Selling Crack in El Barrio

In his book, In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio, Philippe Bourgois, writes about Structural Violence in East Harlem. Harlem has always been known as a dangerous neighborhood filled with crime, drug use, poverty and violence. As Bourgois mentions in the book, Harlem has always been filled with crime regardless of the ethnic group living there at the time. “[East Harlem is] a nursery of all kinds of law-breakers; there are nests of narcotics, thieving stealing, cheating and every conceivable kind of law-breaking. The country is flooded with criminals from here. A taxi driver would not dare go through 113^th Street east of Second Avenue after dark: an armored car would be the only thing safe.” I feel that this quote in the book describes perfectly Structural Violence in Harlem. Its like everyone thinks its not safe regardless of what goes on there and who lives there.

In this book, Ray is shown as an example of someone who has suffered from Structural Violence. Ray resorted to selling drugs and has become somewhat of a drug lord in East Harlem. The author writes, “Despite all his cars, and the wads of cash padding his pockets Ray did not even have a drivers license or any other form of legal identification. He was helpless outside of the cocoon of El Barrio’s streets.” Although he has “juice” and is well respected by the people in his neighborhood, he lacks cultural capital.  “Unable to save face, he desperately angled the paper to get a fuller beam from the streetlight above us, and screwed his face into an expression of intense concentration. I suddenly realized what the problem was: Ray did not know to read.” In this part of the story the author gives Ray a newspaper to read, but to his surprise he finds put that this powerful man, does not know how to read. Ray also does not have any form of identification, which prevented him from obtaining any licenses to own businesses. He attempted with a Laundromat, a bodega and a social club, but eventually all of them failed. In Harlem Ray was very important, powerful and had a lot of money, but outside of Harlem he was no one.

We also see examples of structural violence in the authors experience n Harlem. He mentions that when he first told people about his plan to move to Harlem they thought he was crazy. He also says that the few people, who would visit him, would make him go downstairs and meet him at the door of their cab. Bourgois’ being skinny white and in Harlem was perceived as either being an undercover cop, or a white drug addict. Although he is perceived this way, it helps keep him safe because people will not think to mess with him. He also gives examples about his run in with cops, most of which did not go very well. One story that he mentions that caught my attention was the one where he explains to the cop what he is doing in Harlem and they think that he is just trying to mess with them. His accent also has them believe that he is trying to make fun of them. In on instant where he was just admiring the sunset, he had to show the cop his ID to show that he wasn’t loitering. TO which the cop replied that he was crazy for choosing to live there. His friends, Primo and Cesar taught him that it is important to have an image or persona. That you cant let people think you are too nice. You have to make them think that you are mean or crazy.