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

Deprived of opportunities for advancement in mainstream society, black ghetto teenagers elevate their personal style into a philosophical system of life. Their exemplars are pimps and gangsters.... Gangs develop to bolster self-identity through psychological control of the streets hip "threads" and "freaked out" cars also serve as outward signs of inner creativity. both(prenominal) sexes consider coitus ("doin the do") a natural and desirable part of adolescence soft drugs, primarily marijuana ("tea"), also offer a brief alternative to the harsh reality of ghetto existence. But embracing all of these is the vernacular itself - in its grace, flexibility, and strength it is a valuable tool for "gettin down," for "blowin fire," ultimately for staying alive...(Anderson 1981233-234).Edith A Folb is a snow-covered woman who threw herself into the depths of one of Americas most notorious ghettos for nearly nine years of fieldwork on the l anguage and culture of African-American teenagers. She left the University of California, Los Angeles in 1964, center(prenominal) 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. After two years of working amongst the preponderantly black inhabitants of South Central Los Angeles, Folb returned to school with a better subject of focus for her studies. She had found her calling in the last place most passel would think to look 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 or so lines the language and culture of black teenagers, was published. 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 teens and con versing less formerly with countless others. Folb feels that these youths are representative 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 devolve on the otherwise dark subject of inner city culture. Folb believes that the manner in which the teens of South Central speak may "tell those who would listen what it actor to be young and black and live in a ghetto community" (Folb 19804).