Book Review: We Beat The Street

In the article “The Prisoner” by Skip Hollandsworth tells the life story of Edwin Debrow, a young boy who grows up in the streets and fell into an out of control spiral when he joined the neighborhood gang. Edwin Debrow will go on to kill a taxi driver at the age of 12 and would now spend most of his life in jail. The author who has done numerous stories about kids and their tragic life has now focused on the case of Edwin

Piri Thomas’s book Down These Mean Streets takes place in the mid-20th century it incorporates both the harshness of living in an unforgivable environment (Harlem) and the life style that is based on skin pigmentation (that of being a Dark Puerto Rican). Piri is a strong yet brash willed person who finds himself trying to do right but yet finds himself going down a different path. It’s able to break his life in to eatable segments that is easy for not only the reader to comprehend. This is presented in each chapter and sub-chapter enabling us (the reader) to understand the both the theme and the time era.

In the book We Beat The Streets by Drs. Sampson Davis, George Jenkins, and Rameck Hunt with Sharon M. Draper, the tree doctors had to overcome the ghetto projects in Plainfield and Newark while growing up. First, They had to overcome money problems; money problems where a problem all the time for example in the chapter “ How much do you need?” His grandma gives Rameck, one of the three doctors money for a portfolio to be in a play. It was $150 that his grandma gave him to become an actor, but when he got to his house his grandma told him not to give the money to his mom. Ramecks mom did drug, she spent all of the money on drug and their power was out and his little sister needed food. His mom asked for the money to turn the power on but Rameck

They were all from various groups of people and different hoods. They all had one major thing in common, to beat the street. They did not want to be sucked into all the street situations. They made a pact and promised each other they would make it. They all wanted to end up as doctors.

Alex Kotlowitz’s There Are No Children Here is a documentary exploring life in inner-city Chicago during the late 1980’s. The book follows the lives of two African American youth, Lafeyette and Pharoah Rivers, who live in Chicago’s Horner Homes over the course of two years. It tells of a lifestyle that is a reality for many Americans and forces the reader to acknowledge a broken system that so many turn a blind eye toward. Kotlowitz does not sugarcoat the struggles and hardships that the citizens of the inner-city face every single day. The Rivers’ boys, like all the children of inner-cities, experience situations and know of unimaginable horrors that rob them of their innocence and childhoods. Lafeyette and Pharoah have to face and overcome many forces that can change their lives for the worst, such as: gangs and drugs, the social system, the Chicago Housing Authority, and the battle within them to give into the worst of society. Sociological concepts, including: racism, strain theory, and social stratification can explain some of the exploitation of Lafeyette and Pharoah.

The memoir begins its timeline in Andre’s adolescence. Going to school, he is petrified of violence and refuses to participate in any fights, despite them consuming his surrounding environment. It wasn’t abnormal for a fight to occur after school, and everyone in the area loved it. Throughout the multiple neighborhoods he lived in, and at schools he attended, there were always kids that kept their eye out for someone smaller than them to beat up and he was the perfect target. One of his very first encounters with

The novel ‘Runner’ by Robert Newton describes the slums of Richmond, where life was really difficult for the Feehan family and the general community. Charlie Feehan is lucky enough to win the prime job, running messages for Squizzy Taylor, who is the most dangerous gangster in Melbourne. But things start to get a little too dangerous for Charlie so he decides to quit the job and run in the Ballarat Mile Race. Life was tough in Richmond and it was the support and love that family and friends gave each other that gave everyone the fuel needed to keep going through these difficult times. The following points will be discussed throughout this extended response; Mr Redmond’s family looking out for the Feehan’s, Charlie using his money for Alice’s

The Book “Fist Stick Knife Gun” by Geoffrey Canada is a biographical account of his childhood in the south Bronx. He and his 4 brothers were raised by only their mother. She would survive on no more than ten dollars a week. He moved several times as a child until finally landing on union avenue, the place were many of his life lessons were learned and at times applied. He learned about the ranking process of kids on union Ave. and how the only way to improve your status was to use your fists to fight your way up the chain. Looking back Geoffrey Canada notices the major shift in attitudes concerning the rules of the streets. What once was harmless fist fighting has now turned over to

The Book "Fist Stick Knife Gun" by Geoffrey Canada is a biographical account of his childhood in the south Bronx. He and his 4 brothers were raised by only their mother. She would survive on no more than ten dollars a week. He moved several times as a child until finally landing on union avenue, the place were many of his life lessons were learned and at times applied. He learned about the ranking process of kids on union Ave. and how the only way to improve your status was to use your fists to fight your way up the chain. Looking back Geoffrey Canada notices the major shift in attitudes concerning the rules of the streets. What once was

The Baltimore Sun newspaper supplied an article about Wes Moore, a local who had just earned a Rhodes Scholarship. The same paper also ran a series of stories about four men who had robbed a jewelry store and allegedly been involved in the killing of a police officer. The police were still on the hunt for two of the suspects, who were also brothers. One of the two was named Wes Moore. After the newspaper ran the stories about the robbery, the manhunt, and the trial, Wes, the scholar, wrote a letter to the other Wes, a now convicted murderer who was serving a life sentence at Jessup Correctional Institution. His letter contained a jarring question: How did their lives end up so different? That first letter led to an ongoing correspondence in which the two discovered that a teens’ success is decided by his environment, education, and the expectations held to him.

Once upon a time, A kid that goes by the name of Demario went to school in chicago’s worst neighborhoods. Englewood area was not the best area to live in. Comparison to the Englewood in California. Demario was a humble teenager. He has a twin brother who goes by the name of Demacio. Demario was the oldest by one whole minute. They both attended Johnson college prep a local charter school ( high school ). The streets in englewood was every mans for themselves. They both lived by the motto “You live or die in chicago”.

Instantly, I discovered that this was going to be my favorite reading from the three books we were required to read. Elijah Anderson is winning me over with his informative book with an effort to understand and explain violence and related problems in the inner-city. In addition, with him addressing the inner-city black America on how we are stereotyped as a place of random violence due to the “code of the streets”. Yes we, meaning myself included because as a young African American women who have experienced, witnessed, or encountered cultural violence first hand within my low-class neighborhood quote on quote the “ghetto” where I grew up and currently reside now, which is an apartment complex in Washington, D.C. northeast area called Paradise

Throughout the article “The Code of the Streets,” Elijah Anderson explains the differences between “decent” and “street” people that can be applied to the approaches of social control, labeling, and social conflict theories when talking about the violence among inner cities due to cultural adaptations.

Back in the 1920s, Black Wall Street, the name fittingly given to one of the most affluent all-Black communities in America, was bombed from the air and burned to the ground by mobs of envious Whites. This area was known for being one of the most successful and wealthiest black communities in the United States during the early 20th Century. Sadly, due to the area creating great wealth for the black community is was destroyed in a riot caused by the Ku Klux clan.

In the novel, The Street by Ann Petry the main character Lutie Johnson, a black woman is a single mother raising her son Bub in 1944 Harlem. Lutie, separated from her husband Jim faces many challenges including poverty, sexism, and racism. Children, like her son Bub, living in poverty in the 1940’s cared for themselves while single mothers like Lutie were working; the same is still true today. Lutie was trying to earn a living in order to get Bub and herself out of Harlem, and into a neighborhood where Bub would have a better living conditions including school. Bub was afraid to be alone in their apartment so he spent a great deal of time on the street around external influences that were not the ideal. The street educated Bub instead of the school system. In Harlem, in 1944, poor, black children advanced though the school system whether they were able to read and write or not, the same is true for impoverished children today. In Bub’s neighborhood, his schoolteacher was a white woman who was prejudice against Bub and his classmates based on their skin color and their economic situation. Children like Bub, living in impoverished communities, do not have access to good education and miss the opportunity that education brings due to racism and poverty.