The Street
192 pages, 8 1/4 x 8
17 color images
Paperback
Release Date:14 May 2021
ISBN:9781978804500
Hardcover
Release Date:14 May 2021
ISBN:9781978804517
The Street
A Photographic Field Guide to American Inequality
Rutgers University Press
Vacant lots. Historic buildings overgrown with weeds. Walls and alleyways covered with graffiti. These are sights associated with countless inner-city neighborhoods in America, and yet many viewers have trouble getting beyond the surface of such images, whether they are denigrating them as signs of a dangerous ghetto or romanticizing them as traits of a beautiful ruined landscape. The Street: A Field Guide to Inequality provides readers with the critical tools they need to go beyond such superficial interpretations of urban decay.
Using MacArthur fellow Camilo José Vergara’s intimate street photographs of Camden, New Jersey as reference points, the essays in this collection analyze these images within the context of troubled histories and misguided policies that have exacerbated racial and economic inequalities. Rather than blaming Camden’s residents for the blighted urban landscape, the multidisciplinary array of scholars contributing to this guide reveal the oppressive structures and institutional failures that have led the city to this condition. Tackling topics such as race and law enforcement, gentrification, food deserts, urban aesthetics, credit markets, health care, childcare, and schooling, the contributors challenge conventional thinking about what we should observe when looking at neighborhoods.
Using MacArthur fellow Camilo José Vergara’s intimate street photographs of Camden, New Jersey as reference points, the essays in this collection analyze these images within the context of troubled histories and misguided policies that have exacerbated racial and economic inequalities. Rather than blaming Camden’s residents for the blighted urban landscape, the multidisciplinary array of scholars contributing to this guide reveal the oppressive structures and institutional failures that have led the city to this condition. Tackling topics such as race and law enforcement, gentrification, food deserts, urban aesthetics, credit markets, health care, childcare, and schooling, the contributors challenge conventional thinking about what we should observe when looking at neighborhoods.
The street scenes in this book provide a literal 'field guide' of inequality evidence, visualizing the codes, metaphors, policies and social exchanges involved in characterizing and contesting inequality. The authors’ arguments are compelling and provocative.
[The Street] includes a number of informative essays about aspects of inequality, including infant mortality, policing, and fast food. Readers will undoubtedly agree with much that is written here and find the endnotes a useful guide to recent scholarship.
NAA OYO A. KWATE is an associate professor of Africana studies and human ecology at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. An interdisciplinary social scientist with wide ranging interests in racial inequality and African American urban life, her books include Burgers in Blackface: Anti-Black Restaurants Then and Now. She resides in Philadelphia.
DARNELL MOORE is the Director of Inclusion Strategy for Content & Marketing at Netflix. He is the co-managing editor at The Feminist Wire and the writer-in-residence at the Center on African American Religion, Sexual Politics and Social Justice at Columbia University. Named one of The Root 100’s most influential African Americans, Moore has been published in various media outlets including MSNBC, Huffington Post, EBONY, and others. He is the author of No Ashes in the Fire. He resides in Los Angeles.
CAMILO JOSÉ VERGARA is one of the nation’s foremost urban documentarians, Vergara is a recipient of the 2012 National Humanities Medal and was named a MacArthur fellow in 2002. Since 1977, he has photographed some of the country’s most impoverished neighborhoods, repeatedly returning to locations in New York, Newark, Camden, Detroit, Chicago, and Los Angeles. He is also the author of numerous books, the most recent title being Detroit is No Dry Bones. He resides in New York City.
DARNELL MOORE is the Director of Inclusion Strategy for Content & Marketing at Netflix. He is the co-managing editor at The Feminist Wire and the writer-in-residence at the Center on African American Religion, Sexual Politics and Social Justice at Columbia University. Named one of The Root 100’s most influential African Americans, Moore has been published in various media outlets including MSNBC, Huffington Post, EBONY, and others. He is the author of No Ashes in the Fire. He resides in Los Angeles.
CAMILO JOSÉ VERGARA is one of the nation’s foremost urban documentarians, Vergara is a recipient of the 2012 National Humanities Medal and was named a MacArthur fellow in 2002. Since 1977, he has photographed some of the country’s most impoverished neighborhoods, repeatedly returning to locations in New York, Newark, Camden, Detroit, Chicago, and Los Angeles. He is also the author of numerous books, the most recent title being Detroit is No Dry Bones. He resides in New York City.
Foreword
Introduction
Part I State Systems and Predatory Profit
No. 1 Racial Patterning of Travel in America
No. 2 Dignity in an Era of Financialization
No. 3 The Inequitable Erosion of Hospital Care
Part II Symbols and Sentiments
No. 4 Building Codes: Built Elements of the Housing Landscape
No. 5 Symbols of Social Suffering
No. 6 Dissonance
No. 7 Race, Gentrification, and the Making of Domestic Refugees
Part III Social Stories and Stigmatized Space
No. 8 Housing Segregation and the Forgotten Latino American Story
No. 9 Stolen Narratives and Racialized Structural Inequality
No. 10 Disinvestment v. The People’s Persistence
No. 11 Racial Patterning of Fast Food
Part IV Safety and Security
No. 12 Persistence of Black/White Inequities in Infant Mortality
No. 13 Urban Childcare Dilemmas
No. 14 Disinvestment in Urban Schools
No. 15 Racism in Law Enforcement
Acknowledgments
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
Part I State Systems and Predatory Profit
No. 1 Racial Patterning of Travel in America
No. 2 Dignity in an Era of Financialization
No. 3 The Inequitable Erosion of Hospital Care
Part II Symbols and Sentiments
No. 4 Building Codes: Built Elements of the Housing Landscape
No. 5 Symbols of Social Suffering
No. 6 Dissonance
No. 7 Race, Gentrification, and the Making of Domestic Refugees
Part III Social Stories and Stigmatized Space
No. 8 Housing Segregation and the Forgotten Latino American Story
No. 9 Stolen Narratives and Racialized Structural Inequality
No. 10 Disinvestment v. The People’s Persistence
No. 11 Racial Patterning of Fast Food
Part IV Safety and Security
No. 12 Persistence of Black/White Inequities in Infant Mortality
No. 13 Urban Childcare Dilemmas
No. 14 Disinvestment in Urban Schools
No. 15 Racism in Law Enforcement
Acknowledgments
Notes on Contributors
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