By Ranita Ray
Drugs, gangs, violence, and teen parenthood dominate the stories we hear about economically marginalized Black and Brown youth. It is accepted that avoiding these “risk behaviors” is key to breaking the cycle of poverty. I argue it is futile, and harmful, to focus on risk behavior prevention, and offer new ways to think about the reproduction of racialized poverty.
In the U.S., when we think about the lives and futures of economically marginalized Black and Brown youth, many think about the urgent need to target issues of drugs, gangs, violence, and teen parenthood that supposedly plague marginalized communities of color. This is evident through the public and academic discourse of “at-risk” youth who need to avoid impending pregnancy, and eventual and inevitable participation in gangs, drugs, and violence. Federal, state and local interventions, as well as non-profit efforts are often squarely focused on targeting “risk” behaviors among youth. Academics are no exceptions. The most popular books on Black and Brown youth tend to focus on sensational topics of drugs, gangs, violence and teen parenthood attempting to explain how abject poverty and societal rejection force youth to adopt alternate paths to respect and dignity. Most existing works also construct these “risk behaviors” as inherently immoral and obstinate social problems. As a feminist ethnographer, I challenge these commonly held views.
“Targeting risk behaviors not only fails to interrupt the cycle of racialized poverty, but instead perpetuates it.”
As an ethnographer, I have spent years in particular communities to learn about how large societal forces shape everyday lives, and vice versa. I spent three years among sixteen economically marginalized Black and Brown youth who were transitioning from high school to college in a northeastern U.S. city I’ve named Port City, and wrote a book on my findings entitled The Making of a Teenage Service Class: Poverty and Mobility in an American City. I am also a radical ethnographer, so I center the lives and voices of the Black and Brown youth and argue that targeting risk behaviors not only fails to interrupt the cycle of racialized poverty, but instead perpetuates it. Building on the works of Black and third world feminists, I argue the “at risk” narrative draws on racialized and classed discourses that construct all Black and Brown bodies as social problems. Specifically, I challenge two rationales inherent in the “at risk” discourse in poverty studies: avoiding “risk behaviors” offers marginalized youth opportunities for socio-economic mobility and “risk behaviors” are inherently immoral and problematic.
The sixteen youths whose voices and resistance are central to The Making of a Teenage Service Class worked hard to play by the “rule of mobility”—they postponed pregnancy, avoided drugs, gangs and violence, worked multiple jobs, and remained focused on obtaining a college degree. Meanwhile, teachers, non-profit workers and the community at large conveyed the message to youth that they were “at risk” of becoming violent gang members, young parents, and ultimately burdens on the state. In turn, they provided the youth with teen pregnancy and violence prevention workshops or finance management workshops. They also held trainings that were designed to teach “morals” and “character building.” Meantime, youth struggled with hunger, untreated illnesses, and spent long hours traveling between school, work, and home. The workshops and trainings were misdirected and unhelpful.
One young person I met during my research, who I will refer to as Angie, was going to be the first in her family to go to college. Unable to score high enough on her SATs, Angie decided to enroll in community college. Halfway through her semester her car broke down. She was traveling on a bus that took nearly 2 hours to travel 10 miles from her home to the local community college. This meant Angie was forced to spent long hours commuting between home, school, and work. She was constantly hungry and exhausted. What Angie needed at that time, put bluntly, were better public transportation options and money. Instead, what was available to her were non-violence training programs and teen pregnancy prevention workshops. One day when Angie called me to ask for a ride she said:
“Ah, I feel so needy. And you know I don’t like to do this but can you please, please give me a ride? I feel like shit; went to work early today ’cause my boss gave me extra hours and then been here [the community college] all day and I didn’t even eat nothing. Think my gastric thing is acting up again. And now I gotta go meet him [her boyfriend]. Like, I wanna go home and pass out, but I promised I’d cook for him, and I don’t wanna not do it ’cause you know, he real nice to me too.”
This type of a take on racialized poverty not only harms marginalized youth by diverting resources, but it does more harm by stigmatizing them and creating cleavages in communities. Evelyn, another young woman I met gained admission to a four- year university. Imagine my surprise when she told me that she was going to postpone college to join the army. An army recruiter had told her that there was plenty of time for college, but she needed to learn discipline first to avoid the treacherous path some of her community members take—one of drugs, gangs and violence. She told me that she had heard from her teachers, community members, and the news about how plagued communities “like hers” were and she didn't want to end up in jail. Evelyn told me, “That military will give me discipline, that’s what you need to progress in life. That’s what I wanna do, I don’t wanna end up like my mother on the streets, that’s for sure.”
Another young woman AJ, told me she wanted the type of birth control that went deep into her skin because “people like her,” meaning Latinas, become pregnant all the time and she didn't want that fate for herself. AJ stated, “…honestly, ’cause I think that’s what’s wrong with our community, like [the] Latino community, all these girls gettin’ pregnant and we stuck in the ghetto.” AJ had heard these narratives from her teachers, non-profit workers, and other community members. Utilizing/Internalizing these scripts, young people at times stigmatized and humiliated their friends, sisters, and cousins who did become young mothers.
Teen Pregnancy Panic
Research shows that for marginalized young women, avoiding parenthood does not heighten chances of socio-economic mobility. All communities use drugs evenly. But rich White youth are not perceived to be dangerous drug users like the young people in Port City who were encouraged to attend non-violence workshops and told how they would end up in jail if not careful. In fact, the racist criminal justice system, not poor choices, is more likely to land Black and Latinx youth in jail.
If we change how we think about Black and Brown youth and stop constructing them as social problems needing to be solved, then perhaps we might reimagine where to invest our efforts. School teachers, non-profit workers, volunteers, college professors, and community members who are committed to social justice need to wrestle with racist and classist systems that keep youth down. Instead of workshops and trainings, we might do so by fighting for free college, a higher minimum wage, abolition of prisons and borders, and so much more. The thing is, Black and Brown youth are already resisting. We just need to join them.
Ranita Ray is Associate Professor of Sociology at University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Her book, The Making of a Teenage Service Class: Poverty and Mobility in an American City (University of California Press, 2018) received the 2018 C. Wright Mills Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems as well as an Honorable Mention for 2019 Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Book Award Presented by the American Sociological Association’s Section on Race, Gender, and Class. Ray’s work has been published in Social Problems (winner of 2019 American Sociological Association Race, Gender, and Class Section Best Article Award); Journal of Contemporary Ethnography; The American Journal of Bioethics; Sociology Compass, as well as in the form of book chapters. Ray received a 2019 NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship for her current longitudinal ethnography, which explores the complexities of schooling, gender and racial dominance, based in Las Vegas.