BUCH
Street Literature
Black Popular Fiction in the Era of U.S. Mass Incarceration
American Studies – A Monograph Series, Bd. 263
2015
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Bibliografische Daten
Abstract
Street literature, currently the most widely read form of Black popular fiction, addresses one of the most pertinent problems in the United States: The system of mass incarceration and the disproportionate imprisonment of people of color. In particular, street literature illustrates what the book examines as ‘street-prison symbiosis’ – a mutual linkage between streets of low-income neighborhoods and prisons that manifests itself not only within the narratives, but also in the circulation of writers, novels, financial means and knowledge between the two locations. The book offers an interdisciplinary spatial analysis that draws upon the close readings of selected novels and interviews with (formerly) incarcerated authors, publishers and distributors of street literature. It explores how actors in the scene simultaneously rely on the close linkage while also using street literature both as a form of writing and cultural-economic practice to challenge marginalizing environments.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
| Zwischenüberschrift | Seite | Aktion | Preis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Table of Contents | 7 | ||
| 1 Introduction | 11 | ||
| 1.1 Interlinking Fictional and Material Spaces of Ethnoracial Confinement | 11 | ||
| 1.2 Street Literature Today | 17 | ||
| 1.3 Framing Street Literature as Popular African American Literature | 19 | ||
| 1.4 Street Literature and Its Predecessors | 22 | ||
| 1.5 Book Overview | 26 | ||
| 1.6 Methodologies | 29 | ||
| PART I: CONCEPTUALIZING THE STREETPRISON SYMBIOSIS | 33 | ||
| 2 Urban Spatial Shifts From ‘Ghetto’ to ‘the Streets’ | 33 | ||
| 2.1 The Concept of ‘the Ghetto’ and Its Pitfalls | 33 | ||
| 2.2 From ‘Ghetto’ to ‘the Streets:’ Terminological Shifts in Street Literature | 36 | ||
| 2.3 The Streets in African American Urban History and Culture | 38 | ||
| 3 Racial Biases in Today’s U.S. Justice System | 45 | ||
| 3.1 The U.S. Prison Population | 46 | ||
| 3.2 Populist Explanations for the Rise in the Prison Population | 48 | ||
| 3.3 The War on Drugs | 49 | ||
| 3.4 Media Coverage and ‘Symbolic Racism:’ The Tacit Conflation of‘ Race’ and Crime | 53 | ||
| 3.5 The Economic Side of Imprisonment: The Prison-Industrial Complex | 55 | ||
| 3.5.1 How the Prison-Industrial Complex Affects Conditions of Imprisonment | 57 | ||
| 3.5.2 Prison Labor | 60 | ||
| 3.6 Returning Home: The Enduring Effects of Imprisonment | 61 | ||
| 4 From Loïc Wacquant’s Ghetto-Prison Symbiosis to the Street-Prison Symbiosis | 65 | ||
| 4.1 The Penalization of Poverty in the Neoliberal State | 66 | ||
| 4.2 The Ghetto-Prison Symbiosis: A Critical Review | 68 | ||
| 4.3 Rescaling the Ghetto-Prison Symbiosis as Street-Prison Symbiosis | 75 | ||
| PART II: STREET LITERATURE’S NARRATIVE STREET-PRISON SYMBIOSIS | 81 | ||
| 5 Overcoming the Streets in the Prison System: Jihad’s "Street Life" | 81 | ||
| 5.1 Street Literature as a Form of ‘Black Bildungsroman’ | 81 | ||
| 5.2 Cross’ Model of Black Identity Formation | 86 | ||
| 5.3 Coming of Age in the Streets | 88 | ||
| 5.4 Entering Prison and the Racially Biased Justice System | 92 | ||
| 5.5 Gaining Literacy Through Black Popular Fiction | 96 | ||
| 5.6 Islam and the Black Male Prison Population: The Stage of Internalization | 99 | ||
| 5.7 Breaking with the Street-Prison Symbiosis: The Internalization/Commitment Stage | 103 | ||
| 6 Circulating between Streets and Prison: J.M. Benjamin’s "My Manz And ‘Em" | 109 | ||
| 6.1 Street Literature as a Circulation Narrative | 109 | ||
| 6.2 "My Manz and ‘Em" Between Testimony, Fiction and Self-Help Literature | 112 | ||
| 6.3 ‘Street Mentality’ and Racial Discrimination: The Close Ties Between Streets and Prison | 113 | ||
| 6.4 Coming Home: Official and Alternative Forms of Post-Incarceration Reintegration | 119 | ||
| 6.5 Obstacles to ‘Becoming Legit’ | 123 | ||
| 6.6 Return to the Streets: Drug Dealing Between Masculine Independence and Territorial Disputes | 128 | ||
| 6.7 Back in Prison: Closing the Cycle of the Street-Prison Symbiosis | 132 | ||
| 7 The HIV-Related Street-Prison Symbiosis: What Happens in Prison Stays in Prison? Damon Meadow’s and Jason Poole’s "Convict’s Candy" | 137 | ||
| 7.1 Street Literature as a Heteronormative Cautionary Tale | 137 | ||
| 7.2 The Exchange of HIV Between Prisons and Black Low-Income Communities | 139 | ||
| 7.3 The Portrayal of a Transwoman Between Empathy, Education and Voyeurism | 142 | ||
| 7.4 Entering the Male Correctional Facility with HIV | 144 | ||
| 7.5 Establishing Prisoner Hierarchies Through Sexual Identities and Practices | 147 | ||
| 7.6 The Construction of an ‘Authentic’ Prison / Street Masculinity | 150 | ||
| 7.7 “He got a big ole’ House in Virginia” – Dealing with HIV/AIDS Among Prisoners | 153 | ||
| 7.8 “What Happens in Prison Stays in Prison?” The HIV-Induced Street-Prison Symbiosis | 157 | ||
| 7.9 Endorsing a Culture of Silence Through Trans-/ Homophobia | 161 | ||
| PART III: STREET LITERATURE’S MATERIAL STREET-PRISON SYMBIOSIS | 165 | ||
| 8 Incarcerated Street Literature Authors: Writing about the Streets While in Prison | 165 | ||
| 8.1 Contemporary Prison Writing in the U.S. | 165 | ||
| 8.2 Jihad: Writing to Raise Awareness about the Street-Prison Symbiosis | 169 | ||
| 8.3 Wahida Clark: Writing as a Source of Income | 175 | ||
| 8.4 Seth Ferranti: Writing as a Constitutional and Prisoner Right | 182 | ||
| 8.5 Writing as a Tool of Self-Rehabilitation in the Penal State | 188 | ||
| 9 The Publishing of Incarcerated Street Literature Authors: Circulating Books Between Streets and Prisons | 193 | ||
| 9.1 Hampstead Publishing: Publishing ‘Absent’ Authors | 194 | ||
| 9.2 Teri Woods and Kwame Teague: Prisons as Writing Factories | 200 | ||
| 9.2.1 Incarcerated Authors and the Use of Pseudonyms | 203 | ||
| 9.2.2 Inmate Publishing as a Female Hustle | 209 | ||
| 10 “Same Game, Different Product:” Street Literature Entrepreneurialism and Its Affinities to the Drug Trade | 215 | ||
| 10.1 J.M. Benjamin: From Drug Dealer to Storyteller | 217 | ||
| 10.2 “Same Game – Different Product:” Analogies Between Drug and Book Selling | 220 | ||
| 10.3 The Street Literature Writer as a Neoliberal Hustler | 228 | ||
| 10.4 Street Literature Entrepreneurs and the Stigma of Criminality | 230 | ||
| 10.5 Entrepreneurial Street Literature Authors and the Wider (Black) Book Market | 234 | ||
| 10.6 J.M. Benjamin’s Post-Incarceration Book Distribution and the Street-Prison Symbiosis | 235 | ||
| 11 Conclusion | 239 | ||
| 11.1 The Potential of Street Literature Novels to Rewrite the Street-Prison Symbiosis | 240 | ||
| 11.2 (Re)Configuring Marginalizing Spaces Through the Writing, Publishing and Distribution of Street Literature | 242 | ||
| 11.3 The Mutual Linkage of Material and Narrative Spaces | 245 | ||
| 11.4 The Contradictions of Challenging Ethnoracial Confinement | 246 | ||
| Bibliography | 249 |
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