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date: 19 April 2021

Abstract and Keywords

This article examines how the street has become a point of reference in scholarly and public discussions of the behavior of low-income African American men living in urban communities. It begins with a discussion of how the street has attained such an overriding centrality in the cultural analyses of low-income, urban-based African American men in public space, especially in the formation of images and understandings about them. It then considers how and why African American men have come to be viewed as a frighteningly disturbing presence on the street because of the social power they are assumed to have in affecting the actions and lives of others who make use of the streets. It also looks at various frameworks for the cultural analysis of African American men and concludes by arguing that the street has been both overdetermined and incompletely theorized in terms of its significance for cultural analysis.

Keywords: Street, African American men, urban communities, public space, social power, cultural analysis

Alford A. Young Jr.

Alford A. Young, Jr. is Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Michigan. He also holds an appointment in the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies. He has published The Minds of Marginalized Black Men: Making Sense of Mobility, Opportunity, and Future Life Chances (Princeton University Press 2004) and co-authored The Souls of WEB Du Bois (Paradigm Publishers 2006). He has published articles in Sociological Theory; The Annual Review of Sociology; Symbolic Interaction; Ethnic and Racial Studies, and other journals. Young is completing a manuscript entitled, “From the Edge of the Ghetto: African Americans and the World of Work,” and is also working on a follow-up manuscript to the The Minds of Marginalized Black Men, that examines how African American men who were reared in poverty but who have engaged extreme upward mobility as young adults discuss learning to navigate of race and class-based constraints over the course of their lives.

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