Ain T No Makin It

This classic text addresses one of the most important issues in modern social theory and policy: how social inequality is reproduced from one generation to the next. With the original 1987 publication of Ain't No Makin' It, Jay MacLeod brought us to the Clarendon Heights housing project where we met the 'Brothers' and the 'Hallway Hangers'. Their story of poverty, race, and defeatism moved readers and challenged ethnic stereotypes. MacLeod's return eight years later, and the resulting 1995 revision, revealed little improvement in the lives of these men as they struggled in the labor market and crime-ridden underground economy. The third edition of this classic ethnography of social reproduction brings the story of inequality and social mobility into today's dialogue. Now fully updated with thirteen new interviews from the original Hallway Hangers and Brothers, as well as new theoretical analysis and comparison to the original conclusions, Ain't No Makin' It remains an admired and invaluable text.

“I ain't goin' to college. Who wants to go to college? I'd just end up gettin' a shitty job anyway.” So said Freddie Piniella, an eleven-year-old boy from Clarendon Heights low-income housing project, to Jay MacLeod, his counselor in a youth program. MacLeod was struck by the seeming self-defeatism of Freddie and his friends. How is it that in America, a nation of dreams and opportunities, a boy of eleven can feel trapped in a position of inherited poverty?The author immersed himself in the teenage underworld of Clarendon Heights. The Hallway Hangers, one of the neighborhood cliques, appear as cynical self-destructive hoodlums. The other group, the Brothers, take the American Dream to heart and aspire to middle-class respectability. The twist is that the Hallway Hangers are mostly white; the Brothers are almost all black. Comparing the two groups, MacLeod provides a provocative account of how poverty is perpetuated from one generation to the next.Part One tells the story of the boys' teenage aspirations. Part Two follows the Hallway Hangers and the Brothers into adulthood. Eight years later the author returns to Clarendon Heights to find the members of both gangs struggling in the labor market or on the streets. Caught in the web of urban industrial decline, the Hallway Hangers—undereducated, unemployed, or imprisoned—have turned to the underground economy. But “cocaine capitalism” only fuels their desperation, and the Hallway Hangers seek solace in sexism and racism. The ambitious Brothers have fared little better. Their teenage dreams in tatters, the Brothers demonstrate that racism takes its toll on optimistic aspirations.This edition retains the vivid accounts of friendships, families, school, and work that made the first edition so popular. The ethnography resonates with feeling and vivid dialogue. But the book also addresses one of the most important issues in modern social theory and policy: how social inequality is reproduced from one generation to the next. MacLeod links individual lives with social theory to forge a powerful argument about how inequality is created, sustained, and accepted in the United States.

A thoroughly updated edition of Jay MacLeod's classic ethnography on the cycle of social reproduction and inequality as experienced by the men from the Clarendon Heights housing project--now with new interviews and analysis.

This book "challenges our relationship to the environment and to each other, not only now but across generations. It is an important question for our time, when communities have become fragmented by a global consumer society, when our selves have become isolated in a competitive and technology-driven economy, and when our spiritual, social, and ecological impacts on human and other-than-human beings extend farther than ever imagined due to globalization and climate change. Through interviews and poetic snapshots into the experience of Indigenous people and others, this book demands that the reader think about how contemporary concerns oblige us to see ourselves as someone's future ancestor and, in turn, creates for the reader a different way of looking at his or her traditions and self"--

Being Bad will change the way you think about the social and academic worlds of Black boys. In a poignant and harrowing journey from systems of education to systems of criminal justice, the author follows her brother, Chris, who has been designated a “bad kid” by his school, a “person of interest” by the police, and a “gangster” by society. Readers first meet Chris in a Chicago jail, where he is being held in connection with a string of street robberies. We then learn about Chris through insiders’ accounts that stretch across time to reveal key events preceding this tragic moment. Together, these stories explore such timely issues as the under-education of Black males, the place and importance of scapegoats in our culture, the on-the-ground reality of zero tolerance, the role of mainstream media in constructing Black masculinity, and the critical relationships between schools and prisons. No other book combines rigorous research, personal narrative, and compelling storytelling to examine the educational experiences of young Black males. Book Features: The natural history of an African American teenager navigating a labyrinth of social worlds. A detailed, concrete example of the school-to-prison pipeline phenomenon. Rare insightsof an African American family making sense of, and healing from, school wounds. Suggested resources of reliable places where educators can learn and do more. “Other books have focusedon the school-to-prison pipeline or the educational experiences of young African American males, but I know of none that bring the combination of rigorous research, up-close personal vantage point, and skilled storytelling provided by Laura in Being Bad.” —Gregory Michie, chicago public school teacher, author of Holler If You Hear Me, senior research associate at the Center for Policy Studies and Social Justice, Concordia University Chicago “Refusing to separate the threads that bind the oppressive fabric of contemporary urban life, Laura has crafted a story that is at once astutely critical, funny, engaging, tearful, dialogue-filled, profoundly theoretical, despairing, and filled with hope. Being Bad is a challenge and a gift to students, families, policymakers, soon-to-be teachers, social workers, and ethnographers.” —Michelle Fine, distinguished professor, Graduate Center, CUNY "Perhaps more than any other study on this topic, this book brings to life the complicated, fleshed, lived experience of those most directly and collaterally impacted by the politics of schooling and its relationship to our growing prison nation.” —Garrett Albert Duncan, associate professor of Education and African & African-American Studies, Washington University in St. Louis

He lied about his age to enlist. Now he'll have to lie about everything else to survive! Survive the war. Outlast the enemy. Stay alive. That's what Henry Forrest has to do. When he lies about his age to join the Marines, Henry never imagines he'll face anything worse than his own father's cruelty. But his unit is shipped off to the Philippines, where the heat is unbearable, the conditions are brutal, and Henry's dreams of careless adventuring are completely dashed.Then the Japanese invade the islands, and US forces there surrender. As a prisoner of war, Henry faces one horror after another. Yet among his fellow captives, he finds kindness, respect, even brotherhood. A glimmer of light in the darkness. And he'll need to hold tight to the hope they offer if he wants to win the fight for his country, his freedom . . . and his life. Michael P. Spradlin's latest novel tenderly explores the harsh realities of the Bataan Death March and captivity on the Pacific front during World War II.

Fast cars, law men, moonshine, romance in the cotton fields, and wild cat whiskey! It was Garden City, Alabama the spring of 1946. Boys were coming home. World War II was over. Many mothers were learning that their sons would not be coming home. Garden City was beginning to settle back in to a nice easy routine. Mr. Sam the local merchant was getting in his sugar orders for the season. The farmers were looking for good crops, and the moonshiners, were looking forward to make good on their orders. A certain revenuer from DC was poking around town. He was trying his best to find out about this "special shine" that everyone was talking about. Cracker Black, the brains behind the operation has a 50 gallon pot making moonshine for a local man named Hollis. Now Hollis is a nefarious character ran several juke joints out on 78 hwy on the strip. When word got round to Cracker his shine was wanted in Memphis and St Louis he had to ramp up the production. He hires two black fellers Big George and Little Willie right out the cotton patch. They are able to work at night in the woods and not be seen by the law because of them being black. When the sleepy little town's folk turn off their lights for the night, the moonshiners go to work making that good old Alabama Shine. Life was good, again.....

What if Life Wasn't About 50 Years of Wage-Slavery, Paying Bills and then Dying? Tired of sleepwalking through a mediocre life bribed by mindless video-gaming, redemptive weekends, and a scant paycheck from a soul-suffocating job? Welcome to the SCRIPTED club— where membership is neither perceived or consented. The fact is, ever since you’ve been old enough to sit obediently in a classroom, you have been culturally engineered for servitude, unwittingly enslaved into a Machiavellian system where illusionary rules go unchallenged, sanctified traditions go unquestioned, and lifelong dreams go unfulfilled. As a result, your life is hijacked and marginalised into debt, despair, and dependence. Life's death sentence becomes the daily curse of the trivial and mundane. Fun fades. Dreams die. Don't let life's consolation prize become a car and a weekend. Recapture what is yours and make a revolutionary repossession of life-and-liberty through the pursuit of entrepreneurship. A paradigm shift isn't needed—the damn paradigm needs to be thrown-out altogether. The truth is, if you blindly follow conventional wisdom pushed by conventional people living conventional lives, can you expect to be anything but conventional? Rewrite life’s script: ditch the job, give Wall Street the bird, and escape the insanity of trading your life away for a paycheck and an elderly promise called retirement. UNSCRIPT today and start leading life— instead of life leading you.