Abstract
Between Good and Ghetto is an expertly written and fascinating ethnography of the gendered racial dimensions of violence in the inner city. Many years ago, an important book in Black Women’s Studies, All the Women are White, All the Men are Black, But Some of Us are Brave, emphasized how sociological research elided black women’s lives. Prior to the publication of Between Good and Ghetto, sociological studies of violence had this same character. Books about violence “in the African American community” focused on men and boys. Books about violence among women and young girls focused exclusively on suburban white women (where such violence was seen as aberrant). Thus, the lives of African American women and girls were ignored. As Nikki Jones explains, “popular representations of mean girls who fight only with body language and relationships and not with fists or knives typify and reinforce mainstream beliefs about gender-based differences. . . . Yet not all girls can so easily cast aside any consideration of the use of physical aggression” (p. 20).
Jones spent three years doing participant observation, direct observation, and formal and informal interviews with young girls in a distressed area of Philadelphia in order to understand how race and gender shape their experience of and response to violence. What emerges is a sensitive and penetrating account of the “uniquely gendered challenge” that young women in the inner city face (p. 7). African American girls must measure up to two competing sets of gender expectations. They are evaluated in light of mainstream gender expectations that impact both black and white women as well as a unique set of gender expectations set by the standards of “Black respectability.” According to the norms of “Black respectability” women and girls must be lighter in complexion, smaller in body size, and more refined than so called “ghetto” blacks who are stereotyped as dark, loud, and large. Because violence is an everyday reality, however, the girls must also live by the “code of the street” which dictates that inner city residents must have the mental and physical toughness to deal effectively with violence. Thus, the girls profiled by Jones must navigate a minefield of conflicting social expectations.
The book is concise and accessibly written, suitable for undergraduate courses in criminology, race, and gender. The sophistication of the ethnographic methods, however, also means that it is an excellent choice for graduate level methods courses—particularly those that aim to introduce students to feminist methodologies. The book unfolds over five lively and artfully composed chapters, which intersperse theoretical concepts with deeply textured ethnographic portraits of the young women as sensitive, sentient, and agentic subjects. The first chapter introduces the social settings within which the girls’ lives unfold. Unlike many classical sociological studies of the inner city, the school, the “hood,” and “the corner” come alive as gendered spaces peopled by mothers, grandmothers, and daughters who experience violence in different ways across the generations. Jones makes the important point that grandmothers and mothers often find themselves in the position of socializing girls to cope with violence. An important part of being a mother or a grandmother means being willing and able to engage in violence to help a daughter or granddaughter secure her reputation. In Chapter Two, Jones turns to a detailed explanation of how girls who define themselves as “good girls”—meaning they seek to avoid violence using strategies like social isolation, conforming to mainstream class and gender stereotypes, and relational isolation—manage actual and perceived threats. She notes that “the good girl consciously works within the bounds of normative femininity” (p. 73). In Chapter Three, Jones turns her attention to the “situated survival strategies” of “girl fighters.” These are girls who embrace identities that “distance her from what is commonly understood as gender-appropriate and respectable behavior” (p. 77). This chapter is notable for its artful use of Goffman’s notion of the presentation of self in everyday life. Jones makes the point that for many girl fighters, their identities as violent people are “not really who they [are] but rather roles [they] play, a front developed over time…to facilitate interactions with others as well as movement throughout both [the] neighborhood and school” (p. 99). In Chapter Four, Jones looks at girls as not only perpetrators of violence, but victims of it as well—in particular gendered forms of violence like domestic abuse and rape. She makes the point that even girls who consciously embrace a “fighter” persona are not immune to gendered forms of violence, indeed “the expectations of manhood embedded in the code of the street, often encourage the use of violence against women and girls” (p. 18). The final chapter broaches the issue of policy recommendations. While the chapter is not extensive, it does highlight the need for policy makers to appreciate the unique, gender-based challenges that characterize young women’s lives, and formulate policies with them in mind. Jones also points to the need for change within the black community itself, noting that “Black leaders who highlight and politicize the crisis of the young, Black male must give equal and simultaneous attention to the struggles of young, Black girls. … Ignoring the plight of these young residents of the inner city wastes time, energy, and resources while simultaneously reinforcing the sort of gender politics that have isolated Black women in the past, to the detriment of the entire Black community” (p. 160).
The cover of the book features a striking mural of the face of a young African American girl. Jones writes that she was drawn to the mural because it reflected the “strength and sensitivity” of the girls she interviewed (p. xi). Jones does an excellent job in communicating that strength and sensitivity to her readers while, simultaneously, producing a work of tremendous insight and immense sociological imagination.