Day To Day Survival In The Inner City
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A remarkable work of journalism, even exceeding Simon's more famous work 'Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets'.
The reader is taken into a world few of us would dare approach as outsiders but almost immediately we are empathising with most of the characters.
This book is a terrible endictment of inner cities throughout the world, but especially in America. Aspirations are crushed by the surrounding apathy and good intentions drowned by the endless supply of readily available, highly addictive cheap drugs. The complete breakdown of the education system and any sort of meaningful law and order, described and explained by Simon in horrific detail, show that the next generation(s) are doomed to follow the old as avenues of escape are all but cut off.
Yet even among the gun toting teenage gangs, the adolescent mothers and their long term addicted parents and grand-parents we recognise people with potential, those with gentle and friendly natures, those with a wonderful sense of humour, simple people, lazy people, hard-working people - in short, every day characters and personalities we all recognise. But society has failed them, utterly broken down and failed them dismally.
There, but for an accident of birth, goes every one of us.
There are those who continue to care, continue to work to try and bring some sort of meaning to life in the ghetto. Some are saints who, at least for a time, refuse to give up on a cause so lost it is bewildering, while others are just not prepared to recognise the hoplessness into which their own neighborhood has descended.
More than anything this book is a slap in the face for those who say 'I would never let it happen to me, I'd find a way to better myself'. If we're honest with ourselves, if we think back to what influenced us as children - our role models, our peers, our parents, the level of expectation for our future generated by our surroundings - how many of us can truthfully say we could fight our way out of such a situation?
Simon isn't offering solutions, but he does show us why those attempted so far have failed before they even started. However, this book allows us to begin to understand the true nature of the problem and only by first understanding can we hope that one day, perhaps, there may be a solution.
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Real urban anthropology told as a great story.
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For more than 15 years my working life has been concerned with studying the links between drugs and crime in the context of urban deprivation in the North of England UK. One of my personal goals is to make a contribution to the literature that would warrant being on the same bookshelf as The Corner and Philippe Bourgois' 'In Search of Respect'.
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Compelling and shockingly real!
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I grew up in that neighborhood and many of my relatives still live there today. I believe I'm qualified to say that Simon's portrait of West Baltimore life is extremely accurate. However, the authors could have presented the complete story, Fat Curt wasn't always the soulless junky that Simon highlighted, he had a family and friends, I was one of them. Athletic talents got me out, but what of those that can't shoot a ball, or rap, or those that have to attend a West Baltimore public school. Life is tough in the ghetto, I think everyone knows that. Now Simon needs to write a book of solutions to the problem that he so profoundly explained.
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Excellent!
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This is must reading for those concerned about the fate of our cities and about social justice.
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Enlightening, tragic, human
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Thank you so much for humanizing the drug culture in our inner-cities. I learned so much, like drugging is extremely hard work, and yet the book also confirmed what I'd always believed: getting a job at McDonald's is not the answer to ending a drugging life. As I was sucked into this story, I found myself praying, crying, frustrated and hopeful for these people - but never condemning. This should be required reading for every social sciences course in this country.
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