No Way Out

Precarious Living in the Shadow of Poverty and Drug Dealing

Waverly Duck

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780226298061, 9780226297903
• eBook ISBN: 9780226298238
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: African American Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

In 2005 Waverly Duck was called to a town he calls Bristol Hill to serve as an expert witness in the sentencing of drug dealer Jonathan Wilson. Convicted as an accessory to the murder of a federal witness and that of a fellow drug dealer, Jonathan faced the death penalty, and Duck was there to provide evidence that the environment in which Jonathan had grown up mitigated the seriousness of his alleged crimes. Duck's exploration led him to Jonathan's church, his elementary, middle, and high schools, the juvenile facility where he had previously been incarcerated, his family and friends, other drug dealers, and residents who knew him or knew of him. After extensive ethnographic observations, Duck found himself seriously troubled and uncertain: Are Jonathan and others like him a danger to society? Or is it the converse—is society a danger to them?

Duck's short stay in Bristol Hill quickly transformed into a long-term study—one that forms the core of No Way Out. This landmark book challenges the common misconception of urban ghettoes as chaotic places where drug dealing, street crime, and random violence make daily life dangerous for their residents. Through close observations of daily life in these neighborhoods, Duck shows how the prevailing social order ensures that residents can go about their lives in relative safety, despite the risks that are embedded in living amid the drug trade. In a neighborhood plagued by failing schools, chronic unemployment, punitive law enforcement, and high rates of incarceration, residents are knit together by long-term ties of kinship and friendship, and they base their actions on a profound sense of community fairness and accountability. Duck presents powerful case studies of individuals whose difficulties flow not from their values, or a lack thereof, but rather from the multiple obstacles they encounter on a daily basis.

No Way Out explores how ordinary people make sense of their lives within severe constraints and how they choose among unrewarding prospects, rather than freely acting upon their own values. What emerges is an important and revelatory new perspective on the culture of the urban poor.

INDEX

abortion, 125–26

Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), 129–30

Ain’t No Makin It (MacLeod), x

All Our Kin (Stack), ix, 120, 129, 131

Anderson, Elijah, x, 5, 10, 81; on the code of the street, 21–22; on strain theory, 132–33; on the three-pronged ghetto economy, 135–36

Becker, Howard, 8

Been a Heavy Life (Presser), 10

Black on the Block (Pattillo), x

blaming the poor, 3, 140. See also poverty dynamics

Bluford, Guion Stewart, Jr., 110

Bourgois, Philippe, 33

Bristol Hill. See neighborhood, the

“broken windows” theory, 12–13

Brown, Michael, 3

bystander memorials, 41

career trajectories of drug dealers, 36–51; age and experience hierarchies in, 47–48; chronic exclusion from mainstream resources and, 49–51, 112–13; as corner boys, 41–42, 47–48; as lookouts, 30, 36, 42, 43, 47, 108; loyalty tests in, 36; memorials and, 12, 40–41; for morning and afternoon shifts, 43; for night shifts, 43–44; recruitment of kids in, 31–32; risks and bad endings in, 36, 43–44, 47–51; as suppliers (old heads), 43–44, 47–48, 78; as youngboys, 89

cash, 47–48

child-support payments, ix, 102, 105–8, 129, 141

Child Youth Services (CYS) investigations, 123–26

churches. See religious institutions

civil inattention, 84

Civil Rights Act of 1964, 55–56, 98

class segregation, 54–55

cocaine, 12, 38, 104–5

code of the street, 5–7, 21–22. See also local interaction order

collective efficacy, 2, 15, 19; information sharing and, 68–71; neighborhood appearance and, 12, 39–41, 76–77; as social solidarity, 7, 11–15, 66

community service organizations, 76–78

concentrated poverty. See poverty dynamics

corner boys, 41–42, 47–48

cost-sharing models of child support, 108

crack, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction: Precarious Living
• ONE / Jonathan’s World
• TWO / Drug-Dealing Careers
• THREE / The Rise and Fall of Lyford Street
• FOUR / Snitching, Gossip, and the Power of Information
• FIVE / The Politics of Murder and Revenge
• SIX / Collective Punishment: Black Men’s Reflections on Everyday Life in Bristol Hill
• SEVEN / Benita’s Story: Coping with Poverty in the Age of Welfare Reform
• Conclusion: Understanding Everyday Life in the Shadow of Poverty and Drug Dealing
• Bibliography
• Index