From Professor Rosenblum:
This is the article I mentioned in class about changing modes of police control, then and now. It’s sadly timely. Take a look and we’ll discuss in class next week.
The Crooked Ladder: The Criminal’s Guide to Upward Mobility, by Malcolm Gladwell
This was a really interesting read. I found the quote “Crime was one of the few options available for advancement” very powerful. The phrase american dream often carries its own moralistic imperative that honest, hard work will lead everyone to reap the rewards of social and monetary success, but like Malcolm Gladwell pointed out, this isn’t always available to everyone. This article reminds me in a way of Les Miserables, I find myself empathizing with the patriarchs who knew that the only chance of success for their families was to turn to crime. It’s sad that often the crimes committed now are not vastly different than those committed a century ago, when it was easier to bribe the police. Like the article points out Mike, Chuck and their classmates were only looking for a better life, and the life of crime they fell into was the only way out. The awful police brutality that they face doesn’t take into consideration the vastly hard choices that life has handed to them. I keep thinking though, throughout this course that there must be a way to create a more inclusive America, one that truly “leaves no child behind,” something that every American could throw themselves behind to create a better country for everyone, but I don’t know if we’ve found it yet.
It’s interesting that the ethnic groups as defined in this article (the Irish, Italians, and Jews) which dominated crime rings in the United States, ended up being in charge of some of the institutions which they fought against as “gangsters”. The author contends that for groups that could not pursue the American dream through hard work and perseverance through the established institutions, these groups then simply “innovated”. And while discrimination against these groups is historical fact, it’s ironic that, for example, the Irish went from running established crime rings to running the police department.