SOC421H5 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Bullying, Mexican Americans, Reminiscing
Katz “ Street Elites”
• The minorities try to appear superior
• Looking at gang research from an emotional perspective
• Street fighting resembles homicide in the following ways
o The irrelevance of utilitarian calculations
o A provocative vocabulary of cursing
o Semiotics of violence in which injuries inflicted on victims attest retrospectively
to the profundity of the attackers offended dignity
• Plans for a fighting occur and then weeks later it is implemented
• Fights are conducted for distinctive symbolic rewards
o If one member dies in a fight they go to kill a member from the opposite gang
• The practice of peer violence is distinguished by an egocentric and masochistic focus
o They don’t stay long in a fight to see their victims destroyed
o But they spend a lot of time reminiscing about their own battle scars
• Many do not refer themselves as being in a gang, they call it a club, organization, clique,
brotherhood, etc.
o But when referring to their enemies they call them gangs
o Because the label of a gang is minimized and a combative depreciation
o Don’t like to be called a gang due to the negative connnotations associated with it
• The evil implied by an admission of gang membership is not sufficiently grand
o They use other words that sound more cool, adult and more serious (eg. The
syndicate, the family, Cosa Nostra, Black Hand
• These people take pride in running the streets
Outline
• The first section analyzes the ways in which groups of adolescent males have constructed
the appearance of one or another form of ancient barbaric feudal or supernatural elite or
feudal rule that maintains its rule through physical intimidation
• Street elites can be seen as just playing around due to the way they wander the strets with
unique outfits
o When they are not taken seriously they find it humiliating
o To maintain their legitimact they engage in practical activities that convince
others that they mean it
• Being in a gang is constantly precarious
o What keeps members in this their cooperative mobilization of challenges to the
personal competence to move socially from the subjectively familiar
• Looks at the connection between the phenonmenal life of street elites and the social
conditions in their members backgrounds
o These group dramatize a superior moral ability to transcend local communal
boundaries and move in a spirit of freedom and emphathetic self respect without
accepting social limitations
The posture of the street elite
• Celebrating vs. obscuring ties to home
• Mexican- American and black adolescents take pride in their loyalty to the group and
wear clothing that represents their affiliation
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