Ghetto Brother

An engrossing and counter view of one of the most dangerous elements of American urban history, this graphic novel tells the true story of Benjy Melendez, a Bronx legend who founded, at the end of the 1960s, the formidable Ghetto Brothers gang. From the seemingly bombed-out ravages of his neighborhood, wracked by drugs, poverty, and violence, he managed to extract an incredibly positive energy from this riot ridden era: his multiracial gang promoted peace rather than violence. Among its many accomplishments, the gang held weekly concerts on the streets or in abandoned buildings, which fostered the emergence of hip-hop.

Am Leben von Benjy Melendez, Anfuehrer der Ghetto Brothers, einer Gang aus dem New Yorker Stadtteil Bronx, werden globale Verflechtungen und Austauschprozesse sowie die Hybriditaet von Kultur greifbar. Die Graphic Novel 'Ghetto Brother. Warrior to Peacemaker' (2015) von Julian Voloj und Illustrationen von Claudia Ahlering geht der Geschichte von Benjy Melendez und damit den Anfaengen der Hip Hop-Kultur nach. Die Graphic Novel empfiehlt sich als Ganzschrift für den Englischunterricht. Die vorliegende Themenmappe bietet eine begleitende Unterrichtseinheit, welche die literarischen Besonderheiten und Herausforderungen dieses neuen Mediums aufgreift und gleichzeitig an curricularen Vorgaben anschließt.

An engrossing and counter view of one of the most dangerous elements of American urban history, this graphic novel tells the true story of Benjy Melendez, a Bronx legend, son of Puerto-Rican immigrants, who founded, at the end of the 1960s, the notorious Ghetto Brothers gang. From the seemingly bombed-out ravages of his neighborhood, wracked by drugs, poverty, and violence, he managed to extract an incredibly positive energy from this riot ridden era: his multiracial gang promoted peace rather than violence. After initiating a gang truce, the Ghetto Brothers held weekly concerts on the streets or in abandoned buildings, which fostered the emergence of hip-hop. Melendez also began to reclaim his Jewish roots after learning about his family's dramatic crypto-Jewish background.

Illuminates tensions and transformations in today's Germany by examining literary, filmic, and musical treatments of the ghetto metaphor. Accounts of how Germany has changed since unification often portray the Berlin Republic as a new Germany that has left the Nazi past and Cold War division behind and entered the new millennium as a peaceful, worldly, and cautiously proud nation. Closer inspection, however, reveals tensions between such views and the realities of a country that continues to struggle with racism, provincialism, and fear of the perceived Other. Mainstream media foster such fears by describing violence in ghetto schools, failed integration, and the loss of society's core values. The city emerges as a key site not only of ethnic and political tension but of social change. Maria Stehle illuminates these tensions and transformations by following the metaphor of the ghetto in literary works from the 1990s by Feridun Zaimoglu, in German ghettocentric films from the late 1990s and the early twenty-first century, and in hip-hop and rap music of the same periods. In their representations of ghettos, authors, filmmakers, musicians, and performers redefine and challenge provincialism and nationalism and employ transcultural frameworks for their diverging political agendas. By contextualizing these discussions within social and political developments, this study illuminates the complexities that define Germany today for scholars and students across the disciplines of German, European, cultural, urban, and media studies. Maria Stehle is Assistant Professor of German at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Benjy Melendez, founder of the Ghetto Brothers street gang, social activist, and lead singer of the Ghetto Brothers band, now tells his story: a memoir of life as a late 1960s/early 1970s street gang member, of a musician on the cusp of stardom, a fighter for peace, and a man on a quest to reclaim his Jewish roots. With chilling detail and candor, Benjy Melendez opens up as never before in 'Ghetto Brother' (Benjy Melendez with Amir Said). Telling the story of his family, growing up first in the West Village in in the '60s, his family's forced move to the South Bronx, his life in a street gang, and his transformation to a peace ambassador, 'Ghetto Brother' is a riveting memoir that explores the human condition. Melendez takes us back to the forgotten New York of the late 1960s and early 1970s that gave rise to New York's infamous street gang era. But at its core, Ghetto Brother examines the route from boy to man in uncharted territory, and it renders a vivid portrait of what identity means and what happens when that identity dissolves and grows anew. Evocative and filled with the sights and sounds of a changing New York and a transformative life, 'Ghetto Brother' is the fascinating chronicle of a remarkable journey and an extraordinary leader.

What responsibility do the Poles share for the mass murder of the Jews, which took place largely on Polish soil? In a major contribution to the history of the Holocaust Polonsky gathers together the most important arguments in this debate.

Stephen Nasser somehow dug deep within his soul to survive the brutal and inhumane treatement his captors inflicted on the Jews. He was the only one of his family to survive--but the memory of his brother's dying words compelled him to live. Stephen's account of the Holocaust, told in the refreshingly direct and optimistic language of a young boy, appeals to both younger audiences and his contemporaries. Written in a straightforward, narrative style, Nasser avoids the cloying or maudlin language that characterizes some stories of the Holocaust. Perhaps it's for that reason readers will find his book one they won't forget--and one they recommend to others as a "must read."