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Overview
As with war, much of our focus on inner-city violence is on the death toll, but the reality is that far more victims live to see another day and must copy with their injuries—both physical and psychological—for the rest of their lives. Renegade Dreams is their story. Walking the streets of one of Chicago’s most violent neighborhoods, Laurence Ralph talks to parents, grandparents, and pastors, to activists and gang leaders, to the maimed and the hopeful, to aspiring rappers, athletes, or those who simply want safe passage to school or a steady job. Seeking to understand how they cope, he ultimately shows that the injuries they carry are—like dreams—a crucial form of resilience.
Praise for Renegade Dreams
“A tour de force—extremely well written and engaging, and replete with original insights. Once I began reading Ralph’s book, I had a difficult time putting it down. His field research is fascinating. And his explicit discussion of the interconnections of inner-city injury with government and community institutions, as well as how it is related to historical and social processes, is a major contribution.” —William Julius Wilson, author of The Truly Disadvantaged
“Ralph’s Chicago is peopled by characters we’ve seen before . . . but they breathe and bounce throughout his pages like more than just rehashed stock figures in some ongoing morality play about urban black pathology. Thoroughly researched and powerfully told, Renegade Dream is a paradigm-shifting anthropological rejoinder to popular stereotypes and scholarly cant about “inner-city violence,” its causes, and its aftermath.” —John L. Jackson Jr., author of Thin Description
“Astounding in its clarity and groundbreaking in its power. . . . The textures and rhythms of Ralph’s realist narrative are charged with critical insight and transcendental significance, making ethnography into a work of art.” —João Biehl, author of Vita
“Theoretically rich and superbly written, this book exposes what is hidden in plain sight: the full humanity of people whose lives are greater than the sum of their pain and peril.” —Khalil Gibran Muhammad, author of The Condemnation of Blackness
“An elegant, poetic, and sympathetic look at a West Side Chicago neighborhood [Ralph] calls Eastwood. . . . Recommended for readers interested in contemporary urban neighborhoods and Chicago history. An absorbing read for those who enjoyed the blend of history and narrative in William Shaw’s West Side: Young Men & Hip Hop in L.A..” —Library Journal
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780226032856 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Chicago Press |
| Publication date: | 12/22/2022 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 274 |
| Sales rank: | 339,350 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Renegade Dreams
Living Through Injury in Gangland Chicago
By Laurence Ralph
The University of Chicago Press
Copyright © 2014 The University of ChicagoAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-226-03285-6
CHAPTER 1
Development OR,Why Grandmothers Ally with the Gang
Just before noon on February 19, 2009, one dozen members of the Divine Knights Gang, all wearing red bandannas and red scarves, are waiting outside one of Chicago City Hall's many courtrooms. Today the Divine Knights have come to City Hall to oppose a redevelopment plan targeting their community. The Knights are joined by older Eastwoodians, many of whom are part of the Neighborhood Coalition, the area's most influential political action group. Like the gang affiliates, members of the Neighborhood Coalition are wearing red—red T-shirts, red hats, red pants, and red scarves. Inside the courtroom, government officials are preparing to debate the merits of the Eastwood Plan, which calls for the redevelopment of 652 properties within the Eastwood neighborhood limits. Most of these properties are abandoned commercial structures, vacant residential buildings, or empty lots, all of which the Divine Knights and the Neighborhood Coalition are happy to have redeveloped. What they're fighting to keep out of the Eastwood Plan are residential units that the local government has deemed "unfit for living." Of the thirty-seven units designated as unlivable, thirty-three are occupied. Under the legislation, these thirty-three units could be acquired by the city. Once acquired, the current residents would likely be forced from their homes and into a housing market where it's doubtful they would find affordable shelter.
At the sound of clicking heels, the red-clad group turns and sees their opposition approaching. This is the Delivery Development Corporation, represented by fifteen professional-looking men and women wearing business suits and carrying briefcases. Known as "Delivery," the corporation builds and rehabilitates housing units in Eastwood. The representatives are accompanied by a group of freshly shaven black men dressed in khakis and polo shirts that don't quite fit. The men appear both uncomfortable and proud. Their powder-blue polos, emblazoned with the Eastwood Community Church's insignia, are the daily uniform of the neighborhood's recovering addicts. The men live in a rehabilitation center that, like the Delivery Development Corporation, is owned by Eastwood Community Church. Made to attend by the center's administration, they are positioned as supporters of the Eastwood Plan.
As they move closer to the group in red, the men in blue polos visibly relax their postures. They recognize the older men and women from the Neighborhood Coalition and members of the Divine Knights. Eric Childs, a former gang member, is the first to say what everyone already knows. "Look at this shit," he exclaims, pointing to the urban professionals. "They've got the grandmothers over here fighting against their own grandsons!"
In the pages to come, I will explore how, in the struggle over Eastwood's future, the community's "grandmothers" and their "grandsons" came to align themselves on opposite sides. Here, the notion of a "disreputable" gang member is linked to the conception of an "undesirable" neighborhood. When taken up by powerful institutions, such impressions can lead to a dangerously delimited logic, which goes like this: Some homes in Eastwood are dilapidated, and therefore an infusion of people and resources from outside the community must help transform it. The religious, political, and economic institutions that serve as gatekeepers for urban renewal are the ones that take this idealistic tact. They presume that longtime residents are disconnected from neighborhood institutions and devoid of resources, and therefore have little to contribute to the process of community development. Longtime Eastwoodians, in turn, experience this lack of inclusion as an affront. For them, contributing to redevelopment entails refiguring idealistic ideologies of local institutions through a pragmatic approach that seeks to render their institutional connections visible—that is, before the history they hope to preserve turns to rubble and ash.
Tamara Anderson wants to build a museum. A forty-something, second-generation Eastwoodian, Tamara is a leader of the Neighborhood Coalition, one of the most influential political action groups in the area. On the floor above her jewelry shop, located in the heart of Eastwood, Tamara wants to display a history of her hometown that includes everything from clippings and photographs of the riots that took place in the 1960s to the marches and the parades that occurred in the 1970s, to a symbolic cane signed by members of the Divine Knights. In erecting a monument to Eastwood, Tamara seeks to overcome the local media's tendency to negatively define her neighborhood for her. She hopes to make the argument that Eastwood is a historic section of Chicago and that it has the right to be preserved. This is a strategic move. A steady stream of criminal activity in Eastwood continues to make the community synonymous with violence and gangs. By calling attention to the neighborhood's non-violent past, Tamara hopes to make an overhaul of her entire neighborhood less appealing.
In her efforts, Tamara collaborates with Mr. Otis, one of the oldest living members of the Divine Knights. That she is joining forces with a gang in order to save a "gang-infested" neighborhood is an irony that doesn't go unnoticed. But for Tamara, this apparent conflict of interest seems less so after she learns of the Divine Knights' politicized past—a past that, in her newfound understanding, complicates the Knights' present criminal characterization. What's more, Mr. Otis is essential to her museum project. He and his wife have maintained an archive of community life in Eastwood that dates back more than a half century. A person could get lost in all the history contained in Otis and Emma Ball's basement.
In November 2007, a little over a year before the merits of the Eastwood Plan are to be discussed at a City Hall hearing, Mr. Otis, Tamara Anderson, and I are in this basement digging among the transcribed doctrines, creeds, and philosophies that form the Divine Knights' cannon of regulatory procedure. Artifacts evidencing the gang's political contributions to Eastwood are covered with dust. Tamara is looking for evidence of how glorious Eastwood was once, while Mr. Otis couples newspaper articles about the Divine Knights' community-service initiatives with selections from the gang's official writings.
"There is no good reason why gang literature has to justify violence," Mr. Otis says as he sifts, knee-deep, through his homemade archive.
Days later Mr. Otis and I visit the space that Tamara hopes will be the Eastwood Museum. "I know it's not much," she says, "but it's something." We walk through an empty gallery space with hardwood floors and plenty of natural light, stopping before a slender eight-foot wall roughly the size of a Chinese partition. "I was thinking we could have a section about youth here," Tamara says. "Maybe something about the programs that the Divine Knights used to have."
"I can see it," Mr. Otis says. "I have a video that I like to show. It's from the nineteen seventies. Some of the leaders are being interviewed, talking about the true meaning of the gang. We can play that." Imagining the Knights' altar, he adds, "Of course, we could have some photographs and newspaper articles too, and there's a cane that we used to have at the old reform school. All of the students signed it. I could also bring that in. Yeah, I'll bring in the cane."
Mr. Otis's notion of the Divine Knights, needless to say, is quite different from that of a lot of Chicago's community leaders. They see a dangerous group of thugs. He sees a constructive institution—an institution that could cleanse its reputation by mobilizing around the traditions he holds dear. Only the gang, from his perspective, has lost its way.
At the gang's headquarters, on a day when a fight breaks out, I am reminded of these competing conceptions of the Divine Knights. By the time I am able to reach the huddle, the fight is over. Tiko Hunt, a boisterous fifteen-year-old, fills me in. "There was some guys out here, from Canton, Ohio, I think," he says. "They came around here a couple of days ago and said they were our fam," meaning that these out-of-towners alleged to be members of the international "Family Alliance" of street gangs to which the Divine Knights belong. "They said they came to see Eastwood, to visit the headquarters. But they were out here acting suspicious. These fools were taking pictures and telling people on the street that they wanted to meet with gang leaders. Colt made some calls. But ain't nobody in Ohio ever heard of these guys.
"So yesterday," Tiko continues, "Colt said if they come back, they might have a problem. And they definitely did—as you can see."
According to the Divine Knights, Eastwood, in terms of gang legend, has long been considered a Mecca. The Knights are proud of their many visitors. "Isn't it common for affiliates from other states to stop by?" I ask.
"Yeah, that's true," Tiko says. "But usually when out-of-towners come around, they're with somebody. They know somebody. They're someone's cousin or friend. These clowns tried to prove they were our fam by saying some backwards gang constitution, so Colt gave the signal and all the Knights beat them down."
Over Tiko's shoulder, Colt Pratt, in the midst of telling the beat-down story, is swinging his arms in simulation. A freshly assembled crowd of gang members listens intently. Someone asks if the visitors might have been undercover agents from a law enforcement agency—CIA, DEA, FBI—or one of the many special gang taskforce units. With each new scandal, it seems, a new taskforce—and acronym—is born.
"Nah, they're too dumb to be them alphabet boys," Colt says with a smile. "The Feds would've at least done their homework. I mean, they ain't even know simple shit. Watch this." He calls on Tiko to display what, in his estimation, any respectable gang member should know. "Gang symbols. Begin," Colt orders.
Tiko strikes a military pose. Then, carefully measuring each word as if onstage at a spelling bee, the ninth-grade dropout recites from memory this paragraph found in the Divine Knights handbook:
"Cane. The cane represents strength. Symbolically, the strength the cane represents comes from our elders, who use it for physical support. The knowledge that we obtain, the wisdom that we obtain, and the understanding that we obtain is the strength that our elders have given us. The cane also represents the need for all Knights to support one another in these trying times. This symbol means: 'I'm Conscious.'"
To signal that Tiko has performed sufficiently, Colt taps him on his head. The youngster then retreats to the gang's headquarters.
Though the cane invokes a sense of shared consciousness in official gang discourse, for the rest of Eastwood it is a controversial symbol of ownership. When scribbled on a street sign, a school desk, or the wooden boards that shield the windows of an abandoned building, canes are an assertion that Divine Knights control the area. In Eastwood, the way in which gang members exercise this "control" might range from violent feuds over drug territories to harassing teenagers who find themselves in the "wrong" section of town.
Because of a recent school closing, Tamara Anderson's niece, Patrice Anderson, has recently been the victim of such territorial harassment. One year ago, her former school chained its doors and boarded its windows. Ever since, Patrice and her friends have had to cross a rival gang's territory—the Bandits—in order to get to their new school, Brown High. Often, belligerent gang members chase them home from school. The harassment started with simple questions, Patrice tells me: Where were they from? Were they visiting someone? Did they plan to walk through their territory every day? Did they know these streets belonged to the Bandits?
Answers to these questions only emboldened the gang. Now that the Bandits know students like Patrice are headed from Brown High to the northernmost section of Eastwood, where the Anonymous Knights reside, they have made a habit of tormenting harmless high-schoolers for sport. Today, standing in Tamara's jewelry store, Patrice mocks the Bandits' taunts. Despite being out of breath from having just fled the rival gang, she deepens her voice into a false bluster. "This is our section of Eastwood!" she shouts. "You better run."
Tamara, though sympathetic to her niece's predicament, does not unequivocally condemn the Bandits' behavior. Her refusal to do so inspires in Patrice a harsh assessment of her aunt's newfound collaboration with the Divine Knights. "The museum project is unnecessary at best, and likely dangerous—especially if it runs the risk of glorifying these thugs," she says, her lip curled precociously. "You're just giving them another reason to think that joining a gang is cool. They already think they run this neighborhood. See"—Patrice points to a huddle of gang members near Tamara's store—"they're everywhere you look."
"I wish the world was as simple as you see it, Pat," Tamara says. "I wish things were so black-and-white. But we have to face the fact that many young people in this community are in gangs. And some of them will never quit. Over the years, I've come to realize that we've got to meet people where they're at—not where we want them to be.
"What do I say to your cousin, Christopher," Tamara continues, "when he says that he's gonna be a Divine Knight for the rest of his life? Well, I'll tell you. I say, 'You can be a different kind of gang member. Not one that kills people, but one that has a positive effect on your peers and on your community.'"
"I gave up on Christopher a long time ago," Patrice says. "But good luck dealing with the Knights. And good luck getting customers when you got gangbangers slinging God-knows-what in front of your shop."
At its core, Tamara and Patrice's debate is about how best to deal with gangs. Tamara has adopted a pragmatic approach. She believes it is imperative, sometimes, to strategically align herself with certain gang members. Within the Eastwood community, gang members can have different roles, and those roles are not reducible to gang affiliation alone. Some are family, like her nephew, Christopher Anderson. Others are political allies, like Mr. Otis. Others still are unavoidable presences, like Reginald "Red" Walker, a Divine Knights chief who benefits Tamara by shepherding gang members away from her store so that non-affiliated patrons feel welcome.
Meanwhile, Patrice has taken an idealistic stance. Her perspective refuses to entertain the hard-edged reality of street life, and she is fearful that empathy will ultimately morph into an excuse for criminality. In Patrice's view, her aunt's pragmatism is misguided and potentially hazardous. The "wrong" kinds of values are being rewarded. Even if the community is made a little safer in the short run, without large-scale moral transformation—a precondition, in the idealist camp, for collaborating with gangs—community leaders like Tamara are, in Patrice's estimation, aiding and abetting the activities of "disreputable" residents.
But for Tamara, and those like her who are trying to stem the daily tide of violence in Eastwood, shunning the gang altogether is unrealistic. Far beyond the walls of her jewelry shop, pragmatic urban residents remain stalwart in their determination to work with "troublesome" neighbors, including members of the Divine Knights.
With Patrice comfortably in the back of the jewelry shop, Tamara steps outside and confronts the group of Knights. Red Walker, the chief, is the first to speak up. "Hey. How you doing, Mrs. Anderson?" he says with a smile.
"I hate to disturb you boys," Tamara says. "But, Reginald, I believe we had an agreement. Did we not?"
"Oh yeah. We sure do," Red says. "We sure do, Mrs. Anderson. We were just leaving."
Four months ago, Tamara was elected president of her block club. As president, she is charged with monitoring a narrow strip of Eastwood. The position affords her political capital, some of which she has spent on forming a pact with Red: during the hours when the store is open, the Knights will find a different place to congregate. Honoring his end of the bargain for the sake of keeping his relationship with the block club peaceable, Red leads the group to an empty lot, adjacent to the building where I live.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Renegade Dreams by Laurence Ralph. Copyright © 2014 The University of Chicago. Excerpted by permission of The University of Chicago Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Dramatis Personae
Preface
PART ONE † The Injury of Isolation
INTRODUCTION ‡ THE UNDERSIDE OF INJURY OR, HOW TO DREAM LIKE A RENEGADE
Field Notes: Late Death
1 ‡ Development
OR , WHY GRANDMOTHERS ALLY WITH THE GANG
Field Notes: early Funerals
2 ‡ Nostalgia
OR, THE STORIES A GANG TELLS ABOUT ITSELF
Field Notes: Inside Jokes
3 ‡ Authenticity
OR, WHY PEOPLE CAN’T LEAVE THE GANG
PART TWO † The Resilience of Dreams
Field Notes: Getting In
4 ‡ Disability
OR, WHY A GANG LEADER HELPS STOP THE VIOLENCE
Field Notes: Resilience
5 ‡ Disease
OR, HOW A WILL TO SURVIVE HELPS THE HEALING
Field Notes: Framing
CONCLUSION ‡ THE FRAME
OR, HOW TO GET OUT OF AN ISOLATED SPACE
POSTSCRIPT ‡ A RENEGADE DREAM COME TRUE
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
What People are Saying About This
“In Renegade Dreams, Ralph has achieved what few ethnographers, investigative journalists, and drive-by sociologists ever do: a radical empathy for his subjects that refuses to impose a colonial worldview. At the heart of this book is a fierce utopian sensibility expressed by the dogged optimism of Chicago residents—felled by bullets and injured in a thousand ways—but who insist on participating in our aspiration society. Young men in wheelchairs, bodies half-dead, glide like rolling zombies in our mind’s eye and yet leap from these pages with life and vigor. Their dreams carry forth in politics, play, poetry, and prose. They live in defiance of statistical narratives of the violent isolated ghetto. Theoretically rich and superbly written, this book exposes what is hidden in plain sight: the full humanity of people whose lives are greater than the sum of their pain and peril and far more connected to ours than we’d like to believe.”
“Renegade Dreams is a tour de force—extremely well written and engaging, and replete with original insights. Once I began reading Ralph’s book I had a difficult time putting it down. His field research is fascinating. And his explicit discussion of the interconnections of inner-city injury with government, community institutions, as well as how it is related to historical and social processes, is a major contribution.”
“Too many scholarly and popular takes on African Americans’ lives and life chances are predicated on assumptions about cultural inadequacies or even genetic inferiorities, on the idea that black people all around the world are little more than damaged goods—to be pitied or punished.] Ralph’s thought-provoking book wonderfully demonstrates how and why human beings continue to survive—and even thrive—in the face of incessant injury and attack. His Chicago is peopled by characters we’ve seen before (gangstas and grandmas, old heads and youth workers, pastors and principals, activists and addicts), but they breathe and bounce throughout his pages like more than just rehashed stock figures in some ongoing morality play about urban black pathology. Thoroughly researched and powerfully told, Renegade Dreams is a paradigm-shifting anthropological rejoinder to popular stereotypes and scholarly cant about ‘inner-city violence,’ its causes, and its aftermath.”
“Astounding in its clarity and groundbreaking in its power, Renegade Dreams is as miraculous as the efforts of its all-American characters to remake life and invent a future out of injury. The textures and rhythms of Ralph’s realist narrative are charged with critical insight and transcendental significance, making ethnography into a work of art.”
“Astounding in its clarity and groundbreaking in its power, Renegade Dreams is as miraculous as the efforts of its all-American characters to remake life and invent a future out of injury. The textures and rhythms of Ralph’s realist narrative are charged with critical insight and transcendental significance, making ethnography into a work of art.”
