The Sociology Book

83

Working-class black people who
live in impoverished areas are, says
Anderson, routinely stigmatized and
“demoralized by racism.”

See also: Michel Foucault 52–55 ■ W.E.B. Du Bois 68–73 ■ Paul Gilroy 75 ■
Edward Said 80–81

SOCIAL INEQUALITIES

Anderson gives the example of
a racist incident while he was on
holiday in a “pleasant Cape Cod
town full of upper-middle-class
white vacationers.” As he enjoyed
a jog through the town, a middle-
aged white man blocked the road
with his car, and shouted “Go
home!” to Anderson. Bemused,
Anderson later questioned what
the man meant, and realized that
it was an order to “go home” to the
ghetto. The institution of the ghetto
is persistent, says Anderson, and it
leads many to think that the black
person’s place is most often in the
ghetto, not in middle-class society.

Iconic status
Most black people in America do
not come from a ghetto, and legally
they have access to the same
schooling and job opportunities as
white people. However, because
“the ghetto” has reached iconic
status, it operates as a mindset,
and black people of all classes find
themselves having to prove that
they are not from the ghetto before
they do anything else. Anderson

says that middle-class black

people do this by “speaking white”

(mimicking the formal speech

style of upper-middle-class whites),

or demonstrating exceptional

intelligence, manners, and poise.

They deal with insults by laughing

them off with friends, but in fact

these small events, like Anderson’s

jogging incident, can make “the

scales fall from one’s eyes” and

induce a feeling of having been

a fool for believing that they fitted

seamlessly into society.

Disproving the ghetto

Middle-class black people can

work to disabuse others of this

“assessment,” Anderson says, but

the problem for poorer black people

is less easily solved. If they actually

live in a ghetto, how can they

distance themselves from all its

associations? How do working-

class black people signify that they

are not violent drug addicts, or in

any way counteract the prejudice

already operating against them?

Anderson points to the shooting

of Trayvon Martin in 2012: the

unarmed, innocent 17-year-old

was shot dead by a neighborhood

watch coordinator, who said Martin

looked “out of place.” This exposes

the danger of many white people’s

belief that black people come from,

and should remain in, “the ghetto,”

not white neighborhoods.

According to Anderson, the idea

that black people have a specific

“place” in society (the “ghetto”)

persists in the imagination of white

people. This is despite a black

presence in every social class and

neighborhood. The iconic ghetto

acts to continually stigmatize

people with black skin, and treat

them as “dangerous outsiders.” ■

The black man is treated

as a dangerous outsider

until he proves he is

worthy of trust.

Elijah Anderson

Elijah Anderson

Elijah Anderson is one of the

leading urban ethnographers

in the US. He was born

on a plantation in Mississippi

during World War II. His

parents were originally

sharecroppers who picked

cotton, but after his father’s

experience of fighting as a

soldier in Europe during the

war, the family found the

racism of the South intolerable

and moved to Chicago and

then Indiana, both in the

north of the country.

Anderson studied sociology

at Indiana University and

then Chicago, where his

dissertation on black

streetcorner men became his

first book, A Place on the

Corner (1978). He was Vice

President of the American

Sociological Association (ASA)

in 2002, and has won many

awards, including the ASA’s

Cox-Johnson-Frazier Award.

Key works

1990 Streetwise

1999 Code of the Street:

Moral Life of the Inner City

2012 “The Iconic Ghetto”