Between Good and Ghetto: African American Girls and Inner-City Violence

Chapter 1: The Social World of Inner-City Girls

20 Chapter 1 The Social World of Inner-City Girls MAINSTREAM AMERICAN SOCIETY commonly assumes that women and girls do not fight like boys and men. We like to think that women and girls shy away from conflict and physical aggression. Popular representations of mean girls who fight only with body language and relationships and not with fists or knives typify and reinforce mainstream beliefs about genderbased differences in the use of physical force (Simmons 2002; Wiseman 2003). Yet, not all girls can so easily cast aside any consideration of the use of physical aggression. Some girls, like those featured in this book, learn early on that they must be prepared to fight for their survival. Social scientists often overlook the fact that today’s inner-city girl comes of age in the same distressed neighborhoods as those of her male counterparts. Inner-city girls are not isolated from the social consequences of racial segregation , concentrated poverty, and inner-city violence. As the narratives of the adolescent girls in this book show, inner-city girls are touched—figuratively, literally, and daily—by violence. In contrast to the relatively sheltered lives of middle-class, suburban girls, African American inner-city girls’ lives are shaped by the salience of the drug trade, a widespread distrust of social institutions and social relationships, and regular exposure to chaotic and too often violent conditions, whether at school or in the neighborhood . These girls see other adolescent girls fight with fists and knives and sometimes they do so too. The Social World of Inner-City Girls 21 The ethnographic observations, scenes, and portraits in this book show how the circumstances of inner-city life shape the social world of today’s inner-city girl. These stories elucidate the settings that adolescent inner-city girls share with teenaged boys and men, yet show how gender mediates their interactions within the same social space. As with poor Black boys, the circumstances under which these girls live demand an understanding of how to manage threats of interpersonal violence in these settings. At the same time, socializing girls for innercity survival presents new challenges and dilemmas for African American grandmothers, mothers, and “othermothers” who are bringing girls up in this setting.1 These challenges, among others , are revealed in the ethnographic portrait of one inner-city girl’s attempt to respond to a violent attack that concludes this chapter. Taken together, these stories highlight important aspects of the social world of inner-city girls and help us to better understand how those who care for these girls manage the chaos that too often characterizes their lives. The Urban Terrain: School, the Block, and the Corner Like that of other adolescent girls in America, the social world of the inner-city girl is significantly shaped by her interactions and experiences in a few key settings, most notably, her home, her school, and her neighborhood. In some ways, urban public high schools are a lot like other large public high schools in urban and suburban areas around the country. The school days in urban high schools go through periods of relative calm and relative chaos. Between classes, students crowd the hallways in boisterous swarms. The schools’ corridors and stairwells pulse with the high energy of adolescence. The noise fades as the hallways empty and the classrooms fill, echoing the daily rhythm of school life across the nation. But a lack of order, a sense that things are “out of control,” as Naima, one my B e t w e e n G o o d a n d G h e t t o 22 respondents, says, distinguishes many urban public schools from schools with more institutional support and economic resources. During a visit to Martin Luther King (MLK) High, for example, I breathed in the lingering scent of marijuana that clings to some students as they make their way through the front-entrance security checks. Graduates and others familiar with the school suggested to me that security guards ignore students who arrive at school high on marijuana because the drug makes the young people less difficult to deal with. But even security violations the guards are actively interested in preventing—including bringing weapons onto school grounds— occur with regularity. Innovative students find ways around the security checkpoint; others are adept at fooling the school security systems. During the several-month period that I visited the “Prison on the Hill...