Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member is written by Sanyika Shakur. This novel is about his life and experiences within the Crips gang in South Central Los Angeles. Shakur released his memoir in 1993, after turning his life around while inside the prison system. His given name at birth was Kody Scott and at just eleven years old, Kody was initiated into the Crips after shooting a rival gang member and later earned himself the street name of Monster due to his horrifying acts of violence. Throughout his recount of his life and experiences inside the gang and inside various prison institutions, Shakur paints a very vivid picture of the places and spaces which he helped to create, and, in turn, helped to create him, and which he frequented throughout his life. These spaces are marked by a particular street culture and show the complexity of how inequality has helped to create and maintain these places. Sanyika Shakur grew up in South Central Los Angeles, which he deemed the “concrete jungle battlefield of the Crips and Bloods” (Shakur 1993). This is viewed as a place existing …show more content…
They are associated with gangs and gang life and so, must be poor, uneducated, and incapable of leading a legitimate lifestyle. However, as Doreen Massey points out in her podcast on space, it is important to understand that every single person has a different story and those stories combine to create a particular culture in a place. “It is space that presents us with the question of the social” (Massey 2013) to Massey, this question of the social relates directly to the issue of how we live together as a society. Within street culture, the people live together in a constant duality of war and peace. There is peace within their own specific groups, enough to provide a sense of a safe space, while also being continually at war with the neighbours that are just a few streets
The main character in the story Monster, written by Walter Dean Myers, is a sixteen-year old named Steve Harmon. Steve Harmon is an African-American teen on trial for a terrible crime. He is being accused of being a lookout in the crime. Steve has many strong characteristics that are shown throughout the story. A few of those characteristics are feeling scared, having an identity crisis, and being a filmmaker.
In his Book, Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor, Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh, explains that in the early-nineties while doing field work in the Southside of Chicago he gravitated to a predominantly working-poor black community near his field site (ix). Venkatesh describes the ten-squared block community as being in disrepair very much like the high-rises that were being torn down in the surrounding area (iv). In the presence of some “greystones” and “brownstones” Venkatesh noticed vacant lots, beat-up homes, and what he perceived to be inadequate city involvement in the community -streets need fixing, and trash pick-up was lacking (x). There were also closed storefronts and burned-out buildings in the area (Venkatesh, 92).
Not many PhD scholars or professors are able to get in a black crime neighborhood which is poor, stay for seven years and fail to answer this question: “how does it feel when a person is black and poor in addition?”Most of the studies done in this book were done in safe, sanitized ivory towers. This piece of writing portrays neoliberal capitalism on the lives of working class people among the blacks (Venkatesh, 2009). The community views government leaders such as social service workers, Chicago Housing Authority, government agencies and the police differently. Most of these government officials are perceived negatively.
Monster was about a boy a named Steve Harmon a six-teen year old that’s on trial for felony murder in a drug store. Two young men, Richard Evans and James King, rob a drugstore. But how did it involve Steve Harmon? While he was waiting on trial, Steve is imprisoned with four-teen year old Osvaldo Cruz that got other girl pregnant while he was with his girlfriend. And both boys were too young to go through harsh reality.
How well Wes Moore describes the culture of the streets, and particularly disenfranchised adolescents that resort to violence, is extraordinary considering the unbiased perspective Moore gives. Amid Moore’s book one primary theme is street culture. Particularly Moore describes the street culture in two cities, which are Baltimore and the Bronx. In Baltimore city the climate and atmosphere, of high dropout rates, high unemployment and poor public infrastructure creates a perfect trifecta for gang violence to occur. Due to what was stated above, lower income adolescent residents in Baltimore are forced to resort to crime and drugs as a scapegoat of their missed opportunities.
After the transition to a revolutionist/activist, Shakur began to realize that there were more important things at risk so he began to live in accordance to the socially accepted norm. The fortification of the gang residential area availed Sanyika to transform, slowly over time. “I had faced the realization of who would ultimately be betrayed if I did not stop, which put banging in its proper perspective. While it did and still does supply wayward youth with an idea of collective being and responsibility, in the end it wrecks the lives of its participants and the innocents who live anywhere near it’s “silo,” another word for the base of operations. It is, unfortunately, the extreme expression of hopelessness in New Afrikan communities: misdirected rage in the form of retarded resistance.
Sonia Bola Professor Gutierrez CRJ 112 28 November 2016 Shakur Essay Assignment The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member (1993) describes the life of the author, Sanyika Shakur, also known as "Monster" Kody Scott, as a South Central, Los Angeles gang member of the Crip organization. During the book, the author exhibits his time as a formidable, combat soldier who earned a legendary gangster title for his committed acts of brutality and violence in the course of his Crip membership (Shakur, 1993). In addition, the novel gradually reveals how the author transformed from a Crip associate to a black nationalist and crusader for the new African independence movement, who fights against the causes of a gangster lifestyle (Shakur, 1993).
Monster essay There are a lot of people who make bad decisions. Steve Harmon just happened to be one of them. Monster is a book written by 16-year-old Steve Harmon. Who got accused of a crime, that also ended up in in murder.
In the article, “A Million Dollar Exit From the Anarchic Slum-World: Slumdog Millionaire’s Hollow Idioms of Social Justice”, Mitu Sengupta responds to how the slums and its citizens are presented in the film Slumdog Millionaire by Danny Boyle. Sengupta describes the slums as run-down and then goes on to specifically address the poverty that exists in India. When writing about the portrayal of the slums, Sengupta states, “Slumdog depicts the ‘slum’ as a feral wasteland, a place of evil and decay that is devoid of order, productivity and compassion”(599). Sengupta uses imagery to illustrate to viewers the unsanitary conditions that the people of Mumbai experience on a daily basis.
Inner city neighborhoods are often thought of as a place of violence. People appear tough, and they act against others before others can act against them. While their way of life may seem odd to those of that did not grow up in the inner city, I believe that the code of the street acts as informal social control. How an individual acts or looks can have serious consequences, and sometimes those consequences can be deadly. The code of the street is simply a response to unemployment, available jobs that pay less than living wage, and a general lack of hope.
“Don 't be afraid of losing people. Be afraid of losing yourself by trying to please everyone around you. "~ Lewis Howes. In the novel Monster by Walter Dean Myers, we are introduced to Steve Harmon, a sixteen-year-old dark-skinned boy who is the narrator of the book.
The U Street Corridor located in Washington D.C., is a unique place full of vibrancy and resilience. Once known for its ability to nurture prominent African Americans, it now houses shops of all kinds, along with trendy restaurants. No longer largely a black community, people from varying races and age groups call it home which can be seen simply by walking the streets. Delores Hayden’s work, The Power of Place helps individuals to understand places like U Street on a deeper level and gain a better understanding of the power a place has to cultivate memories for both the residents and new people moving into the area. Overall, U Street contributes to the understanding of a neighborhood and a city through cultural belonging, place memory, and ?.
The array of neighborhoods in the center southern California holds nest to the notorious Crips and the Bloods. The documentary Crips and Bloods: Made in America starts with the generation before the blue and red covered the streets. Thorsten Sellin’s pioneering on conflict theory best describes the development of the gangs. There were two waves of cultural conflict that led up to the Bloods and Crips. The primary culture conflict derived in the 1950s, segregation defined norms that strictly separated blacks and whites.
Drug dealing, theft, and poverty are the main topics in Tupac 's music referring to rough neighborhoods that give little to no opportunities to improve quality of
But there can also be a forced alliance as many can be compelled to join or work for a gang under threat so they don’t have a choice and have to follow orders for the sake of their own lives. Much of whether gangs are seen as a social problem comes from perspective. Society is more prone to seeing gangs in a negative point of view because the social reality is not reaching the ideals and standards of people’s conception of a perfect world. Many external factors such as the media and personal opinions encourage a bad outlook on gangs. The media inflicts fear and depicts gangs to be a threat, which the community looks at in a negative view.