Who You Claim

Robert Garot
New York University Press (2010)
Reviewed by Ernesto Aguilar

An old friend and comrade, Hitaji Aziz, once told me men of color have some of the biggest struggles to confront. Stereotyped and feared, men of color at once must wrestle with their own insecurities, self-perceptions and the necessity to feel human in a world that often denies men of color the right to feel much of anything beyond objectification and playing that part.

As I read Robert Garot’s Who You Claim: Performing Gang Identity in School and on the Streets (New York University Press, 2010), I was reminded of those conversations. For the book, Garot lived among and became intimately knowledgeable about the lives of young Black and Latino men in an urban community. In these areas, young men often face intense pressure to join or support gangs. They must also figure out how to operate in a society in which they already face disadvantages. Within the gang lifestyle, there is ritual, performance and rule of law, to be sure. In addition, the subculture holds elements that make for a more fascinating story. What Garot discovers is Byzantine space filled with nuance, shifting loyalties, and how male youth of color must often artfully navigate the very act of being to stay alive and respected by their peers. In this sense, Who You Claim is more than gangs, but the complex lives young men of color are confronted with.

How white society perceives gang members and the actual realities of gang life for those exposed to it are often at odds. Films portray gang members as soldiers in the war against whiteness, eroding the very fabric of a democracy whites to hear some tell it worked centuries to build, and whose very existence requires psychological warfare to discourage and physical force in the frame of law enforcement to contain. A facet of power is being able to tell the story of the less powerful to one’s own advantage. The truth is that, as Who You Claim outlines, gang membership for young men of color is as much about staying out of trouble and trying to live a full life of a teen male as it is about fidelity to one’s allies. In TV-land, ranking out (disassociating gang identity) is a capital offense. On the street, being outnumbered, losing one’s job for getting in a fight and any number of scenarios take precedence to claiming affiliation the youth of color with whom Garot talks. These young men, he points out, want to enjoy nights out with their dates, keep jobs and have futures. However, Who You Claim avoids misty assimilationist rhetoric and pedestrian American Dreams for more complicated dialog.

“Whiteness,” Garot writes, “became relevant in a context where race was not escapable for anyone and was therefore accountable by everyone.” Outside communities of color, it is easy for whites to obscure race, to pretend that whiteness, as George Lipsitz put it, “never has to speak its name [amd] never has to acknowledge its role as an organizing principle in social and cultural relations.” Among areas where Blacks and Latinos are the majority population, whites cannot avoid race. As such, the double standards young men of color cope with and must shape their lives to function within and without are matters Garot openly looks at. Who You Claim is plainly a sociology book that examines group behavior and how individuals within the group accept their roles. However, the important discussions underneath prove most intriguing.

See the originial post here: Who You Claim