On Race & Ethnicity at Towson vs. Silver Spring

One of the things I enjoy most about my decision to stay in the state of Maryland for college is that here at Towson I get to meet people from all over the state. Meeting people from my own county (Montgomery) as well as other counties such as Carroll, Allegeny, and Hartford to name a few, has opened my eyes to some of the unique racial and ethnic demographics of where I grew up. Silver Spring is located just outside the D.C. border. This means that people from literally all over the world visit and move to the area. Within a block of each other you can get authentic Itallian, Greek, Indian and Jamaican food.

In grade school I was used to a rough racial breakdown of about 35% Latino, 25% White, 25% Black and about 15% other (Asian, Indian, pacific Islander etc). With this approximate demographic being the norm for just about all of my childhood, I had come to the belief that white people were just another race and not the majority.

When I got to Towson, I was quite surprised when I realized that white students made up the bulk of the population. It felt strange not to be in one of the smaller racial categories. What was even stranger was that when I started making friends with white students from other counties I was shocked to find out that by  their standards, Towson was much more racially diverse than their town of origin.

I feel spoiled in many ways by the fact that I have been in such diverse settings my whole life. After realizing that in most of the country, whites are the overwhelming majority of the population, I just cannot see myself moving to many parts of this great Nation for fear of living in a culturally sterile environment.

Resident patterns in my own life

One concept from Cultural Anthropology that I feel relates to my life is the concept of residential patterns among family. Initially my parents broke the norm set by their parents by marrying outside of the Faith. My father is Roman Catholic and my mother is Jewish (an example of exogamy). More interesting, however is the difference in residence patterns on my respective parents side of the family. On my father's side of the family, the trend is to live partilocaly, or near the father's house. Of my Dad's four brothers and sister, none of them live outside of the state of Maryland. In fact, one of my father's brothers lives 5 houses up the street from my Grandparents.

Contrasting this is that on my mother's side of the family no one seems to live near my grandmother or at least by their own choosing. Originally raised near Philly, my Mom moved to Maryland, her brother moved to Alabama, and her sister moved to North Carolina. My Grandmother eventually moved near my Aunt's house but the general trend is completely contrary to what my father's side did.

I am not sure why there are such radical differences. My mother's brother moved to Alabama to be with his (then) wife and my mother's sister moved because her husband's job moved down to NC. I just don't understand how no one on my father's side of the family managed to find employment or opportunity outside of Maryland's borders.

As for myself, I cannot really say where I will  end up in life. Will I follow my in my Mom's footsteps and move away

Globalization, Music & Me

As a musician and music lover, globalization has deeply affected the way I discover new music and find new fans for my own projects.

Americans have always consumed music from other parts of the world. Classical music has its roots in western Europe and later eastern and northern Europe. Tchaikovsky, a romantic era composer from Russia has had much success with American audiences. Most Americans are familiar with the Nutcracker suite and many 4th of July celebrations include fireworks set to the 1812 Overture (despite the fact that the piece is about Russia's defeat of the French, not the American war of 1812). Unfortunately, it took many years for Tchaikovsky's music to reach stateside and so, he was never able to truly appreciate his overseas success.

Now however, due to social media such as myspace and Facebook, new artists and bands can reach new fans in a matter of seconds. Taking a quick glance at my ipod, I find as many bands from Europe as I do from the states. The reason for this is because I find out about a lot new music via blogs, both the heavily funded and advertised kind as well as the more underground variety. The bloggers who run these sites are not concerned with nationality, ethnicity or race; they just want to find the best possible music the world has to offer. Consecutive blog posts might cover bands from Norway, The United States, The United Kingdom, Singapore and Brazil.

For my own musical endeavors, I can see that the trend of globalization has done wonders for speading my bands' music. For one of my bands, about a quarter of the fans we have made through facebook have been from Eastern Europe. for my other band, many of our fans are from Central and South America. Neither of these projects has been signed by a proper record label, but thanks to the world wide web we don't need one to reach international fandom.

Gang Leader for a Day Review

Basil Chiasson

November 21^st 2011

Anth 201-004

Yellow Card

Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Street by Sudhir Venkatesh. New York. Penguin Books, 2008, 238 pp US $16.00

            In his book Gang Leader For a Day, graduate sociology student Sudhir Venkatesh performs research on people living in the Robert Taylor projects located on the South side of Chicago. In his research, he interviews and observes project tenants including: squatters, pimps, prostitutes, police officers, local community leaders, street hustlers and the members of the community who simply try to survive in the projects. Venkatesh uncovers many truths about the projects that may never have been told without his research.

Initially, Venkatesh’s research is traditional surveying of  project tenant’s but he soon finds this method of gathering information  ineffective, as many people he talks to openly tell him that they believe that this method will get him nowhere and that he should try something else (7-8). After being mistaken for a Mexican spy and held hostage by members of the local gang the Black Kings, Venkatesh develops a relationship with the local gang leader J.T. (18-19). Through this relationship, Venkatesh is gradually exposed to members of the community and starts to get an understanding of what it is like to be poor and black in Chicago’s inner-city.

 One of the first major surprises to Venkatesh about project life is that in times of emergency, no one calls the police or ambulances. This seems to be because there is a belief that the police are uncomfortable with and apathetic towards the members of the projects. Instead, the members of the Black Kings will be notified of the emergency and they will seek proper action. In one instance, a woman living in one of the buildings who was pursuing a career in modeling was beaten up by her manager. The woman was driven to the hospital and the man who beat her up was beaten up himself by members of the gang. This type of conduct was demonstrated again later in the book at drive-by shootings that occurred at outdoor building parties. Venkatesh was shocked when no one called the police, but deferred to members of the gang to retaliate accordingly.

This was not the only case of members of the Robert Taylor projects avoiding dealing with the authorities. Instead of calling the fire department or maintenance, Robert Taylor residents would bring their troubles to the head of the building council, Ms. Bailey. At first it seemed that Ms. Bailey was performing a valiant service for her tenants, but as time went on and she allowed more access and information to Venkatesh, it became clear that this was not the case. Most of the time, if tenants actually wanted something accomplished they had to bribe Ms. Bailey, and in some cases had to do so continuously. This included those who where living there illegally as well as the gangs who wanted permission to sell drugs on the premises without her interference.

It also seemed that members of the police were involved in their own kind of “hustle”. Venkatesh personally saw an officer raid someone’s home and beat him because he had not given the officer his “cut” of the revenue he made from selling cocaine (235-236).
Even the members of the projects who tried to obey the law had a hard time surviving. Many groups of women, for example would form networks that exchanged services such as cooking and babysitting for one another(196-197).

            Despite the fact that Venkatesh’s findings were profoundly informative and insightful, it must not be overlooked that he broke many ethical codes for conducting research to get this information. First, despite the fact that his professors and advisors told him that he should focus on the poverty in general of the Chicago projects, he continued to focus primarily on the gang life of the Black Kings. Second, Venkatesh was not always direct in his intentions with the people he interviewed and studied. In most cases he would not tell people much, if anything about who he was other than that he was doing research for the university (earning him the nickname “The Professor”).  The most questionable case of misleading his research participants was with J.T., the gang leader who in many ways was the primary subject of his research. J.T. was constantly under the impression that Venkathesh was actually writing about him and all of the supplemental research was just for background about who he was. Although never outright denying it, Venkatesh never told J.T. the true nature of research. Finally, since Venkatesh was spending so much time with the gang, he was invlolved unintentionally in activity that could have gotten him into a lot of trouble. This included being around when there was conspiracy of explicit illegal action such as where the “foot soldiers” of the gang would sell their drugs and even what the retaliation plan was for after a drive by shooting. If Venkatesh had to testify in court, he would either have to lie, which could spoil the validity of his research, or tell the truth, which would earn contempt or even violent action from the gang.

If not for the above infringements of research conduct however, it is possible that Venkatesh would not have been able to get such comprehensive data and thus the true nature of inner-city poverty may never have been fully revealed.

Movie Review: Miss Representation

Last Thursday after class I went to the showing of the film "Miss Representation". The Film was directed by  Jennifer Siebel Newsom, who was a television and film actress distressed by the effects of the media's portrayal of women on her daughter. The film illustrated many of the problems with today's women and young girls, citing numerous statistics about how because women and girls are expected to achieve an unnatural level of beauty, many develop problems with self-esteem, develop eating disorders and can become depressed or even suicidal. The film also covered how even women pursuing careers that were not image based but still featured on television and in magazines are pressured to maintain a "feminine image". Interviewees included female politicians such as Condelza Rice and Nancy Pelowski as well as various female hosts of news tv shows.

The film worked emotionally telling stories of women and girls who's lives were much worse then they could have been had there not been so much pressure on them to achieve certain body types that are not healthily achievable by the vast majority of people.

I found that although the film pointed out many problems it did not seem to offer many solutions. As a male member of the audience I felt that nothing was addressed that I could personally do to help women feel better about themselves or to avoid perpetuating the current paradigm of female objectification in pop culture.

Ethnographic Research

If I were to conduct ethnographic research, I think i would choose to study contemporary rave and dubstep culture. I would conduct my research in the Baltimore scene partly because of convenience, but also do to the fact that the Baltimore scene is a well established one.

I would want to follow one or two specific groups of individuals as well as interviewing various people at raves and other associated events. I would want to get a mix of people who do drugs, those that don't do drugs but drink, and those who do neither.Who are these people? How do they fit into mainstream culture and society or do they at all?

I don't foresee many barriers in conducting said research. I feel that most of the people involved in this particular subculture would be pretty open about sharing their experiences. The only potential problem I can see is if I, the outsider get misinterpreted as a narc or someone who is there to put an end to the good times being had, not just an observer

Since images and music are such a big part of this subculture, I think it would be most appropriate to shoot a documentary. I would include at least a couple scenes involving crazy outfits, bright glosticks, psychedelic light shows and the loud electronic music being played by a dj.

Ethnographic Research