Code of the Street: Decency, Violence and the Moral Life of the Inner City

Inner-city black America is often stereotyped asa place of random violence; infact, violence inthe inner cityis regulated through an informal but well-known code of the street. How youdress, talk, and behave can have life-or-death consequences, with young people particularly at risk.The most powerful force counteractingthis code and its reign ofterror is the strong, loving, decent family, and we meet many heroicfigures in the course of this narrative. Unfortunately, theculture of the street thrivesand often defeats decency because it controls public spaces, so that individualswith higher, better aspirations are often entangled in thecode and its self-destructivebehaviors.Writing in thetradition of Jane Jacobs and William Julius Wilson, the authordelineates the true workings of city streets.His most interestingcharacters are not thebullies and dealers, but the decent folks, youngand old, who throughentrepreneurship andcreative self-help strategies are forging aviable alternative, an escapefrom the code of thestreet.Winner of the Komarovsky Book Award, this incisive book examinesthe code as aresponse to thelack of jobs that pay a livingwage, to the stigma of race, to rampant druguse, to alienation and lack ofhope. Anindividual'ssafety and sense of worth aredetermined by the respect he commands in public-a deference frequentlybased on animplied threatof violence. Unfortunately, eventhose with higher aspirations can often becomeentangled in the code'sself-destructivebehaviors.