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“This Ain't the Nineties”: Chicago's Black Street Gangs in the Twenty

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“This Ain't the Nineties”: Chicago's Black Street Gangs in the Twenty “This Ain’t the Nineties”: Chicago’s Black Street Gangs in the Twenty-First Century BY ROBERTO R. ASPHOLM B.S.W., Loyola University Chicago, 2008 M.S.W., University of Illinois at Chicago, 2009 DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Social Work in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Chicago, 2016 Chicago, Illinois Defense Committee: Mark Mattaini, Chair and Advisor Jim Gleeson Joseph Strickland John Hagedorn, Criminology, Law, and Justice Robert Lombardo, Loyola University Chicago This work is dedicated to the loving memory of Thomas F. Olson, a true friend. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The completion of this dissertation was only possible with the love and support I received from the many teachers, mentors, family members, and friends who have helped me throughout this process and my life’s journey more generally. First, I would like to thank the members of my dissertation committee for their mentorship and guidance during the course of shaping, conducting, and writing this dissertation. To my chair and advisor, Mark Mattaini, thank you for encouraging me to be myself and to retain my grounding in the face of ivory tower conditioning. This study would have been considerably more difficult and perhaps impossible without the support of a champion like you. Jim Gleeson, working with you over the past few years on this and other projects has been a blessing that has kept me going in more ways than one. Your compassion for the marginalized, thoughtfulness, and eye for detail have helped shape the writing of this dissertation. Joseph Strickland, thank you for mentoring me in my community work, putting me in with good folks in the ’hood, and inspiring my eventual return to school. If not for you, I probably would have never decided to pursue my Ph.D. John Hagedorn, your work showed me the utility of strong, critical research rooted in the realities of the streets. This study would not exist without your inspiring work and critical feedback. Thank you! Robert Lombardo, thanks for first sparking my interest in the world of research all the way back in my undergraduate days at Loyola University Chicago. Your perspective based on your experiences as a police officer on Chicago’s streets, moreover, has often provided me with a challenging and useful counterpoint to my own viewpoint. Thanks also to J Breezer Rickey for being a great teacher and mentor and for providing key assistance on this research project at the drop of a dime! iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (continued) I would also like to thank the people I have had the pleasure of working with during my years on the South Side of Chicago. To the Grand Boulevard/Washington Park crew, especially Ken Davis, Cornelius Ellen, and Andrea Lee, thanks for helping me get my footing on the South Side and for continuing to provide me with mentoring and friendship. To my Woodlawn people, especially Renita Austin, Warren Beard, Mattie Butler, Bryan Echols, Alex Gardner, Chuck Hayes, Erick Puckett, and Otelua Thomas, thanks for the support and education during my many trials by fire in “Hoodlawn.” To Shannon Bennett and Jitu Brown from North Kenwood/Oakland, Juan Cruz from Albany Park, and Josina Morita from everywhere (ha!), thanks for the comradeship in our battles to improve the lives of young people in our city. To the folks from 95th Street, especially LeVon Stone, Sr., Angie Cummings, John Hardy, Lonnie Black, and Tamikia DeBerry, thank you all for embracing me and bringing me into the family. To Michael Wilson, Mariam Omari, Dale McCauley, and the folks at Y.O.U., thanks for helping me get my start in working with young people. Flory Sommers, thanks for the inspiration! Thanks to my family and friends who have supported me during this process and shaped me into the man I am today. To my wife, Piere Washington, thank you for holding me down in every way possible, for always believing in me, and for helping me process my thoughts about my research findings over the last three years. I love you! To my daughter, Paris, you have made this process much more challenging—which, of course, is part of your job—but life much more joyful. Thank you! To my mother and father, Beth Rademacher and Tony Aspholm, thank you for giving me my sense of compassion and social justice and my work ethic. To my brother, Jim(bo), thanks for teaching me to take it easy once in a while and to have fun. To my sister, Rose, thanks for teaching me not to compromise on the values that I hold most dear. To my iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (continued) brother, Martin, thanks for showing me how to be a good big brother—a very useful skill for working with young people! To my brothers Kawaskii Bacon and Abdul Omari, thank you for always supporting me and for inspiring me by making positive moves when so many of our friends have gone in other directions. To the rest of my guys from Minneapolis that I don’t speak with as much anymore, I still love you! To Marcus Davis, Julio Puma, Ben Thullen, and my people from Chicago, thank you for your friendship over the last dozen (!) years and for helping me like the city enough to stay that long. Special thanks also go out to the Olson, Bobo, and Puma families for serving as an extended family. To all of the young people I have worked with throughout the years—who are far too many to name—please know that I love you all and am still here for you anytime you need me! Most importantly, I would like to thank the young men who shared their lives with me by participating in this study. I can’t mention your names in these acknowledgements for obvious reasons, but please know that I love and appreciate you all from the bottom of my heart. I have tried my best to do your stories justice in the pages of this dissertation, and I hope I have succeeded to the greatest extent possible! Special thanks go out to Sheldon Smith and Kenny Rainey, who provided me with tremendous assistance throughout the research process and without whom this study would have been impossible. More than that, you two have been like brothers to me for nearly a decade now. Thanks for everything, fellas! Finally, rest in peace to Thomas Olson, Daniel Gomez, Keonte Blair, Harold Bobbitt, Marcus London, Corey Harris, Micah Williams, Damian Turner, Bearling Robinson, and to all those who have lost their lives to the violence of the streets. RRA v TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1 Statement of the Problem .................................................................................................... 1 Statement of Positionality ................................................................................................... 5 Conceptual Framework ....................................................................................................... 8 Study Rationale and Significance ....................................................................................... 9 Research Questions ........................................................................................................... 10 II. LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................................. 12 Social Disorganization and Street Corner Groups in the Early Twentieth Century ......... 13 Racial Succession and Policing the Color Line in Postwar Chicago ................................ 18 Street Organizations and Gang Nations During the Civil Rights Era ............................... 23 Gang Corporatization in the Hyperghetto ......................................................................... 30 Chicago’s Street Gangs in the Twenty-First Century ....................................................... 36 Summary and Discussion .................................................................................................. 39 III. METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................................... 41 Research Paradigm and Strategy of Inquiry ..................................................................... 41 Participatory Researchers.................................................................................................. 42 Study Sample .................................................................................................................... 44 Data Collection ................................................................................................................. 52 Data Handling and Preparation ......................................................................................... 54 Data Analysis .................................................................................................................... 55 Ensuring Study Rigor ........................................................................................................ 58 Human Subjects Protections ............................................................................................. 60 IV. FINDINGS: STREET GANGS AS RESISTANCE ......................................................... 64 Material Marginality and Resistance ................................................................................ 67 Physical Insecurity and Resistance ................................................................................... 75 Psychological Domination and Resistance ....................................................................... 83 Summary and Discussion
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