Runnin Down Some Lines: Book Review :: essays research papers

Deprived of opportunities for packaging in mainstream society, black ghetto adolescentrs elevate their personal style into a philosophy of life. Their exemplars ar pimps and gangsters.... Gangs develop to bolster self-identity through psychological control of the streets hip " meander" and "freaked out" cars also serve as outward signs of internal creativity. both(prenominal) sexes consider coitus ("doin the do") a natural and desirable pop of adolescence soft drugs, primarily marijuana ("tea"), also offer a temporary alternative to the harsh reality of ghetto existence. But embracing only of these is the vernacular itself - in its grace, flexibility, and strength it is a valuable tool for "gettin down," for "blowin fire," finally for staying a bed...(Anderson 1981233-234).Edith A Folb is a white woman who threw herself into the depths of one of Americas most ill-famed ghettos for nearly nine years of fieldwork on the linguist ic communication and culture of African-American teenagers. She left the University of California, Los Angeles in 1964, midway through an increasingly dissatisfying Ph.D. program, to involve herself in a variety of community-based activities in the hopes of determining the future course of her life. later two years of working amongst the predominantly black inhabitants of South interchange Los Angeles, Folb returned to school with a better subject of focus for her studies. She had found her profession in the last place most people would think to figure in the heart of the ghetto. "So, in 1967, she began the systematic study of black teenage vernacular vocabulary" (Folb 1980viii).In 1980, Edith A. Folbs first book, runnin down some lines the language and culture of black teenagers, was publi slough. The book is based on her extensive first-hand research on the teens of South Central. She spent over eight years in operation(p) within the community, interviewing many teen s and conversing less formerly with countless others. Folb feels that these youths are lesson of an aspect of American society both disregarded and misunderstood by the white majority. She even goes as far as to refer to the ghetto as a "country" of its own within the boundaries of the United States (Folb 19802). Her goal is to shed some light on the otherwise dark subject of inner city culture. Folb believes that the manner in which the teens of South Central speak whitethorn "tell those who would listen what it means to be young and black and live in a ghetto community" (Folb 19804).