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Examples Of Getting The Ghost As A Display Of A Rite Of Passage

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‘Getting the Ghost’ as a display of a Rite of Passage The culture that is shown in the reading, ‘Getting the Ghost’ is that of incarcerated African American Youths in Detroit. The culture is shaped and meaning given to their lives by idea of incarceration being a rite of passage from youth to adult; from selling drugs on the street to escalating into more risky criminal ventures. It exhibits the phases traditionally associated with rites of passage rites; separation, liminality and reintegration. Shaping the idea of what it means to be living in the culture by associating incarceration with experience and therefore justifying their own continuation of their criminal activities. This system is perpetuated by the inability of the judicial system …show more content…

Unfortunately the process failed in the case of Dude Freeman and he reoffended and was sent back to the facility to be sentenced for the eighth time. “While dude waited again for the terms of his punishment to be determined, he was thrust into this institutional confusion, and, to some extent at least, it was through the drug game that he imagined his way out. And of course, he was not alone.” (Bergmann, 2008:156) The system does not always work because the judicial system hopes that when the individuals are released back into the general population that they have learned their lesson through their experiences in the juvenile detention facility. What the system does not recognise is the factors which lead them to offending to begin with, those that influenced their lives and the memories that go with those experiences they had before arrest. As Dude says, “early as I can remember my daddy was selling dope. My brothers, my sisters, mother. They all taught me the game. And I learned the game from the hood where my daddy was living...”(Bergmann, 2008:108) Dude learned about selling drugs from his parents which means that it has been a constant characteristic of his life, all his life. Something so ingrained in his life would not be disposed of so quickly and lightly as the sentence he received from the court of attending some classes and undergoing some probation

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