Excerpt
May 16, 2011
Americans in the larger society often conclude, as reflected in the media reports, that the frequency with which behavior in the inner-city ghetto departs form mainstream normative expectations is the result of a different value system. What is clear from our research is that the residents share values that cut across groups in the United States. Little effort is made in these reports to explore the fact that people experience great difficulty as they try to conform to the basic values of the larger society in the face of restrictions unknown to middle-class whites and blacks alike. We need only be reminded that the absence of strong institutional resource base in many inner-city ghetto neighborhoods undermines parental efforts to control the behavior of their children and therefore makes it exceedingly difficult to satisfy the family value of promoting pro-social development among the children. The institutional resource base in inner-city ghetto neighborhoods has always been weaker than that in middle-class society. It is even worse today due to the staggering rise of joblessness mainly brought about by fundamental changes in the global economy, changes that have affected the job prospects and income of citizens in both the United States and Europe. The society's lack of appreciation and understanding of the problems that plague inner-city ghetto residents has implications for the state of urban race relations and the degree of support for race-based social policy.
VastPress 2011 Vastopolis
