by Jan Haldipur
Antwan, an 18-year-old African American high school senior, lived for several years in the Melrose Houses in the 40th Precinct, and more recently in the Alfred E. Smith Houses on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. While he is acutely aware of others around him being harassed by police, namely his brother, he is quick to assert that he himself has never been frisked. As Antwan reports, “Well, I’ve seen people get stopped and frisked. In my experience, they mostly, they have their pants below their behinds with the hoodies and the fitted caps. They look sort of suspicious in a way, like they want to get stopped.”
The Achievers
Antwan associates certain clothing with negative behavior, in a way justifying the attention from police officers. Although his school does not require uniforms, Antwan typically wears khakis and a button-down shirt, in his own way shielding himself from negative attention from the police. He further distances himself from situations and people he feels might compromise his personal safety and freedom by restricting the places where he hangs out and the people he interacts with. For many young people like Antwan, this results in a withdrawal from their community, and at times even from their family.
Whereas many of his peers socialize outside or at friends’ houses after school, Antwan told me that he stays in school as late as he can, even spending lunchtime in the library to avoid potential conflict with classmates. His day begins at 6 a.m. and generally lasts until 5 p.m., “until school security kicks me out.” After school, he goes to an after-school college-prep program located near the Grand Concourse, usually arriving home around 7.
While it would be convenient to attribute Antwan’s withdrawal strictly to police harassment, the reality is a much more complicated algorithm that includes past negative experiences in the neighborhood and a history of changing residences:
The Melrose Projects—I lived in there, where the son chopped up the mother, and there’s other stuff that happens in that neighborhood. I never really felt safe. I would never try and come home past a certain time or I would try and be inside at a certain time because I—for starters, I didn’t know the neighborhood that well and I never felt safe.
I lived near Soundview for 10 years of my life. You see, I knew that neighborhood, so I knew where I could go and where I can’t go. And then I started moving around and began to confine myself more and more. After about a certain age, I sort of disassociated myself with a lot of areas because I never felt safe. Most of the time I stayed indoors because when I tried going outside with the neighborhood children, the people—it was like I would always create enemies. So I just stopped coming outside.
During my fieldwork, I encountered a number of young men and women who told similar stories. Typically they were currently in school or college-bound, or both, and in many cases had managed to have almost no contact with the criminal justice system. But these “achievements” came at a steep social cost, as many members of this group were forced to loosen their ties to the community as a protective mechanism. In New York City, where teen social circles are often divided into “school friends” and “neighborhood friends,” neighborhood friends are often the first to be cast aside.
Beyond that, many young people seemed to distance themselves from the physical landscape as well, avoiding community outings and gatherings. Those in this subgroup were often outwardly uncomfortable straddling both worlds: that of their school/professional world as well as that of the community. For those like Antwan, this presented too much of a risk. The decision to avoid contact with community members was not made in haste; rather, it was an informed decision based on years of experience. They are acutely aware of their vulnerability to police as well as to community violence, and so they reacted accordingly.
For many of the local achievers, the after-school center was one of the “safe spaces.” In an area with a dearth of accessible and affordable (read: free) resources, the center was one of the few reliable spaces young adults could count on. It is housed on the ground floor of an apartment building on a side street near a busy thoroughfare in the borough’s Highbridge section. Its computer lab is home to 10 computers, all of them occupied by students during after-school hours.
A staff of five full-time employees helps to keep the center afloat, organizing college visits, assisting with the college application process, FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) forms, and in general demystifying the college application process. Young adults are typically referred to the center by local guidance counselors and by word of mouth. While new enrollees are welcome, the center is typically filled with familiar faces who, even after the college application process is complete, stop by to use the computers, socialize with friends, and talk with staff members.
One afternoon, I met with Antwan and two of his friends from the after-school center—Shep, an African American male, and Luis, a Puerto Rican male—both high school seniors at nearby institutions. Shep and Antwan are heading to State University of New York (SUNY) schools upstate. Luis plans to move in with his sister in Long Island. Our conversation ultimately settled on the issue of how these young men navigate their neighborhoods, and this exchange, involving Antwan, Shep, and me, was particularly telling as to how relationships with neighborhood peers are often managed:
Antwan: The friends I knew, that I grew up with—I know what they do with the drugs and some carry weapons. I just know I can’t hang out with them because by chance, like there’s a police station across from where we live, if they want to stop and frisk them, I might then get in trouble because I’m with them.
Jan: That’s a great point—
Antwan: Yeah. When I was living here [in the Bronx] I knew people, right near my high school. Some people I knew I couldn’t hang out with because I knew what they do, and I did not want to be, like, charged with any type of association . . . . I’ve never been stopped by cops and I don’t want to start.
Shep: Oh, definitely. I know a lot of people like that. People that aren’t in my main group—like, first of all, I talk to a lot of people, right? People who I am likely not to, sort of, engage in a proper conversation with as friends, would typically be those people into that kind of lifestyle and in the case that I do talk to them, it would be a little bit like, “Oh, hey, ‘sup?” You know what I mean? Just a “Hi, oh, hey, how are you doing? Did you pass this class? Fail this class?” Whatever. The topic usually goes to school and then I sort of cut the conversation and leave—on purpose, but not to make them seem, like, not to make it seem like I’m trying to avoid them. You know what I mean?
Antwan: Yeah—with people who are about that life, they know what I am about, so they know, like, certain things I won’t do. So they won’t ask or try to come around me with certain things if they’re doing something. Like, there were instances where they were gonna do something, but they’ll tell me like, “Yo, you can’t come along, we’re doing something else, so just leave.”
Antwan and Shep are aware of the importance of neighborhood-level ties. While they may sometimes want to avoid contact altogether, they realize this is impossible. Instead, they must “toe the line” with their social networks—in other words, establish enough of a connection so as to not seem dismissive or attract negative attention from other young men in the neighborhood, but at the same time maintain enough distance so they do not become embroiled in their friends’ transgressions or become “guilty by association” in the eyes of the police.
For young adults in the southwest Bronx, this need to be constantly on guard can hinder their ability to get ahead—impeding access to employment and postsecondary educational opportunities. Previous work from the sociologists Philip Kasinitz and Jan Rosenberg has emphasized the challenges that urban dwellers often face finding employment, even when there are jobs to be found in their own backyard. As the authors note in their study, “Being a member of a stigmatized race, living in a stigmatized place, and not having a sufficient diversity of social connections all come together to block residents’ access to jobs.”8
/> Even when these social ties are realized, according to Sandra Susan Smith, a sociologist at the University of California at Berkeley, it is often challenging to “activate” these networks so they translate into actual work.9 These barriers are compounded for young men like Antwan and Shep, who are, by and large, forced to forfeit their social ties in the community altogether as a means of protecting themselves from both the police and, at times, their peers.
Toeing the Line
It is an imperfect balance that many of the “achievers” have settled upon. They must sacrifice personal connections in an attempt to avoid negative attention from the police and community. By contrast, other young men and women I met were able to more effectively reconcile neighborhood ties with their own personal aspirations. In many cases, however, this came with a different type of social cost: increased contact with police.
One afternoon, Tae and I decided to meet at a local library on Morris Avenue. The drab brick building was typically a neutral, “drama free” space for residents, but over the past few years, it had become a site of increasing hostility between warring crews. This was due in part to its proximity to these groups—a central space within walking distance of both the Melrose, Jackson, and Morrisania Air Rights public housing projects just south of 161st Street and the apartment houses that line the avenues further north.
Tae was running late, so I sat upon the white cement railing, trying to look inconspicuous as I scribbled a few notes on my iPhone. From my perch, it was hard to ignore the shadow of the huge glass courthouse directly to my left. I was interrupted by a heavyset black man in his early 30s, who told me, “You better be careful out here, my man.”
“Why, what’s up?” I asked.
“Some girl got shot right here in front of the building,” he replied. “I don’t know much about it, but check the news, it was all over the news.” A few minutes later Tae arrived wearing a maroon American Eagle shirt with a matching hat and sunglasses. Grabbing a table in the basement, we began making small talk, although Tae seemed preoccupied. We discussed the dismal state of our beloved New York Knicks. Then he started to tell me about the feud that his block, near 166th Street and Sherman Avenue, is having with a crew near 164th Street.
Despite having bounced around quite a bit in recent years, most recently living at his aunt’s house in New Jersey and the house of a childhood friend in Maryland, Tae remained loyal to a group of five friends from his childhood neighborhood, many of whom lived in the same building: “Two of them is playing [basketball] in college, the other is just in college, one of them died, and the other one . . . he like to smoke. I don’t smoke, so . . . yeah . . . that’s when we started breaking up.”
Despite somewhat divergent paths, Tae, the youngest of the group, cites these friends as sources of resilience and motivation. He is the only member of the group not to have graduated from high school, apart from Sammy,10 who was gunned down a year earlier, only a few months before graduation. Unlike Antwan and Shep, Tae maintains strong ties to other young adults in the neighborhood. He is a charismatic individual who seemingly knows how to, in his eyes, “toe the line” in the community. While he actively engages with other people who live in the neighborhood, he is not blind to the transgressions of some of his peers. “They know what I do, they know what I don’t do,” he said. “Like, ‘I’ll see y’all later, y’all do what y’all do. I’ll go back around the corner, y’all call me when you done.’”
It is this very loyalty and unwillingness to compromise his ties to neighborhood friends, however, that has, in many cases, resulted in negative outcomes. Because of these associations, he at times “inherits” neighborhood conflicts, as is the case with the current dispute between his block and other local crews. Although he does not actively engage in the conflict, he realizes he must now reevaluate how he navigates his own neighborhood:
Tae: There’s a couple of blocks I try to stay away from now because there’s stuff going on back and forth, like, two days ago somebody got shot in front of here [the library]. She got shot right out here. There are certain blocks. This is one of them.
Jan: This seems like an all right block, though.
Tae: This block—but the people that hang out around here, that live down the block in Emma’s building.11 We now have problems.
Jan: Your block does with them?
Tae: Yeah, so it’s just—
Jan: But you’re on Sherman?
Tae: Yeah, I’m on Sherman.
Jan: But that block is on Sherman too.
Tae: That’s crazy. I know. We only like two blocks away. They was shooting back and forth—I’m across the street [from the school], but, down the block. They’re on the other side, like right there. That’s why I had to bring my shades because they shooting.
Jan: Just because you’re from that block—
Tae: Yup. Just because I’m from there. “Yo, he from 66, right? Yeah.” We all know each other because we all used to chill with each other. The day you met me at the Big Apple, we all be in there. I don’t know what it’s going to be like this year because I know ain’t nobody stop beef from going to the Big Apple, but I still want to play ball and do all that—this summer is gonna be crazy.
Jan: So this is all recent?
Tae: Recent. Within the past two months is when all this happened. I don’t even know what happened. I just walked outside one day, “Yo, we got beef with 1-6-4.” For what? I don’t know, but I can’t walk down to 161 or nothing.
Jan: You don’t even go down to 161—
Tae: If I do, I go all the way up to the Concourse, go across, and then come down—I don’t walk on this path because that’s where they be at.
Jan: So even if it doesn’t directly involve you—
Tae: Yeah, I ain’t got nothing to do with it, but at the same time you ain’t gonna sit here and tell me, “You from here so I’ma do this and this.” Like, all right, so we just gonna have to fight. So to avoid all that, if I don’t have to come this way, I don’t—but today I did. So instead of having to come all the way around because I was already late, I just took it straight down Morris.
Jan: So how does that affect you going to work? That makes you go a whole different route now.
Tae: Yeah, there’s a lot of places where I just don’t cut through to avoid all that. I could, and just fight and get it over with, but nine times out of 10, they ain’t fighting, they shooting. So to avoid all that, I just take a different route.
Jan: So does that make you feel safer when you see a police officer now?
Tae: Na, they ain’t protecting me, either. They harassing me. One set of people trying to shoot at me and beat me up, the other set of people that’s supposed to be doing good is harassing me every two seconds, so—it’s crazy.
Almost overnight, Tae’s social geography had been transformed. His route to work had been radically altered, and safe spaces he once frequented, like the Big Apple Games, the library, and many of the stores on 161st Street, are now off limits. Although the police maintain a ubiquitous presence in the neighborhood, they do not provide any comfort for Tae. Community violence and a detrimental police presence conspire to alter how he interacts with the neighborhood, in many ways confining him to what few innocuous spaces now remain. Tae is left to fend for himself.
Similarly, while Los managed to almost completely avoid police contact for the entirety of his young life, he directly attributes his recent arrest to his interaction with childhood friends in his grandmother’s neighborhood: “I went across the street, down the hill, to say ‘What’s up’ to my friends, gave them all a pound [handshake]. I started walking away—they thought they was giving me a bag of weed by the way I pounded them. That’s when they pulled me around the corner. They stopped and frisked me.” Seemingly benign encounters with peers in the neighborhood set in motion a series of events that caused Los to miss shifts at work, ultimately compromising his position with the company, as well as to miss class time during the college’s winter
session, during which the incident took place.
Still, others like Kareem, a 16-year-old African American high school student, remain optimistic about police work despite frequent negative contact in his area. He readily recalls an instance in which the police positively affected his life: “They saved my life. Something happened in my neighborhood, a shootout—and they was there.”
Much like Tae, Kareem displays a similar aversion to restricting how he interacts with the community. After school and on weekends Kareem enjoys playing basketball with his friends on the nearby courts. But he is also aware of the negative attention that simply hanging out with his friends in public spaces may garner. The previous summer he and a group of friends were heading back home from another friend’s house at around 11 p.m. when a police officer stopped the group to frisk them. After a few minutes, the officer let the boys go with nothing more than a warning. But during another encounter, Kareem says:
They body-slammed one of my friends. . . . I was in the park and they was outside the park. The cops came because something happened around the area, but we was in the park. And they was running and, like, one of my friends was walking and they ran past him and they thought it was him, picked him up, slammed him on the floor, and put him in handcuffs, but he didn’t do nothing. They didn’t catch the person they was looking for. Once they got him, they took him to the station because he was talking back. He got out the same day.
Although the police incorrectly identified one of his peers and brought him into the station for speaking out, Kareem and his friends knew there was little they could do to remedy the situation without risking their own freedom. So they remained silent. He and many of the other “achievement-oriented” young adults I spoke to have learned to carefully monitor their own behavior, drawing on an intricate web of observations and lived experiences.