To be completely honest, when I heard the word “urban” I barely thought of sophistication was associated with it. Referring to the article, urban is particularly known as “the ghetto”, in which I am more familiar with. The ghetto is referred to a specific housing offered by the government to low income families. However, as I read and seen, experiencing such type of urban space in today’s society has had a bad representation. Even though I may not have lived in particular urban areas, there is a large part of negativity surrounding it. “Urban may signify the hallmark of civilization and [it’s advancement], or a burden and [a] problem of progress” (Leonard/Hunter, 2007, p. 779), but in this country ghetto is improperly used to describe a person. Throughout my K-12 educational experience, students would make fun of others that lived in the projects (also known as the ghetto) or more specifically is a student that has a bowl full of macaroni and cheese with cut up hot dogs for lunch, was considered ghetto. Therefore, such aspects follow under urban as proof of “real” identity and a jungle. Authenticity and the Jungle go hand in hand in my experiences. The ghetto as a jungle consisted a mixture of minorities like Blacks and Latinos, but because of their image “in the form of media consumption, of watching television shows and music videos about them, and listening to rap or hip-hip songs” (Leonard/Hunter, 2007, p. 786), a world of institutions like the workplace and education system tried not to associate themselves to those type of people as much as possible. Regardless how educated they are because of the image depicted of the urban as a jungle consisting of gangs, violence, and unwed mothers with a train full of children, “many Americans believe[d] that spending money on urban school is a waste” (Leonard/Hunter, 2007, p. 789). Many people are so colorblind to the issue at hand that it evidently affects the children. They aren't aware of the loving environment children are surrounded by and the support they receive from local organizations. I was able to build relationships with students that did live in such urban spaces. Somehow, I did gained some type of credibility with these students in which in result I didn’t get involved in physical encounters with them because I did not live in the ghetto. Ironically, as I went to high school in Manhattan with contained more students from middle and upper class families, students viewed me as intimidating and not to be messed with because I came from Brooklyn. Unless, I initiated conversation in no way would they speak to me. Brooklyn was seen as “the hood”, and not to mess with anyone from there. For some time and still today, “the urban [is not seen as] a place for the White enjoyment of arts, music, and dining” (Leonard/Hunter, 2007, p. 783). I think no matter the reconstruction, the urban would just be seen as a place made for the Black and poor.
I can relate to your experience of intimidating others because you were from Brooklyn. When I first moved to Flushing, there wasn't a large black population, so I felt like I had to be tough to prove to others that I appropriately fit into my skin. I can also relate to being called ghetto, but people can be ignorant that way. Sometimes people just have a preference. My classmates used to call me ghetto when I used to bring salted sliced tomatoes for lunch to school. It wasn't that there wasn't food at home, I really just loved the way salted sliced tomatoes tasted.
The definition of "urban" has changed from being a characteristic of a city to the African American culture. The definition of "ghetto" has changed in the same way. Instead of "ghetto" being a place where a minority group lives (minority doesn't necessarily mean black), it's now a characteristic attributed to a person or menial behavior. It's unfortunate because these labels really contribute to inhibiting an individuals abilities. When individuals are classified that way, and know that they're being classified that way, they start to believe and accept that they are. This can change their mindsets about their future plans. People construct negative notions about what they consider to be "the hood", or "the ghetto", or "the projects", and most of the time, it's in these environments where you'll find the most unified and supporting neighbors. It's not perfect all the time, but what neighborhood is?
Sandy Bostic TAL801 Urban Space I can relate to the article where Brooklyn in certain areas, consist of the urban jungle. I was born and raised in Bed-Stuy,Brooklyn. Growing up in Bed-Stuy in what was considered poverty, housing projects for low income families with run down playgrounds and parks.Where guns is the ruled for power,violence gives you repsect and selling drugs was part of an employment. Bed Stuy consisted of the urban jungle with gangs and violent crimes. Mostly blacks and hispanics lived in the area. Bed-Stuy has changed into a new and improved enivronment. I remembered when you didnt see not one white person roaming the area. Bed-Stuy has changed alot from when I was a child. Its no longer considered as a authentic cultural envirnoment. All races are moving into the neigborhood mostly whites. Bed-Stuy now has condos in the area, the city parks have improved. New Cafes, restaurants, wine bars, and beautiful brownstone houses.
I agree with Sandy about the authentic of the black neighborhoods because I lived in a neighborhood that was technically Bed-Stuy but is now called Clinton Hill. I lived only one block away from Bed-Stuy. Since the white people moved into the black neighborhood there has been lot of changes. For example, now there is a traffic light at an intersection that only had a stop sign before. Now the corner stores sell more health conscious food such as soy milk. Now there are lots of café with outside seating areas. Some streets are closed off in order to accommodate outside sitting area.
I agree with Sandy and Jennifer because when white (s) move in in a neighborhood, the environment tend to changes in various ways. People tend to have access and more have been offered to us. For instance, the groceries tend to sells more fresh and organic products. More products entered the in the community without limitation. The security increases and others tend to have a better perspective of that location than they had before. However, I wondered why is when the white (s) move into a community for those changes to take place, why not before?
Without sounding racist, with regard to whites moving into "black" neighborhoodsI think its because they're more vocal and they generally vote with their wallet. It has alot to do with knowledge and access to jurisdiction and and lot of council members who vie for their vote. It doesn't happen over night but within a year you can see significant changes and I wouldn't say whites impact but just generally higher educated and affluent families move in. So if they request the local grocer to carry soy milk they will pay for it even if carries a premium to whatever else the grocer carries. They pay their rent on time and willing to pay more. As far as schools go its basically the local tax dollars that are infused into the local districts from those higher earning" white" families. But its not only white there are plenty of Black families that move into predominantly white areas that are higher earners that want to take advantage and reap the benefits of the neighborhood too.
Melodie Perkins TAL 801 Living in a large urban space has been both rewarding and challenging. Rewarding because I am able to experience something new and challenging everyday. Because of these new experiences,this has given me access and the ability to meet people from various ethnic and religious backgrounds. By meeting these different people,I have expanded and broaden my knowledge of various communities. However, there are drawbacks to living in a large urban space. For example, I find there is a limited amount of physical space. There are too many buildings in every square inch of the city. In certain sections of the city, there is limited amount of space to walk. There is always traffic congestion, making both driving and parking a nightmare. Travelling by mass transit can be a daunting experience, for example, there are always delays on the train.Waiting on the "2" and/or "5" train on President St.is tedious, becuase there is always a train in the Franklin Ave. subway station, or the train will go out of service. This has affected the time I have gotten to work. Therefore, I have had to alter my commute time. I have to leave much earlier , just to make it to work on time. Attending school in a large urban space is a very different experience than when attending school in a small, rural town in upstate New York. The school I completed my undergraduate studies had a larger campus than LIU. However, there were fewer opporunities for cultural and entertainment events. While studying in LIU, I am not limited; there are numerous buses and trains to take me to school at all hours of the day and night. However, when I studied and lived upstate, I had to watch my time, because if I missed the bus, I had no way of getting back to campus. In this town, businesses closed during the weekdays by 6 p.m. and they were not opened on holidays nor on weekends. At LIU, there are many places to eat and shop; weekends are no exceptions. My safety was of great concern, while attended school in upstate New York. While living there, I had a group of people call me racial names. There are more occasions for people of different racial and religious backgrounds together on this campus as opposed to where I studied in rural New York. Once people can talk with each other, knowledge is shared and exchanged. Once knowledge is shared, there are more opporunites for personal and emotional growth.
I totally agree with you in your first point , living in a large area with a lot of people from different countries and different ethnic give you the opportunity to gain new experiences because these people have various perspectives about life and education. Although, you stated some disadvantages for living in a large urban space ,but I think people can overcome some of these disadvantages and adapt themselves with this situation . I also agree with you about studying at LIU has many benefits than other schools because I completed my bachelor degree in a small university and small town also. The public transportation was completely difficult and the events inside the university are few .
Noadia J. Amardy Tal 801 Urban space is being viewed in the eyes of the elite in four different ways which are the sophisticated space, an authentic place of identity and a disorganized “jungle”. In the article, imagining the Urban: the Politics of Race, Class, and Schooling. Leonardo and Hunter define, the sophisticated urban space as a place where modernism express it advantages in civil society through art and culture. They also define the politics of authenticity as “ghetto” where people of color live. Furthermore, they have analyze that the urban jungle as the disorganization, criminal character and moral malaise. As a young female raise in the urban space, I encountered many wonderful and challenging experiences in my life. I had the chance to interact with people from different regions and learn about their culture. However, being raise in that society also enables me to view life in a different perspective. Hence, I was able to appreciate and value other culture that I was exposed to. Living in an urban space had impact my education in many ways because the school experience differs from the previous one that I receive in my native country (Haiti). For instance, in high school the behavior of students was something I always had to question at all time. Hence, the students did not have any respect for their elders and peers. Many times, they would engage in battle and constantly used profanities in the presence of the professors which I find very disturbing and hard to believe. However, due to the student’s lack of respect in the classroom and constant misbehaving, it held the motivated students from learning moreover, those that were eager to learn always had distractions which constantly drew them back in the classroom. As I grew older, I have come to realized that the society that I live in plays a major role towards my education. Seeing peers who do not have the opportunities that I have been offered with forces me to become someone important in my community. When I look back at my peers, that I used to attend the same school with, I have come to take a different perspective towards my life and what I eager to accomplish in it to make it successful.
So, my post is about four times too long for this purpose. I don't have time to rewrite it, having spent way too long already. Sorry!
I cannot claim to have had many early formative experiences in an urban context in this country. I cannot speak directly to the race-inflected "achievement gap" nor make a concrete contribution to "the way educators imagine the kind of schooling appropriate for urban students" (Leonardo & Hunter, p. 781). But I can offer some reflections on my overseas urban experiences and then suggest modestly where that might fit it.
When I arrived in London, England, at age four as a new transplant, everything felt, sounded, smelled, and tasted different than what I had been used to in Atlanta and in the company of family in various southern locales. As I now dredge up those first and other early or lingering impressions—some of them uncannily near, palpable—certain strands present themselves and fold into my later rationalizations and orderings of those early "making sense of things" incidents and episodes. English society is incredibly stratified, or at least it was when I lived there. The occupation, status, class position, and education of people was highly evident from the way they spoke and dressed. In the school setting, in the neighborhood where I lived, and in many of the areas of leisure I frequented, this was urban sophisticated space the way only the waning British Empire could lay it on. If this was a "blessing," it was rather grandiose, historically resonant, and mildly authoritarian. Not to skew my reflections too much out of their intended scope, but I would venture to say that a burden of this experience was an awareness of social distance, threat of censure, and in some sense a burden of privilege that made me perpetually aware that my life was out of sync with the vast majority of those peopling the world.
Now, I did experience urban London from a couple of more raw and threatening standpoints, although I am not sure how well this matches up with the notion of urban as "disorganized jungle." 1) On my commute to school I lived in some dread of being beaten up by roving bands of working-class boys, and while this never actually materialized, I did mostly avoid certain routes and I tended to scope out the path ahead. I worried about having my skateboard taken. I was on the big side, so perhaps that helped, but I was pretty cautious. Above all I avoided being caught alone, and there were occasions on which I scurried or ran to avoid this. 2) More dire and concrete was the IRA (Irish Republican Army) terrorist threat based on England's ongoing presence in, or, depending how you look at it, occupation of Northern Ireland. The print and TV news reported on such attacks and foiled attempts on a disconcertingly frequent basis, and there was a period when it was SOP to check under your car before getting in your car and cranking the ignition. A bomb went off on our street in central London one night, lobbed at the second floor balcony of a former prime minister (head of government). I remember the explosion and sound like a downpour that was actually the debris and glass falling. The street was evacuated and we spent the night in a nearby government building lobby. From that point there was reinforced glass on that house and a permanent police presence on our street. Like lots of other people, we would offer the police tea and biscuits, although according to a credible report from my sister our Spanish maid stretched that to entertaining one of the constables in our basement. But since they apparently got married, I am unsure how to characterize that encounter. 3) Also rather a departure from the everyday was the tenacious red-headed prostitute who patrolled our street for hours at a time. One rumor was that she felt the former prime minister owed her something or other. Apart from years of this behavior she did not seem especially deranged. Owing to these experiences, movies like Colors or Training Day just do not evoke my own experience: I can empathize, I can be moved and outraged, but it is not my world. But a movie like Patriot Games (1992), the Harrison Ford vehicle with Sean Bean as the revenge-driven IRA operative, and average citizens mowed down in the crossfire, that one made my spine tingle and did not seem sensationalistic. Finally, I can say that I had a degree and range of freedom in London that I never could see myself granting to my own children at anything like a comparable age. I traveled the sophisticated urban spaces, riding the buses, the underground, walked and biked for miles, often returning home to an empty house. This was freedom. And the buses were those open-backed doubledeckers that you could leap in and out of on the fly....
Part 3 of my post (seriously, you are still reading this?):
For reappraising and critically evaluating one's own experience of the urban, I do find Leonardo and Hunter's essay very compelling. The dialectical framework helps forestall any static view, keeps binary concepts and approaches from intruding or at least from gaining the upper hand. As perhaps with any social experience, the material and the discursive condition and interpenetrate one another. It may be intellectually, analytically, or politically convenient to have a target that sits still, but such immobility or monolithic inertness makes for much less interesting and engaging quarry.
The Eagles tragic-tawdry epic spin on the founding of California ("The Last Resort") comes to mind as a contrast for the sorts of points I would make in conclusion:
...Some rich men came and raped the land, nobody caught'em; put up a bunch of ugly boxes, and Jesus, people bought'em.
These are lines that, simply put, could not have been included in a poem or lyric of England that would truly resonate in the ear and illuminate the mind's eye. For, after having lived in and having been schooled in an ancient dynastic capital and (former) imperial metropolis, many of the cityscapes and urban areas in the United States strike me as provisional, as rather arbitrarily thrown together, a knock-up job in many instances, with little sense of place, little of the aura of history and tradition that imbues a city like London. The past is palpable in a place like that, and in some sense it is why I gravitate to history as a teaching vocation.
I hope this doesn't come off as a cop out; I could say something about my experiences of the urban environment of New York City, or of Boston, but these would end up being more based in philosophical and intellectual mullings, cultural criticism, political economy, and not so much based in, dare I say, the "authentic" lived experience of the person writing. Perhaps it might be the case that the "burden" of the urban for me is to find a way to connect my experiences with the myriad common experiences of students in urban schools in this country. A starting point might be that, in the same ways that I became aware of, sensitive to, and critical of oppressive, limiting, forestalling and precluding structures and discursive tendencies in the course of my London upbringing, young and untrained hearts and minds in urban schools are filled with the same stirrings, weighings, judgings. The history is surely here in there lives and communities as well, perhaps more in the patterns and stories of migration, the struggles to carve out an existence. Perhaps I am after all limited by my early experience of history and tradition in a grandiose and status-bound society, but the questions this all raised and raises might help me to locate some of the common ground, experiences, aspirations on which relationships with students can be built.
Maggie Jones, Tal 801 The space I experienced was living in the South Bronx in the 70's. The Bronx was labeled ghetto, and there were mainly Puerto Ricans And Blacks. Spanish and Blacks were described as poor and dirty People who did not want to work. "These People" preferred to use the system to get welfare and have babies. In today society, people Who lived outside the urban space still think negative of the South Bronx. Unfortunately, we have outside teachers who come into the public schools With stereotype notion about Spanish and Blacks
I grew up in the same era, that you did, the 1970s. I lived in Brooklyn, primarily, Bushwick, East New York, and Crown Heights. I saw people who used illegal drugs and/or alcohol to get high; so they could numb a pain. I knew people who did not work and got welfare. However, I saw these same people care when someone's child got hit by a car, or when a mother had no food to feed her children; these same neighbors gave her and her children food. I experienced teachers who did not care, yet I had teachers who were kind. In school, I had textbooks, which were tattered, making it very hard to read the words. There were times in the winter, in which the school's boiler broke, making it very cold in the classrooms. The first few days of June, it was very hot in the classrooms. There were times when workers either from the utility companies or the another service provider came into the community, and I could see the fear or contempt they showed either their body languages or their eyes. This left a negative impression on me. This is one of the reasons, as a case worker, I experience the person first and not the report. Whether it is the psychosocial or the social comprehensive report. I want to understand the person first and start there. This in my opinion is how I build a relationship; I am not trying to have a relationship through the case file.
After reading Imagining The Urban : The Politics of Race , Class , and Schooling ( Leonardo and Hunter 2007 ) my view changed for the urban space . I became able to analyze my life in school and neighborhood in the small town where I was living with a lot of people from all colors and races. Also, after coming to study in USA , I realize similarities and differences to my old community in Saudi Arabia in education and daily life . I think the problem of racism in USA is more related to " skin color " , while in my country the problem of racism is more related to the huge gap between rich people and poor people and the difference among their lives .
In the field of education , I have lived and studied with students from different nationalities and different color and races such as , Egypt , Syria, Yemen , and also from African counties like Sudan and Nigeria . The nice thing that the Saudi government did not differentiate in the treatment of Saudis and non-Saudis in the education , so it was free including books . However , there were a lot of differences in the school environment and entertainment factors that available for students between schools in rich neighborhoods and schools in poor neighborhoods .For example , my middle school did not contain a soccer field although it was the first game favored by students in the class of sport. As a result , students were spending this class in running and boring gymnastics games. On the other hand , some schools in rich neighborhoods include more than two or three soccer practice field!! .
These differences between rich and poor people extended to the standard of living, security , and infrastructure in neighborhoods . In the poor neighborhoods you can see old buildings , poor organization in the parking , negligence in cleaning streets , frequent thefts , and lack of security presence . Unlike in rich neighborhoods, streets are nice and clean , crimes are few , police cars frequently present , and a lot of available parking .
I enjoyed reading your post. It gives me insight to how the rich control everything and how they are the ones who decide where resources go. No matter where you go there will be discrimination and racism against the minority. In this case the minorities are the lower class and they aren't receiving equal opportunities. In any society there will be a group of people who are not receiving fair and just opportunties as another group.
Sabrina Daniel Tal 801 Leonardo’s article, an urban space is characterized by distinct demarcations in neighborhoods, zones where the politics of race, class and education interact to produce social labels for its people. Alternately, an urban space can also take on another dimension which is the way people envision an urban setting. It is the “imagined” space which no doubt is laced with controversy as everyone through his or her myriad experiences would construe that space differently.
As I perused the article, I realized that I can clearly relate to the spaces of authentic cultural practices and the urban jungle. In my country, my favorite pastime was spending time with my dad’s family in an urban community. As one entered Maynard Hill, the first thing that caught one’s attention was a never ending hill with the abundance of small wooden unpainted houses and the sparse mansions erected between them. On the surface, it appeared that everyone lived in tandem but there was a clear divide between the rich and the poor although they occupied a similar space. We as kids did not interact with our rich counterparts in their parents’ presence. Many differences separated us, from access to television to the basic amenities which they had privy to at their homes but we had to get those provided to us publicly like standpipes and laundries to wash and bathe. However, this seemingly forgotten area would give me a first- hand experience of my rich Caribbean heritage. It was there I experienced many nights where the older generation merged with the younger generation to pass on the oral tradition of storytelling, herbal medications, traditional food and dance. The overall unity of the community seemed to revolve around culture and very active clubs grew out of that desire to unite with our roots.
The urban jungle was yet another urban space quite visible to me. It was just five minutes from Maynard Hill. The graffiti on the walls and the streets were the first indication that it was different. The area was called, ‘Grass Street.” As the name suggests, the area was heavily populated by persons who had strong allegiance to their roots. Thus, it was no surprise to find the strong presence of the Rastafarian movement in that area. What was amazing was that this area was surrounded by middle class families, but this little “outcast” evolved anyway. There was a decisive line drawn between Grass Street and its surroundings. In order to feel welcomed, one had to be accepted by one of its members. I gained entry specifically to get my hair braided but overtime came to respect the area and saw it as a place where individuals found their identity and the tag of “nothingness” levied at them was really a paradigm concocted to assign them to an inferior social class. Not withstanding that the area was noted for drugs, violence, criminal activity, I am of the view that their alienation and the sometimes callous nature of the police when called to settle issues in the area did leave much an aftermath of resentment and unresolved conflict.
Having a more informed understanding of what constitutes an urban space, I can readily admit that it does have implications on my educational experiences as a teacher. Firstly, the students who live in the urban jungle have had to endure sometimes unfair treatment with the same disrespect by teachers. In a sense the school seems to be an extension of what happens in their community. As such we need compassionate teachers who are aware of the students’ daily struggles. They in turn will not recreate the horrors in the students’ lives but reinforce those principles that can foster learning and advancement. Also, although it is virtually impossible to eliminate social demarcations outside the school, it is destructive to allow these distinctions to contaminate the teaching learning process. Each student should be equal partners and given access to a safe place where social class, stigmatization and inferiorities are given little attention.
Lastly, another implication that the urban space has on education is the inability of many teachers and policy makers to recognize students’ experiences, be it culture or language as an integral part of the classroom pedagogy. Failure to sync these pertinent resources is likely to lead to poor student participation and resistance to learning. Therefore as teachers, as we embrace the notion of urban spaces, it is imperative that we redirect our thinking to encompass the plight of the disadvantaged as well as those who seem to excel well academically.
Sabrina, your post truly hit the mark, and sincerely hit home for me. Many students who live in the “urban jungle” are taught by teachers who do not have any experience living, attending, or teaching in schools compromised of a high concentration of “urban” students. As a result – and this is based on personal experience from my days as a student in East Harlem and now my experience working in a high school in Kingsbridge – teachers lacking this practical experience seem to display a very judgmental attitude towards particular students based on their knowledge of where they live, family circumstances, and many other factors that they do not have first-hand experience with.
You also point out that the students who are the recipients of this unfair treatment and who have teachers and administrators who are unable or unwilling to sync the students’ experiences with their pedagogy are likely to feel deterred from learning. This is absolutely true and quite frankly, this is debilitating and deflating for their ego, and can easily be the catalyst for very poor performance and dropping out.
I have experienced living in each of the urban spaces Leonardo and Hunter discuss in “Imagining the Urban: The Politics of Race, Class, and Schooling.” I grew up in Rochester, NY and the housing is a bit different than that of New York City. People can rent whole houses, half of a house, and apartments and they can be located in different neighborhoods. Growing up we often moved from place to place. When I was young, about 6 years old, we lived on the Northeast side (however, I don’t remember much about that neighborhood). We attended School #39, which was a true diverse public school. There were whites, blacks, Hispanics and even a few Asian students. Then our rented house caught on fire and we had to move. We moved to the east side of town which was still the city but more of a rural feeling. I would call that the sophisticated urban space because it was a predominantly white neighborhood at our end of the street, with few shops and grocery stores for our convenience. The street was divided. At the other end, it was predominantly black with less maintained houses and the projects. There was also an elementary school there and it would have taken us ten minutes to walk to school, but my mom chose to keep us in our old neighborhood school even though we had to take a thirty to forty minute ride to school each day. When I entered middle school there were only about five public middle schools in the whole city of Rochester and so the middle school I attended was a thirty minute walk to school. The population was predominantly African-American and Latino students.
When my parents divorced I was still in the seventh grade and a few months after, we moved back to the Northeast side to a predominantly black neighborhood. This new neighborhood represented urban as an authentic place of identity that Leonardo and Hunter talked about. There wasn’t a grocery store for 15-20 miles but there were plenty of corner stores everywhere. There was food available that wasn’t available before in our old neighborhood. It was the first time I had had curry goat and oxtails. Things had completely changed for me. I started to get into a lot of verbal fights in my neighborhood. I attended the same middle school and that’s where I got into my first physical fight with a girl over a boy. Looking back, I think I fought not only in defense but to prove to the others that I was tough, that I was black too. I am a light skinned black woman who people often confuse as Hispanic, so during those years I often felt like I had to prove I was black, either by having my father come visit the school (not my mom because she was lighter than me), by fighting, or by not caring about school. The teachers didn’t care about their students or their jobs anyway. I remember one black woman (I believe she was from the Caribbean). She was our eighth grade social studies teacher and she would always tell us she didn’t have to do anything but stay black, pay her taxes, and die. I can’t remember one thing I learned in her class, possibly, not because of her but because of myself and me not wanting to go to school. I missed so much of school in the seventh and eighth grade and I don’t remember one teacher calling my parents to inform them I wasn’t showing up for their class.
During my freshman year of school we moved again. This time to what I would call the Urban “Jungle,” Fulton Street. We knew nothing about this neighborhood. It was located on the west side. We moved in in February when it was winter and so we didn’t get a true sense of the neighborhood, but we did as soon as it warmed up. It was a black neighborhood. There were young guys, some much older than us and some the same age and they were in the neighborhood selling drugs. It was crack head central. There were girls a few houses down who didn’t like us and so we got into altercations with them. There were shoot-outs and our house was in the midst of all the action. Our house was popular. It had been empty for some time before we rented it. As soon as the warm weather hit we used to have guys come on our front porch, without permission, sit there and sell and hide drugs in the enclosed porch. I assumed this was their porch before it became ours. We used to kick them off of it but they would come back and eventually we couldn’t fight them any longer and they took over our porch. We later became great friends with the leader. From that point on he and his crew protected and took good care of us. Once we got to know them, we realized how harmless they were (at least to us). They became our brothers. They were young men who felt the need to make that fast easy money. Some ended up dead, some went to prison and some got out and changed their lives around. They were just a bunch of misguided young men who needed direction from the missing men in their lives. That was Fulton Street. I went back one year and the house we stayed in was knocked down. The stores that were there were gone too. They’ve replaced some of the houses with new ones but the majority of them are boarded up or gone with nothing new in their place.
These experiences along with the divorce of my parents have shaped my education.
The word “urban,” for many including myself, sometimes conjures up images of a ghetto area mixed consisting of residents who come from mixed backgrounds but are particularly African –Americans and Latinos. The residents come from a various socio-economic classifications, ranging from below the poverty line to upper-middle class. Growing up on the borderline of Harlem and Washington Heights (153rd Street and St. Nicholas Avenue), I experienced the idea of the urban space in several forms. The unofficial dividing line between Harlem and Washington Heights being 155th street, I was literally in between two different cultural havens, one representing the experiences and culture of African Americans, white the other representing the experience and culture of Dominican-Americans, and as an African-American with a Latino last name, assimilation into both groups was relatively easy, while at the same time retaining my identity. I distinctly remember both areas and agree with the research cited in the article (p. 780) that daily lifestyles and music of cultures serves as a source of enjoyment for ghetto areas, as I have personally lived this experience.
My educational experience was not much different from my experience at home, as I was schooled from 2nd grade through high school in East Harlem, also, an area that I love for its culturally and artistically rich emphasis. My elementary, middle, and high schools were located right in the center of East Harlem, also known Spanish Harlem and El Barrio. Spanish Harlem is undoubtedly a place that people of color recognize for its authentic cultural practices and authenticity, making it an urban place of authenticity as defined in the reading (p. 785). Everyone in the neighborhood and many students and staff in the schools took pride in the neighborhood. The schools I attended were defined as “diverse,’” but in reality, the majority of the students were Puerto Rican and African American kids who lived in the neighborhood. The teaching staff was certainly diverse in gender and ethnicity, but one thing that was important and noteworthy was the recognition of the historical and cultural significance of each school’s location. It was important for the school to discuss the history of Puerto Ricans in New York City, we took regular trips to El Museo del Barrio, and we had special celebrations honoring Three Kings Day. This educational experience was undoubtedly a representation of an urban space, in the culturally authentic viewpoint, which was as realistic as one could possibly get.
Anton, I was raised around the same area you grew up in. This urban area is one where people are wanting to move into now where years ago only minorities use to populate the area. I remember taking cabs with my parents and the can driver asking my mom why she was living in this horrible area with two little girls. Today people are paying to live in this urban area. I haven't moved from Harlem and I don't think I'll be leaving anytime soon. There is so much culture and life in our community that its extremely hard to leave it behind. Going back to the beginning of your response to the definition of urban I never thought that urban meant ghetto. Due to the many ways people actually use it. Some people use it as something young and new. It's the same when people say that they like to listen to urban music. On the contrary I have learned that urban is used in a nicer way to say ghetto. As I mention in my post the word was used at my place of work and I honestly felt disrespected because I live in a urban area and the stereotypes that people have towards the urban community are completely wrong. It's sad to see how people judge an entire community because of a few bad apples instead of knowing and understanding the rest of the people that live there.
Urban Space is still an every day issue. It is in our schools, neighborhoods, department stores, television shows, and publicity. I lived in East New York and many times when people asked me where do I live their assumptions might be its "ghetto" or even high in crimes. They are crimes everywhere and in every neighborhoods. I have experienced when you go into some department stores and a person of color might be looked at more than a white person. In my opinion racism still exist, it is just in silence. They way how a black person would be approach wouldn't be the same as how a white person would be approach. According to the Urban Space and the Politics of Authencity (p785) Zeus Leonardo and Margaret Hunter said that some whites affiliate urban as "ghetto" and dirty. Urban is also portray through television by showing black people living in poor neighborhoods, but when the white television are portray the family are living in upper class neighborhoods with the fancy clothes, cars,houses, and friends. Lopez (1997) notice that food are sold differently in urban areas than in an upper class neighborhood. Some implication of the way the urban space is both place and imagined in my education is that schools that are in the low income neighborhoods tends to fail. They fail because of lack of resources and parents involvement. Most parents that are from these areas aren't educated, lack of money, and poor backgrounds. In my neighborhood, majority all of the schools are failing schools.The staff aren't motivated to even push the kids further due to lack of parents involvement. For this reason, I wouldn't allow my daughter to attend any of these schools. If you go into a different neighborhood you would see how beautiful the schools are. They have updated technology, lots of parent involvement, and plenty of resources to help the children. Urban Space is amongst us all. No matter where we go things would always be the same, stereotyping people because of their race or where they live would still be an issue.
I agree Kimberly . Urban space is a everyday issue and racism still exist. I can relate to going into a department and security guards looking at blacks instead of looking at all racist. I witnessed a white woman stealing silverware at a dept. store. She never got caught because security didn't label her as a thief. Blacks will always be known as low poverty poor people. Why? Because whites stereotype us as this. As far as the schools in the "Jungle" area, it's not all parents are not educated or have money issues some parents work so hard trying to make ends meet that they don't have times to get involved in their children schools. Society needs to fight for better schools, and more community centers for children to have activities to keep them occupied
Svetlana Kezerashvili TAL801 Imagining the Urban Blog Post 1
Zeus Leonardo and Margaret Hunter have posted an intriguing parallel defining meaning of Urban as a place and space. At two opposing spectrums however, urban means sophistication, richness, and attraction perceived as space where the latest trends are represented. One the opposite spectrum is an idea of less attractive, “negatively” represented place, associated with poverty, and daily struggles. I have experienced Urban Space in an imaginative world in a form of makeup products such as Urban Decay Makeup, clothes, and street cool, stylish environment. I have to be honest, Urban has typically been associated with “positive” in my experience. As I entered Education Program at College of Staten Island, I was introduced to urban in a sense of poor schools for multiethnic, Hispanic and African American students, unavailability of resources, unqualified teachers or struggling teachers, underfunding, and submerged in poverty districts. There is a doubled criterion when it comes to the meaning of urban place and urban space. Recently, some of the Brooklyn regions are intensely becoming urban space with fashionable stores, brick-walled cafes, and bookstores. In my educational experience, urban space was my High School in Brooklyn; our school was densely occupied by immigrant students, I did not particularly feel poverty. I had only positive feelings about that overcrowded space since I found myself among people who shared not only my language but culture as well. As it comes to my home country, Russia, urban space was shared between similar backgrounds and economic positions; urban was a place and space where everyone wanted to be since it represented progress and development.
The first time I heard the word urban it was used in context to describe a genre of music. The word urban to be meant upbeat music such as Latin reggae also know as Reggaeton, and other Latin genres, But soon I learned the many definitions it urban has. The second time I heard a person say the word it was to describe young people as being "hip" or cool. At one point I even started calling myself urban. I thought it was a better word to use than describing myself as hip and young. Last year I applied to a company and got hired. I went through intense training on client services. During this training the word urban kept describing a certain of clients. I went home one night and I did a small research on the many definitions urban had and The word urban means that the area is defined as a city or metropolis. It is the opposite of rural which means primarily undeveloped or farm land, An Urban Community is a big city or town. It is considered an Urban Community if there are more than 2,500 people living in the community. Urban communities are often busy and crowded. Normally, the city is the most central location in a region. It is also referred to as downtown. In an Urban Community there are many buildings, houses, and people. People often live close together and then I stumbled upon the word ghetto as the definition of urban. Soon after reading this I emailed a friend of mine and asked do you think that my company is using stereotypes on blacks and Hispanics she said are you crazy I doubt they would say such a thing. For weeks as I worked I started to pick up on certain things that were finally proving what I was feeling for so long. Certain items were described to us as the urban community would love the logos and the big name on shoes so maybe you should push these items on them. Finally I couldn't hold my tongue any longer. I asked my supervisor what do you mean by urban? She said it meant ghetto. At that very moment my expression said it all. I told her, how could you describe people in that manner she tried to correct herself but my belief is that the first thing you say it's really counts and what you honestly feel. I felt offended because I grew up in "Urban community" and I have never been into logos or flashy items so its a very stereotypical thing to say and even label a certain group of clients in that manner. From that very moment I realized something that I knew but wasn't clearly proven in my eyes; stereotypes were not retired and aren't ever going to be. " For instance, there are urban communities that are positively that are "postively" urban like the upper east side of manhattan, New York but not Harlem or the south Bronx." ( Leonard /Hunter, 2007 p 779) The people who did this study probably went over the crime rate and the broken homes there are to help them define that meaning behind the non negative urban community. Urban will always be a word that will continue to be used to describe a certain group or thing but we must learn how to use in a context that will not offend another.
I am intrigued with the way Jennifer's post and some of the others explore how ways of thinking about the "urban" connect with commerce, capitalism, the commodification of everything (including image), and political economy. That, I think, is one of the really exciting about the readings in Leonardo & Hunter, Kelley, and for that matter also bell hooks.
I want to use my reply to raise an issue that my post did not directly address. One of the tricky but important words that lie at the hearts of our two texts for this week is the noun "dialectic" or "dialectics." According to the online Merriam-Webster Dictionary, it has various potential meanings, but the definition that seems to apply given the generic, uninflected usage in Leonardo & Hunter and in Kelley is:
"any systematic reasoning, exposition, or argument that juxtaposes opposed or contradictory ideas and usually seeks to resolve their conflict."
Including my own original post (in 3 perhaps irritating installments), posts that did not grapple with the structures and implications of the "dialectic" may reflect a missed opportunity in terms of benefiting fully and being enriched by the authors' contributions. The article and book offer rigor as well as a (hopefully) liberating dynamism, and despite the in many ways sobering or disheartening fruits of the ACTUAL analysis, I think it can be asserted that they send the reader into a terrain of conceptual and material possibility by virtue of the MODE OF analysis.
So what do I mean by that, briefly? One can take the cynicism and exploitation evident in our society and way of life and, in some sense, flip it on its head. Leonardo and Hunter assert, "As an imagined space, the urban is constructed through multiple and often contradictory meanings. These meanings are sites of contestation as to what the urban signifies in people's imagination. Consequently, the imagined aspect of the urban setting affects urban education because it socially and culturally constructs the people who live in at as well as their needs" (p. 780). As are we all in some way, the urban people, and their needs (real and perceived, or possibly externally manufactured by the capitalist dream machine) are produced/reproduced by a system that tends to be top heavy, top-down, unilateral, undemocratic, corporatized, etc. But as Kelley points out in his rich discussion of work and play (especially pp. 73-77 of "Looking To Get Paid"), we should avoid increased "social control" and try "to unleash and develop the creative capacity of black urban youth": "Rather than try to change the person...we need to change the streets themselves, the built environment, the economy, the racist discourse that dominates popular perceptions of black youth" (p. 76). The paradox is both fruit of and subject to the dialectic: "in the struggles of urban youths for survival and pleasure, capitalism has become both their greatest friend and greatest foe" (p. 77).
I grew up in Hempstead, NY, which may be considered by most an urban space. We have our nice houses owned mostly by black and hispanic families, we have our Martin Luther King Drive, as well as our projects. This contributes to my educational experience in that I didn't realize my neighborhood was different until I left it. I moved from Hempstead to Flushing, and my perceptions changed from "black and white" to "black and Spanish, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, White, Filipino". That's where I can relate to urban as an authentic place of identity. I felt like I had something to prove. Like my skin color meant that I was tough, and I had to work harder than everyone else
I wouldn't consider urban to be a disorganized jungle at all because growing up, I didn't experience anything to make me think that way. I feel that that category is for people on the outside looking in, not really experiencing what really goes on in an urban neighborhood.
I agree with Berleen because I always had a positive look on the word urban. I thought that urban was considered to be a nice trendy area. I wasn't really introduced into the negative perspective of this term until I started my undergraduate studies in Childhood Education. I believe that urban can take on either a positive meaning or a negative meaning. Some individuals don't really realize they live in a urban space just like Berleen until she moved away.
I agree with you about the fact that growing up in an environment and stepping out into the world that is complicated by unhealthy attention to diversity soaked in stereotypes it is challenging and new to regard emphases on urban culture depicted in a negative light. I also think you are right to criticize urban as disorganized jungle, since it is difficult to understand and appreciate urban culture from outside experiences which consequently make it inaccurate.
As I read “Imagining The Urban: The Politics of Race, Class and School” by Zeus Leonardo and Margaret Hunter, I noticed they broke down the meaning of urban in three different ways. The three ways they broke it down was: sophisticated space, authentic place of identity and a disorganized jungle. Each way represents a different aspect of the urban meaning. I my self never looked at in urban in some of the ways these authors mentioned. I did find it very interesting and usefully when I read each way. Most of my life I lived in a rural area and had little to no experience with urban space. I did go to a high school that was fairly mixed with Whites, Latinos and African Americans. I did experience some difference with races and cultures but didn’t take much of it because I treated everyone the same. As a high school student, I never cared about what race someone was or what their background was, I embraced everyone equally. Once I started working in an urban area, I had more of an idea of how people of low come families lived. I worked in Perth Amboy, New Jersey for about a year. When I was a kid, I noticed many parents were involved with their children’s school and education. I didn’t see that much when I was working in the school in Perth Amboy. What I did notice is that the students were struggling and their parents were unable to help them because they did not fully speak English and were not fully educated. There were no way resources or ways for children to get help outside of school. In my school in Brooklyn today, I see the same thing happening. The only difference is, my school provides outside help for not only the students but for the parents as well. I have many Spanish speaking students in my school who need that extra help with their English. My school provides English class for both students and parents. Parents are learning different ways to help their child understand homework and are also learning the key terms. I think if more school would provide background knowledge and resources to those who need it we wouldn’t have so many schools that are failing. I also think that having parent involved in the schools, may also help out.
I honestly thought at first that urban was an area that was an upscale area. When I actually read through this article I was completely surprised that urban could take on two different meanings. Urban is considered to be either a “ghetto” which collects tons of attention or a venue of “sophisticated” life. These two meanings are completely different and I have learned that it all depends on the way you view the word urban. I consider now in the present day there is a lot of stigma with that word mainly because people look down upon people that live in the “urban” and areas where there are mainly Blacks in that area. I have witnessed this in many different parts of Brooklyn and the Bronx in New York City. In this article it mentioned that some people believe that urban can either “represent an outlet of entertainment and a venue for a sophisticated life, or whereas for other the urban seems like an escapable cul-de-sac of poverty and daily degradation.” (Leonard/Hunter, 2007, p 779) In this course and my undergraduate courses we have only viewed urban as being an area where it can be a neglected neighborhood that has countless issues. So, throughout out my educational experience my perspective on urban is constantly changing. I believe that urban is always going to have that meaning or either being a sophisticated place or be considered a disorganized jungle.
Urban areas are often discriminated against, due the fact the type of people habit in those zones. Middle and poor family consider live in this type of neighborhood. In America race play where racial discrimination affects everything in the American society including education. Politics restrain the blacks and the Latinos to receive the proper education which under the law supposes to be. According to IMAGING THE URBAN: THE POLITICS OF RACE, CLASS, and SCHOOLING; by Zeus Leonardo and Margaret Hunter express the location of the school also affects the level of education. The urban communities and schooling at the bottom, this type of environment receive less money for the development of the communities and the value of a decent education. Zeus and Hunter went back in the sixties urban area and the challenge the school and the communities face, even now there seem a little change due the advance of technology. People start to be more informed but there still need a lot to be done for these two main areas. A better community equal better education environment.
Thanks!
ReplyDeleteNatasha Mathis
ReplyDeleteTAL 801
Urban Space Blog
To be completely honest, when I heard the word “urban” I barely thought of sophistication was associated with it. Referring to the article, urban is particularly known as “the ghetto”, in which I am more familiar with. The ghetto is referred to a specific housing offered by the government to low income families. However, as I read and seen, experiencing such type of urban space in today’s society has had a bad representation. Even though I may not have lived in particular urban areas, there is a large part of negativity surrounding it. “Urban may signify the hallmark of civilization and [it’s advancement], or a burden and [a] problem of progress” (Leonard/Hunter, 2007, p. 779), but in this country ghetto is improperly used to describe a person. Throughout my K-12 educational experience, students would make fun of others that lived in the projects (also known as the ghetto) or more specifically is a student that has a bowl full of macaroni and cheese with cut up hot dogs for lunch, was considered ghetto. Therefore, such aspects follow under urban as proof of “real” identity and a jungle.
Authenticity and the Jungle go hand in hand in my experiences. The ghetto as a jungle consisted a mixture of minorities like Blacks and Latinos, but because of their image “in the form of media consumption, of watching television shows and music videos about them, and listening to rap or hip-hip songs” (Leonard/Hunter, 2007, p. 786), a world of institutions like the workplace and education system tried not to associate themselves to those type of people as much as possible. Regardless how educated they are because of the image depicted of the urban as a jungle consisting of gangs, violence, and unwed mothers with a train full of children, “many Americans believe[d] that spending money on urban school is a waste” (Leonard/Hunter, 2007, p. 789). Many people are so colorblind to the issue at hand that it evidently affects the children. They aren't aware of the loving environment children are surrounded by and the support they receive from local organizations.
I was able to build relationships with students that did live in such urban spaces. Somehow, I did gained some type of credibility with these students in which in result I didn’t get involved in physical encounters with them because I did not live in the ghetto. Ironically, as I went to high school in Manhattan with contained more students from middle and upper class families, students viewed me as intimidating and not to be messed with because I came from Brooklyn. Unless, I initiated conversation in no way would they speak to me. Brooklyn was seen as “the hood”, and not to mess with anyone from there. For some time and still today, “the urban [is not seen as] a place for the White enjoyment of arts, music, and dining” (Leonard/Hunter, 2007, p. 783). I think no matter the reconstruction, the urban would just be seen as a place made for the Black and poor.
I can relate to your experience of intimidating others because you were from Brooklyn. When I first moved to Flushing, there wasn't a large black population, so I felt like I had to be tough to prove to others that I appropriately fit into my skin. I can also relate to being called ghetto, but people can be ignorant that way. Sometimes people just have a preference. My classmates used to call me ghetto when I used to bring salted sliced tomatoes for lunch to school. It wasn't that there wasn't food at home, I really just loved the way salted sliced tomatoes tasted.
DeleteThe definition of "urban" has changed from being a characteristic of a city to the African American culture. The definition of "ghetto" has changed in the same way. Instead of "ghetto" being a place where a minority group lives (minority doesn't necessarily mean black), it's now a characteristic attributed to a person or menial behavior. It's unfortunate because these labels really contribute to inhibiting an individuals abilities. When individuals are classified that way, and know that they're being classified that way, they start to believe and accept that they are. This can change their mindsets about their future plans. People construct negative notions about what they consider to be "the hood", or "the ghetto", or "the projects", and most of the time, it's in these environments where you'll find the most unified and supporting neighbors. It's not perfect all the time, but what neighborhood is?
Sandy Bostic
ReplyDeleteTAL801
Urban Space
I can relate to the article where Brooklyn in certain areas, consist of the urban jungle.
I was born and raised in Bed-Stuy,Brooklyn. Growing up in Bed-Stuy in what was considered poverty, housing projects for low income families with run down playgrounds and parks.Where guns is the ruled for power,violence gives you repsect and selling drugs was part of an employment. Bed Stuy consisted of the urban jungle with gangs and violent crimes. Mostly blacks and hispanics lived in the area. Bed-Stuy has changed into a new and improved enivronment. I remembered when you didnt see not one white person roaming the area. Bed-Stuy has changed alot from when I was a child. Its no longer considered as a authentic cultural envirnoment. All races are moving into the neigborhood mostly whites. Bed-Stuy now has condos in the area, the city parks have improved. New Cafes, restaurants, wine bars, and beautiful brownstone houses.
I agree with Sandy about the authentic of the black neighborhoods because I lived in a neighborhood that was technically Bed-Stuy but is now called Clinton Hill. I lived only one block away from Bed-Stuy. Since the white people moved into the black neighborhood there has been lot of changes. For example, now there is a traffic light at an intersection that only had a stop sign before. Now the corner stores sell more health conscious food such as soy milk. Now there are lots of café with outside seating areas. Some streets are closed off in order to accommodate outside sitting area.
DeleteI agree with Sandy and Jennifer because when white (s) move in in a neighborhood, the environment tend to changes in various ways. People tend to have access and more have been offered to us. For instance, the groceries tend to sells more fresh and organic products. More products entered the in the community without limitation. The security increases and others tend to have a better perspective of that location than they had before. However, I wondered why is when the white (s) move into a community for those changes to take place, why not before?
DeleteWithout sounding racist, with regard to whites moving into "black" neighborhoodsI think its because they're more vocal and they generally vote with their wallet. It has alot to do with knowledge and access to jurisdiction and and lot of council members who vie for their vote. It doesn't happen over night but within a year you can see significant changes and I wouldn't say whites impact but just generally higher educated and affluent families move in. So if they request the local grocer to carry soy milk they will pay for it even if carries a premium to whatever else the grocer carries. They pay their rent on time and willing to pay more. As far as schools go its basically the local tax dollars that are infused into the local districts from those higher earning" white" families. But its not only white there are plenty of Black families that move into predominantly white areas that are higher earners that want to take advantage and reap the benefits of the neighborhood too.
DeleteMelodie Perkins
ReplyDeleteTAL 801
Living in a large urban space has been both rewarding and challenging. Rewarding because I am able to experience something new and challenging everyday. Because of these new experiences,this has given me access and the ability to meet people from various ethnic and religious backgrounds. By meeting these different people,I have expanded and broaden my knowledge of various communities.
However, there are drawbacks to living in a large urban space. For example, I find there is a limited amount of physical space. There are too many buildings in every square inch of the city. In certain sections of the city, there is limited amount of space to walk. There is always traffic congestion, making both driving and parking a nightmare. Travelling by mass transit can be a daunting experience, for example, there are always delays on the train.Waiting on the "2" and/or "5" train on President St.is tedious, becuase there is always a train in the Franklin Ave. subway station, or the train will go out of service. This has affected the time I have gotten to work. Therefore, I have had to alter my commute time. I have to leave much earlier , just to make it to work on time.
Attending school in a large urban space is a very different experience than when attending school in a small, rural town in upstate New York. The school I completed my undergraduate studies had a larger campus than LIU. However, there were fewer opporunities for cultural and entertainment events. While studying in LIU, I am not limited; there are numerous buses and trains to take me to school at all hours of the day and night. However, when I studied and lived upstate, I had to watch my time, because if I missed the bus, I had no way of getting back to campus. In this town, businesses closed during the weekdays by 6 p.m. and they were not opened on holidays nor on weekends. At LIU, there are many places to eat and shop; weekends are no exceptions. My safety was of great concern, while attended school in upstate New York. While living there, I had a group of people call me racial names.
There are more occasions for people of different racial and religious backgrounds together on this campus as opposed to where I studied in rural New York. Once people can talk with each other, knowledge is shared and exchanged. Once knowledge is shared, there are more opporunites for personal and emotional growth.
I totally agree with you in your first point , living in a large area with a lot of people
Deletefrom different countries and different ethnic give you the opportunity to gain new
experiences because these people have various perspectives about life and education.
Although, you stated some disadvantages for living in a large urban space ,but I think
people can overcome some of these disadvantages and adapt themselves with this
situation .
I also agree with you about studying at LIU has many benefits than other schools
because I completed my bachelor degree in a small university and small town also.
The public transportation was completely difficult and the events inside the university
are few .
Noadia J. Amardy
ReplyDeleteTal 801
Urban space is being viewed in the eyes of the elite in four different ways which are the sophisticated space, an authentic place of identity and a disorganized “jungle”. In the article, imagining the Urban: the Politics of Race, Class, and Schooling. Leonardo and Hunter define, the sophisticated urban space as a place where modernism express it advantages in civil society through art and culture. They also define the politics of authenticity as “ghetto” where people of color live. Furthermore, they have analyze that the urban jungle as the disorganization, criminal character and moral malaise.
As a young female raise in the urban space, I encountered many wonderful and challenging experiences in my life. I had the chance to interact with people from different regions and learn about their culture. However, being raise in that society also enables me to view life in a different perspective. Hence, I was able to appreciate and value other culture that I was exposed to.
Living in an urban space had impact my education in many ways because the school experience differs from the previous one that I receive in my native country (Haiti). For instance, in high school the behavior of students was something I always had to question at all time. Hence, the students did not have any respect for their elders and peers. Many times, they would engage in battle and constantly used profanities in the presence of the professors which I find very disturbing and hard to believe. However, due to the student’s lack of respect in the classroom and constant misbehaving, it held the motivated students from learning moreover, those that were eager to learn always had distractions which constantly drew them back in the classroom.
As I grew older, I have come to realized that the society that I live in plays a major role towards my education. Seeing peers who do not have the opportunities that I have been offered with forces me to become someone important in my community. When I look back at my peers, that I used to attend the same school with, I have come to take a different perspective towards my life and what I eager to accomplish in it to make it successful.
So, my post is about four times too long for this purpose.
ReplyDeleteI don't have time to rewrite it, having spent way too long already. Sorry!
I cannot claim to have had many early formative experiences in an urban context in this country. I cannot speak directly to the race-inflected "achievement gap" nor make a concrete contribution to "the way educators imagine the kind of schooling appropriate for urban students" (Leonardo & Hunter, p. 781). But I can offer some reflections on my overseas urban experiences and then suggest modestly where that might fit it.
When I arrived in London, England, at age four as a new transplant, everything felt, sounded, smelled, and tasted different than what I had been used to in Atlanta and in the company of family in various southern locales. As I now dredge up those first and other early or lingering impressions—some of them uncannily near, palpable—certain strands present themselves and fold into my later rationalizations and orderings of those early "making sense of things" incidents and episodes. English society is incredibly stratified, or at least it was when I lived there. The occupation, status, class position, and education of people was highly evident from the way they spoke and dressed. In the school setting, in the neighborhood where I lived, and in many of the areas of leisure I frequented, this was urban sophisticated space the way only the waning British Empire could lay it on. If this was a "blessing," it was rather grandiose, historically resonant, and mildly authoritarian. Not to skew my reflections too much out of their intended scope, but I would venture to say that a burden of this experience was an awareness of social distance, threat of censure, and in some sense a burden of privilege that made me perpetually aware that my life was out of sync with the vast majority of those peopling the world.
Part 2 of my post:
DeleteNow, I did experience urban London from a couple of more raw and threatening standpoints, although I am not sure how well this matches up with the notion of urban as "disorganized jungle." 1) On my commute to school I lived in some dread of being beaten up by roving bands of working-class boys, and while this never actually materialized, I did mostly avoid certain routes and I tended to scope out the path ahead. I worried about having my skateboard taken. I was on the big side, so perhaps that helped, but I was pretty cautious. Above all I avoided being caught alone, and there were occasions on which I scurried or ran to avoid this. 2) More dire and concrete was the IRA (Irish Republican Army) terrorist threat based on England's ongoing presence in, or, depending how you look at it, occupation of Northern Ireland. The print and TV news reported on such attacks and foiled attempts on a disconcertingly frequent basis, and there was a period when it was SOP to check under your car before getting in your car and cranking the ignition. A bomb went off on our street in central London one night, lobbed at the second floor balcony of a former prime minister (head of government). I remember the explosion and sound like a downpour that was actually the debris and glass falling. The street was evacuated and we spent the night in a nearby government building lobby. From that point there was reinforced glass on that house and a permanent police presence on our street. Like lots of other people, we would offer the police tea and biscuits, although according to a credible report from my sister our Spanish maid stretched that to entertaining one of the constables in our basement. But since they apparently got married, I am unsure how to characterize that encounter. 3) Also rather a departure from the everyday was the tenacious red-headed prostitute who patrolled our street for hours at a time. One rumor was that she felt the former prime minister owed her something or other. Apart from years of this behavior she did not seem especially deranged.
Owing to these experiences, movies like Colors or Training Day just do not evoke my own experience: I can empathize, I can be moved and outraged, but it is not my world. But a movie like Patriot Games (1992), the Harrison Ford vehicle with Sean Bean as the revenge-driven IRA operative, and average citizens mowed down in the crossfire, that one made my spine tingle and did not seem sensationalistic.
Finally, I can say that I had a degree and range of freedom in London that I never could see myself granting to my own children at anything like a comparable age. I traveled the sophisticated urban spaces, riding the buses, the underground, walked and biked for miles, often returning home to an empty house. This was freedom. And the buses were those open-backed doubledeckers that you could leap in and out of on the fly....
Part 3 of my post (seriously, you are still reading this?):
DeleteFor reappraising and critically evaluating one's own experience of the urban, I do find Leonardo and Hunter's essay very compelling. The dialectical framework helps forestall any static view, keeps binary concepts and approaches from intruding or at least from gaining the upper hand. As perhaps with any social experience, the material and the discursive condition and interpenetrate one another. It may be intellectually, analytically, or politically convenient to have a target that sits still, but such immobility or monolithic inertness makes for much less interesting and engaging quarry.
The Eagles tragic-tawdry epic spin on the founding of California ("The Last Resort") comes to mind as a contrast for the sorts of points I would make in conclusion:
...Some rich men came and raped the land,
nobody caught'em;
put up a bunch of ugly boxes,
and Jesus, people bought'em.
These are lines that, simply put, could not have been included in a poem or lyric of England that would truly resonate in the ear and illuminate the mind's eye. For, after having lived in and having been schooled in an ancient dynastic capital and (former) imperial metropolis, many of the cityscapes and urban areas in the United States strike me as provisional, as rather arbitrarily thrown together, a knock-up job in many instances, with little sense of place, little of the aura of history and tradition that imbues a city like London. The past is palpable in a place like that, and in some sense it is why I gravitate to history as a teaching vocation.
I hope this doesn't come off as a cop out; I could say something about my experiences of the urban environment of New York City, or of Boston, but these would end up being more based in philosophical and intellectual mullings, cultural criticism, political economy, and not so much based in, dare I say, the "authentic" lived experience of the person writing. Perhaps it might be the case that the "burden" of the urban for me is to find a way to connect my experiences with the myriad common experiences of students in urban schools in this country. A starting point might be that, in the same ways that I became aware of, sensitive to, and critical of oppressive, limiting, forestalling and precluding structures and discursive tendencies in the course of my London upbringing, young and untrained hearts and minds in urban schools are filled with the same stirrings, weighings, judgings. The history is surely here in there lives and communities as well, perhaps more in the patterns and stories of migration, the struggles to carve out an existence. Perhaps I am after all limited by my early experience of history and tradition in a grandiose and status-bound society, but the questions this all raised and raises might help me to locate some of the common ground, experiences, aspirations on which relationships with students can be built.
Maggie Jones,
ReplyDeleteTal 801
The space I experienced was living in the South Bronx in the 70's.
The Bronx was labeled ghetto, and there were mainly Puerto Ricans
And Blacks. Spanish and Blacks were described as poor and dirty
People who did not want to work. "These People" preferred to use
the system to get welfare and have babies. In today society, people
Who lived outside the urban space still think negative of the South Bronx.
Unfortunately, we have outside teachers who come into the public schools
With stereotype notion about Spanish and Blacks
I grew up in the same era, that you did, the 1970s. I lived in Brooklyn, primarily, Bushwick, East New York, and Crown Heights. I saw people who used illegal drugs and/or alcohol to get high; so they could numb a pain. I knew people who did not work and got welfare. However, I saw these same people care when someone's child got hit by a car, or when a mother had no food to feed her children; these same neighbors gave her and her children food. I experienced teachers who did not care, yet I had teachers who were kind. In school, I had textbooks, which were tattered, making it very hard to read the words. There were times in the winter, in which the school's boiler broke, making it very cold in the classrooms. The first few days of June, it was very hot in the classrooms.
DeleteThere were times when workers either from the utility companies or the another service provider came into the community, and I could see the fear or contempt they showed either their body languages or their eyes. This left a negative impression on me. This is one of the reasons, as a case worker, I experience the person first and not the report. Whether it is the psychosocial or the social comprehensive report. I want to understand the person first and start there. This in my opinion is how I build a relationship; I am not trying to have a relationship through the case file.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAbdullah Althomali
ReplyDelete801
Urban space
After reading Imagining The Urban : The Politics of Race , Class , and Schooling
( Leonardo and Hunter 2007 ) my view changed for the urban space . I became able to
analyze my life in school and neighborhood in the small town where I was living with
a lot of people from all colors and races. Also, after coming to study in USA , I realize
similarities and differences to my old community in Saudi Arabia in education and
daily life . I think the problem of racism in USA is more related to " skin color " ,
while in my country the problem of racism is more related to the huge gap between
rich people and poor people and the difference among their lives .
In the field of education , I have lived and studied with students from different
nationalities and different color and races such as , Egypt , Syria, Yemen , and also
from African counties like Sudan and Nigeria . The nice thing that the Saudi
government did not differentiate in the treatment of Saudis and non-Saudis in the
education , so it was free including books . However , there were a lot of differences
in the school environment and entertainment factors that available for students
between schools in rich neighborhoods and schools in poor neighborhoods .For
example , my middle school did not contain a soccer field although it was the first
game favored by students in the class of sport. As a result , students were spending
this class in running and boring gymnastics games. On the other hand , some schools
in rich neighborhoods include more than two or three soccer practice field!! .
These differences between rich and poor people extended to the standard of living,
security , and infrastructure in neighborhoods . In the poor neighborhoods you can see
old buildings , poor organization in the parking , negligence in cleaning streets ,
frequent thefts , and lack of security presence . Unlike in rich neighborhoods, streets
are nice and clean , crimes are few , police cars frequently present , and a lot of
available parking .
I enjoyed reading your post. It gives me insight to how the rich control everything and how they are the ones who decide where resources go. No matter where you go there will be discrimination and racism against the minority. In this case the minorities are the lower class and they aren't receiving equal opportunities. In any society there will be a group of people who are not receiving fair and just opportunties as another group.
DeleteSabrina Daniel
ReplyDeleteTal 801
Leonardo’s article, an urban space is characterized by distinct demarcations in neighborhoods, zones where the politics of race, class and education interact to produce social labels for its people. Alternately, an urban space can also take on another dimension which is the way people envision an urban setting. It is the “imagined” space which no doubt is laced with controversy as everyone through his or her myriad experiences would construe that space differently.
As I perused the article, I realized that I can clearly relate to the spaces of authentic cultural practices and the urban jungle. In my country, my favorite pastime was spending time with my dad’s family in an urban community. As one entered Maynard Hill, the first thing that caught one’s attention was a never ending hill with the abundance of small wooden unpainted houses and the sparse mansions erected between them. On the surface, it appeared that everyone lived in tandem but there was a clear divide between the rich and the poor although they occupied a similar space. We as kids did not interact with our rich counterparts in their parents’ presence. Many differences separated us, from access to television to the basic amenities which they had privy to at their homes but we had to get those provided to us publicly like standpipes and laundries to wash and bathe. However, this seemingly forgotten area would give me a first- hand experience of my rich Caribbean heritage. It was there I experienced many nights where the older generation merged with the younger generation to pass on the oral tradition of storytelling, herbal medications, traditional food and dance. The overall unity of the community seemed to revolve around culture and very active clubs grew out of that desire to unite with our roots.
The urban jungle was yet another urban space quite visible to me. It was just five minutes from Maynard Hill. The graffiti on the walls and the streets were the first indication that it was different. The area was called, ‘Grass Street.” As the name suggests, the area was heavily populated by persons who had strong allegiance to their roots. Thus, it was no surprise to find the strong presence of the Rastafarian movement in that area. What was amazing was that this area was surrounded by middle class families, but this little “outcast” evolved anyway. There was a decisive line drawn between Grass Street and its surroundings. In order to feel welcomed, one had to be accepted by one of its members. I gained entry specifically to get my hair braided but overtime came to respect the area and saw it as a place where individuals found their identity and the tag of “nothingness” levied at them was really a paradigm concocted to assign them to an inferior social class. Not withstanding that the area was noted for drugs, violence, criminal activity, I am of the view that their alienation and the sometimes callous nature of the police when called to settle issues in the area did leave much an aftermath of resentment and unresolved conflict.
Sabrina Daniel
ReplyDeleteTal 801 Part 2
Having a more informed understanding of what constitutes an urban space, I can readily admit that it does have implications on my educational experiences as a teacher. Firstly, the students who live in the urban jungle have had to endure sometimes unfair treatment with the same disrespect by teachers. In a sense the school seems to be an extension of what happens in their community. As such we need compassionate teachers who are aware of the students’ daily struggles. They in turn will not recreate the horrors in the students’ lives but reinforce those principles that can foster learning and advancement. Also, although it is virtually impossible to eliminate social demarcations outside the school, it is destructive to allow these distinctions to contaminate the teaching learning process. Each student should be equal partners and given access to a safe place where social class, stigmatization and inferiorities are given little attention.
Lastly, another implication that the urban space has on education is the inability of many teachers and policy makers to recognize students’ experiences, be it culture or language as an integral part of the classroom pedagogy. Failure to sync these pertinent resources is likely to lead to poor student participation and resistance to learning. Therefore as teachers, as we embrace the notion of urban spaces, it is imperative that we redirect our thinking to encompass the plight of the disadvantaged as well as those who seem to excel well academically.
Sabrina, your post truly hit the mark, and sincerely hit home for me. Many students who live in the “urban jungle” are taught by teachers who do not have any experience living, attending, or teaching in schools compromised of a high concentration of “urban” students. As a result – and this is based on personal experience from my days as a student in East Harlem and now my experience working in a high school in Kingsbridge – teachers lacking this practical experience seem to display a very judgmental attitude towards particular students based on their knowledge of where they live, family circumstances, and many other factors that they do not have first-hand experience with.
DeleteYou also point out that the students who are the recipients of this unfair treatment and who have teachers and administrators who are unable or unwilling to sync the students’ experiences with their pedagogy are likely to feel deterred from learning. This is absolutely true and quite frankly, this is debilitating and deflating for their ego, and can easily be the catalyst for very poor performance and dropping out.
Michelle Roper
ReplyDeletePart 1
I have experienced living in each of the urban spaces Leonardo and Hunter discuss in “Imagining the Urban: The Politics of Race, Class, and Schooling.” I grew up in Rochester, NY and the housing is a bit different than that of New York City. People can rent whole houses, half of a house, and apartments and they can be located in different neighborhoods. Growing up we often moved from place to place. When I was young, about 6 years old, we lived on the Northeast side (however, I don’t remember much about that neighborhood). We attended School #39, which was a true diverse public school. There were whites, blacks, Hispanics and even a few Asian students. Then our rented house caught on fire and we had to move. We moved to the east side of town which was still the city but more of a rural feeling. I would call that the sophisticated urban space because it was a predominantly white neighborhood at our end of the street, with few shops and grocery stores for our convenience. The street was divided. At the other end, it was predominantly black with less maintained houses and the projects. There was also an elementary school there and it would have taken us ten minutes to walk to school, but my mom chose to keep us in our old neighborhood school even though we had to take a thirty to forty minute ride to school each day. When I entered middle school there were only about five public middle schools in the whole city of Rochester and so the middle school I attended was a thirty minute walk to school. The population was predominantly African-American and Latino students.
When my parents divorced I was still in the seventh grade and a few months after, we moved back to the Northeast side to a predominantly black neighborhood. This new neighborhood represented urban as an authentic place of identity that Leonardo and Hunter talked about. There wasn’t a grocery store for 15-20 miles but there were plenty of corner stores everywhere. There was food available that wasn’t available before in our old neighborhood. It was the first time I had had curry goat and oxtails. Things had completely changed for me. I started to get into a lot of verbal fights in my neighborhood. I attended the same middle school and that’s where I got into my first physical fight with a girl over a boy. Looking back, I think I fought not only in defense but to prove to the others that I was tough, that I was black too. I am a light skinned black woman who people often confuse as Hispanic, so during those years I often felt like I had to prove I was black, either by having my father come visit the school (not my mom because she was lighter than me), by fighting, or by not caring about school. The teachers didn’t care about their students or their jobs anyway. I remember one black woman (I believe she was from the Caribbean). She was our eighth grade social studies teacher and she would always tell us she didn’t have to do anything but stay black, pay her taxes, and die. I can’t remember one thing I learned in her class, possibly, not because of her but because of myself and me not wanting to go to school. I missed so much of school in the seventh and eighth grade and I don’t remember one teacher calling my parents to inform them I wasn’t showing up for their class.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMichelle Roper
ReplyDeletePart2
During my freshman year of school we moved again. This time to what I would call the Urban “Jungle,” Fulton Street. We knew nothing about this neighborhood. It was located on the west side. We moved in in February when it was winter and so we didn’t get a true sense of the neighborhood, but we did as soon as it warmed up. It was a black neighborhood. There were young guys, some much older than us and some the same age and they were in the neighborhood selling drugs. It was crack head central. There were girls a few houses down who didn’t like us and so we got into altercations with them. There were shoot-outs and our house was in the midst of all the action. Our house was popular. It had been empty for some time before we rented it. As soon as the warm weather hit we used to have guys come on our front porch, without permission, sit there and sell and hide drugs in the enclosed porch. I assumed this was their porch before it became ours. We used to kick them off of it but they would come back and eventually we couldn’t fight them any longer and they took over our porch. We later became great friends with the leader. From that point on he and his crew protected and took good care of us. Once we got to know them, we realized how harmless they were (at least to us). They became our brothers. They were young men who felt the need to make that fast easy money. Some ended up dead, some went to prison and some got out and changed their lives around. They were just a bunch of misguided young men who needed direction from the missing men in their lives. That was Fulton Street. I went back one year and the house we stayed in was knocked down. The stores that were there were gone too. They’ve replaced some of the houses with new ones but the majority of them are boarded up or gone with nothing new in their place.
These experiences along with the divorce of my parents have shaped my education.
The word “urban,” for many including myself, sometimes conjures up images of a ghetto area mixed consisting of residents who come from mixed backgrounds but are particularly African –Americans and Latinos. The residents come from a various socio-economic classifications, ranging from below the poverty line to upper-middle class. Growing up on the borderline of Harlem and Washington Heights (153rd Street and St. Nicholas Avenue), I experienced the idea of the urban space in several forms. The unofficial dividing line between Harlem and Washington Heights being 155th street, I was literally in between two different cultural havens, one representing the experiences and culture of African Americans, white the other representing the experience and culture of Dominican-Americans, and as an African-American with a Latino last name, assimilation into both groups was relatively easy, while at the same time retaining my identity. I distinctly remember both areas and agree with the research cited in the article (p. 780) that daily lifestyles and music of cultures serves as a source of enjoyment for ghetto areas, as I have personally lived this experience.
ReplyDeleteMy educational experience was not much different from my experience at home, as I was schooled from 2nd grade through high school in East Harlem, also, an area that I love for its culturally and artistically rich emphasis. My elementary, middle, and high schools were located right in the center of East Harlem, also known Spanish Harlem and El Barrio. Spanish Harlem is undoubtedly a place that people of color recognize for its authentic cultural practices and authenticity, making it an urban place of authenticity as defined in the reading (p. 785). Everyone in the neighborhood and many students and staff in the schools took pride in the neighborhood. The schools I attended were defined as “diverse,’” but in reality, the majority of the students were Puerto Rican and African American kids who lived in the neighborhood. The teaching staff was certainly diverse in gender and ethnicity, but one thing that was important and noteworthy was the recognition of the historical and cultural significance of each school’s location. It was important for the school to discuss the history of Puerto Ricans in New York City, we took regular trips to El Museo del Barrio, and we had special celebrations honoring Three Kings Day. This educational experience was undoubtedly a representation of an urban space, in the culturally authentic viewpoint, which was as realistic as one could possibly get.
Anton, I was raised around the same area you grew up in. This urban area is one where people are wanting to move into now where years ago only minorities use to populate the area. I remember taking cabs with my parents and the can driver asking my mom why she was living in this horrible area with two little girls. Today people are paying to live in this urban area. I haven't moved from Harlem and I don't think I'll be leaving anytime soon. There is so much culture and life in our community that its extremely hard to leave it behind. Going back to the beginning of your response to the definition of urban I never thought that urban meant ghetto. Due to the many ways people actually use it. Some people use it as something young and new. It's the same when people say that they like to listen to urban music. On the contrary I have learned that urban is used in a nicer way to say ghetto. As I mention in my post the word was used at my place of work and I honestly felt disrespected because I live in a urban area and the stereotypes that people have towards the urban community are completely wrong. It's sad to see how people judge an entire community because of a few bad apples instead of knowing and understanding the rest of the people that live there.
DeleteUrban Space is still an every day issue. It is in our schools, neighborhoods, department stores, television shows, and publicity. I lived in East New York and many times when people asked me where do I live their assumptions might be its "ghetto" or even high in crimes. They are crimes everywhere and in every neighborhoods. I have experienced when you go into some department stores and a person of color might be looked at more than a white person. In my opinion racism still exist, it is just in silence. They way how a black person would be approach wouldn't be the same as how a white person would be approach.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the Urban Space and the Politics of Authencity (p785) Zeus Leonardo and Margaret Hunter said that some whites affiliate urban as "ghetto" and dirty. Urban is also portray through television by showing black people living in poor neighborhoods, but when the white television are portray the family are living in upper class neighborhoods with the fancy clothes, cars,houses, and friends. Lopez (1997) notice that food are sold differently in urban areas than in an upper class neighborhood.
Some implication of the way the urban space is both place and imagined in my education is that schools that are in the low income neighborhoods tends to fail. They fail because of lack of resources and parents involvement. Most parents that are from these areas aren't educated, lack of money, and poor backgrounds. In my neighborhood, majority all of the schools are failing schools.The staff aren't motivated to even push the kids further due to lack of parents involvement. For this reason, I wouldn't allow my daughter to attend any of these schools. If you go into a different neighborhood you would see how beautiful the schools are. They have updated technology, lots of parent involvement, and plenty of resources to help the children.
Urban Space is amongst us all. No matter where we go things would always be the same, stereotyping people because of their race or where they live would still be an issue.
I agree Kimberly . Urban space is a everyday issue and racism still exist. I can relate to going into a department and security guards looking at blacks instead of looking at all racist. I witnessed a white woman stealing silverware at a dept. store. She never got caught because security didn't label her as a thief. Blacks will always be known as low poverty poor people. Why? Because whites stereotype us as this. As far as the schools in the "Jungle" area, it's not all parents are not educated or have money issues some parents work so hard trying to make ends meet that they don't have times to get involved in their children schools. Society needs to fight for better schools, and more community centers for children to have activities to keep them occupied
DeleteSvetlana Kezerashvili
ReplyDeleteTAL801
Imagining the Urban
Blog Post 1
Zeus Leonardo and Margaret Hunter have posted an intriguing parallel defining meaning of Urban as a place and space. At two opposing spectrums however, urban means sophistication, richness, and attraction perceived as space where the latest trends are represented. One the opposite spectrum is an idea of less attractive, “negatively” represented place, associated with poverty, and daily struggles.
I have experienced Urban Space in an imaginative world in a form of makeup products such as Urban Decay Makeup, clothes, and street cool, stylish environment. I have to be honest, Urban has typically been associated with “positive” in my experience. As I entered Education Program at College of Staten Island, I was introduced to urban in a sense of poor schools for multiethnic, Hispanic and African American students, unavailability of resources, unqualified teachers or struggling teachers, underfunding, and submerged in poverty districts. There is a doubled criterion when it comes to the meaning of urban place and urban space. Recently, some of the Brooklyn regions are intensely becoming urban space with fashionable stores, brick-walled cafes, and bookstores.
In my educational experience, urban space was my High School in Brooklyn; our school was densely occupied by immigrant students, I did not particularly feel poverty. I had only positive feelings about that overcrowded space since I found myself among people who shared not only my language but culture as well. As it comes to my home country, Russia, urban space was shared between similar backgrounds and economic positions; urban was a place and space where everyone wanted to be since it represented progress and development.
Jennifer Acosta
ReplyDeleteThe first time I heard the word urban it was used in context to describe a genre of music. The word urban to be meant upbeat music such as Latin reggae also know as Reggaeton, and other Latin genres, But soon I learned the many definitions it urban has. The second time I heard a person say the word it was to describe young people as being "hip" or cool. At one point I even started calling myself urban. I thought it was a better word to use than describing myself as hip and young. Last year I applied to a company and got hired. I went through intense training on client services. During this training the word urban kept describing a certain of clients. I went home one night and I did a small research on the many definitions urban had and The word urban means that the area is defined as a city or metropolis. It is the opposite of rural which means primarily undeveloped or farm land, An Urban Community is a big city or town. It is considered an Urban Community if there are more than 2,500 people living in the community. Urban communities are often busy and crowded. Normally, the city is the most central location in a region. It is also referred to as downtown. In an Urban Community there are many buildings, houses, and people. People often live close together and then I stumbled upon the word ghetto as the definition of urban. Soon after reading this I emailed a friend of mine and asked do you think that my company is using stereotypes on blacks and Hispanics she said are you crazy I doubt they would say such a thing. For weeks as I worked I started to pick up on certain things that were finally proving what I was feeling for so long. Certain items were described to us as the urban community would love the logos and the big name on shoes so maybe you should push these items on them. Finally I couldn't hold my tongue any longer. I asked my supervisor what do you mean by urban? She said it meant ghetto. At that very moment my expression said it all. I told her, how could you describe people in that manner she tried to correct herself but my belief is that the first thing you say it's really counts and what you honestly feel. I felt offended because I grew up in "Urban community" and I have never been into logos or flashy items so its a very stereotypical thing to say and even label a certain group of clients in that manner. From that very moment I realized something that I knew but wasn't clearly proven in my eyes; stereotypes were not retired and aren't ever going to be. " For instance, there are urban communities that are positively that are "postively" urban like the upper east side of manhattan, New York but not Harlem or the south Bronx." ( Leonard /Hunter, 2007 p 779) The people who did this study probably went over the crime rate and the broken homes there are to help them define that meaning behind the non negative urban community. Urban will always be a word that will continue to be used to describe a certain group or thing but we must learn how to use in a context that will not offend another.
I am intrigued with the way Jennifer's post and some of the others explore how ways of thinking about the "urban" connect with commerce, capitalism, the commodification of everything (including image), and political economy. That, I think, is one of the really exciting about the readings in Leonardo & Hunter, Kelley, and for that matter also bell hooks.
DeleteI want to use my reply to raise an issue that my post did not directly address. One of the tricky but important words that lie at the hearts of our two texts for this week is the noun "dialectic" or "dialectics." According to the online Merriam-Webster Dictionary, it has various potential meanings, but the definition that seems to apply given the generic, uninflected usage in Leonardo & Hunter and in Kelley is:
"any systematic reasoning, exposition, or argument that juxtaposes opposed or contradictory ideas and usually seeks to resolve their conflict."
Including my own original post (in 3 perhaps irritating installments), posts that did not grapple with the structures and implications of the "dialectic" may reflect a missed opportunity in terms of benefiting fully and being enriched by the authors' contributions. The article and book offer rigor as well as a (hopefully) liberating dynamism, and despite the in many ways sobering or disheartening fruits of the ACTUAL analysis, I think it can be asserted that they send the reader into a terrain of conceptual and material possibility by virtue of the MODE OF analysis.
So what do I mean by that, briefly? One can take the cynicism and exploitation evident in our society and way of life and, in some sense, flip it on its head. Leonardo and Hunter assert, "As an imagined space, the urban is constructed through multiple and often contradictory meanings. These meanings are sites of contestation as to what the urban signifies in people's imagination. Consequently, the imagined aspect of the urban setting affects urban education because it socially and culturally constructs the people who live in at as well as their needs" (p. 780). As are we all in some way, the urban people, and their needs (real and perceived, or possibly externally manufactured by the capitalist dream machine) are produced/reproduced by a system that tends to be top heavy, top-down, unilateral, undemocratic, corporatized, etc. But as Kelley points out in his rich discussion of work and play (especially pp. 73-77 of "Looking To Get Paid"), we should avoid increased "social control" and try "to unleash and develop the creative capacity of black urban youth": "Rather than try to change the person...we need to change the streets themselves, the built environment, the economy, the racist discourse that dominates popular perceptions of black youth" (p. 76). The paradox is both fruit of and subject to the dialectic: "in the struggles of urban youths for survival and pleasure, capitalism has become both their greatest friend and greatest foe" (p. 77).
I grew up in Hempstead, NY, which may be considered by most an urban space. We have our nice houses owned mostly by black and hispanic families, we have our Martin Luther King Drive, as well as our projects. This contributes to my educational experience in that I didn't realize my neighborhood was different until I left it. I moved from Hempstead to Flushing, and my perceptions changed from "black and white" to "black and Spanish, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, White, Filipino". That's where I can relate to urban as an authentic place of identity. I felt like I had something to prove. Like my skin color meant that I was tough, and I had to work harder than everyone else
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't consider urban to be a disorganized jungle at all because growing up, I didn't experience anything to make me think that way. I feel that that category is for people on the outside looking in, not really experiencing what really goes on in an urban neighborhood.
I agree with Berleen because I always had a positive look on the word urban. I thought that urban was considered to be a nice trendy area. I wasn't really introduced into the negative perspective of this term until I started my undergraduate studies in Childhood Education. I believe that urban can take on either a positive meaning or a negative meaning. Some individuals don't really realize they live in a urban space just like Berleen until she moved away.
DeleteSvetlana Kezerashvili
DeleteI agree with you about the fact that growing up in an environment and stepping out into the world that is complicated by unhealthy attention to diversity soaked in stereotypes it is challenging and new to regard emphases on urban culture depicted in a negative light. I also think you are right to criticize urban as disorganized jungle, since it is difficult to understand and appreciate urban culture from outside experiences which consequently make it inaccurate.
Deni Crowley
ReplyDeleteMarch 9, 2013
Tal 801
As I read “Imagining The Urban: The Politics of Race, Class and School” by Zeus Leonardo and Margaret Hunter, I noticed they broke down the meaning of urban in three different ways. The three ways they broke it down was: sophisticated space, authentic place of identity and a disorganized jungle. Each way represents a different aspect of the urban meaning. I my self never looked at in urban in some of the ways these authors mentioned. I did find it very interesting and usefully when I read each way.
Most of my life I lived in a rural area and had little to no experience with urban space. I did go to a high school that was fairly mixed with Whites, Latinos and African Americans. I did experience some difference with races and cultures but didn’t take much of it because I treated everyone the same. As a high school student, I never cared about what race someone was or what their background was, I embraced everyone equally.
Once I started working in an urban area, I had more of an idea of how people of low come families lived. I worked in Perth Amboy, New Jersey for about a year. When I was a kid, I noticed many parents were involved with their children’s school and education. I didn’t see that much when I was working in the school in Perth Amboy. What I did notice is that the students were struggling and their parents were unable to help them because they did not fully speak English and were not fully educated. There were no way resources or ways for children to get help outside of school. In my school in Brooklyn today, I see the same thing happening. The only difference is, my school provides outside help for not only the students but for the parents as well. I have many Spanish speaking students in my school who need that extra help with their English. My school provides English class for both students and parents. Parents are learning different ways to help their child understand homework and are also learning the key terms. I think if more school would provide background knowledge and resources to those who need it we wouldn’t have so many schools that are failing. I also think that having parent involved in the schools, may also help out.
Kimberly Satram
ReplyDeleteI honestly thought at first that urban was an area that was an upscale area. When I actually read through this article I was completely surprised that urban could take on two different meanings. Urban is considered to be either a “ghetto” which collects tons of attention or a venue of “sophisticated” life. These two meanings are completely different and I have learned that it all depends on the way you view the word urban. I consider now in the present day there is a lot of stigma with that word mainly because people look down upon people that live in the “urban” and areas where there are mainly Blacks in that area. I have witnessed this in many different parts of Brooklyn and the Bronx in New York City.
In this article it mentioned that some people believe that urban can either “represent an outlet of entertainment and a venue for a sophisticated life, or whereas for other the urban seems like an escapable cul-de-sac of poverty and daily degradation.” (Leonard/Hunter, 2007, p 779) In this course and my undergraduate courses we have only viewed urban as being an area where it can be a neglected neighborhood that has countless issues. So, throughout out my educational experience my perspective on urban is constantly changing. I believe that urban is always going to have that meaning or either being a sophisticated place or be considered a disorganized jungle.
Urban areas are often discriminated against, due the fact the type of people habit in those zones. Middle and poor family consider live in this type of neighborhood. In America race play where racial discrimination affects everything in the American society including education. Politics restrain the blacks and the Latinos to receive the proper education which under the law supposes to be. According to IMAGING THE URBAN: THE POLITICS OF RACE, CLASS, and SCHOOLING; by Zeus Leonardo and Margaret Hunter express the location of the school also affects the level of education. The urban communities and schooling at the bottom, this type of environment receive less money for the development of the communities and the value of a decent education. Zeus and Hunter went back in the sixties urban area and the challenge the school and the communities face, even now there seem a little change due the advance of technology. People start to be more informed but there still need a lot to be done for these two main areas. A better community equal better education environment.
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