically old fashioned mannerisms. Though they both share many attributes of the past times with the size and standards, we see more of the ruthlessness in Detroit from the apparent racism and the compact housing of the big city.
In the 1910s and 1920s, the Philadelphia Waterfront was the home of one of the most enduring, multiethnic unions in the United States at the time. Most unions during this period segregated and rejected blacks; the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) wanted racial equality. In particular, Local 8 had a majority of African Americans, Eastern Europeans, and Irish Americans. Local 8 was an interracial, multiethnic labor union. When the United States entered the war, the longshoremen in Philadelphia helped to serve the nation, yet they used the war as an opportunity to improve their wages.
The suddenly quiet city seems like it should be strange, but to this society, Leonard’s actions are what is truly odd. This society would
The sheriff punished the Kid more strongly than before by putting him in jail. But a pattern that would soon become deadly and familiar, he shinnied up the chimney that was in his cell, and escaped (Cantor, 116; Green and Sanford, 5-6). Growing up in Silver City left a mark on young Billy’s life. Where he came from it was very violent. Men always carried around guns and they were quick to use them.
That is, Sara works tirelessly to escape the impoverished Hester Street on the lower east side of Manhattan in order to put herself through college and become a teacher despite resistance from her family. Although Sara’s quest contains both aids and obstacles, she is ultimately able to achieve personhood unlike her sisters and mother, which conveys Yezierska’s message that, even though you cannot completely escape your roots, class mobility is possible in modern American society. While unexpected, one can argue that Sara’s economic and social positions are two of the biggest factors that help aid her quest. As a member of a poor, immigrant family, Sara is undoubtedly a member of the lowest economic and social classes possible. However, the best
Society in today’s world is very alike to society years ago, with different social classes and stereotypes. In “Just walk on by” by Brent staples, a variety of rhetorical devices are used in order to convey the message of how a black man is trying to show society that he is so much more than the color of his skin. The author explains how the character was characterized as violent and dangerous because he was black. Staples continues on a sort of journey with the character to show how he overcomes that stereotype, by whistling classical music to give the idea that he is mature and less threatening. Throughout the piece, Staples uses devices that will help the reader better understand the struggles that the character has to face on a daily basis.
