Recent psychological anthropological studies of U.S. urban blacks have brought to the fore the problem of perspective, or how to view a relatively stable, well known ethnic population. The most psychologically oriented of these recent studies is Hannerz' (1969). His book is also interesting because it marks (with Ogbu's 1974) attempts by non-American anthropologists to come to grips with black U.S. culture. Using the tools of the anthropologist, Hannerz describes life in the ghetto, but his particular interest is given to the development of male role behavior, a subject which also concerned Elliot Liebow in Tally's Corner (1969). In fact, in one way or another, much of the anthropological literature about the urban black ghetto has centered on male role behavior, either of teenagers (Walter Miller, for example) or adults.
The literature about blacks can be classed according to the following three theoretical positions using male role as an example:
- Behavior in a black ghetto is a deviant form of normal "mainstream" male role behavior. For example, black ghetto males are more aggressive because they are protesting their masculinity in terms defined as masculine by white, middle class people. That they overdo their behavior into a caricature of the white middle class male role is attributable to their coming from a subculture where matri-focal families predominate, depriving the child of male role models. Their inability to successfully carry out instrumental aspects of the male role results from their lack of training and exclusion from jobs.
- Behavior in a black ghetto is evidence of a ghetto-specific or black culture-specific phenomenon; the ghetto is simply a different culture from white, middle class America. For example, it is a mistake to interpret male ghetto behavior as a reaction or in relation to white, middle class definitions. This is just the way ghetto males behave. Upholders of this position typically downgrade the "protest masculine" explanation as inappropriate, and also suggest it to be inaccurate since male influence in the ghetto is strong, particularly through extra-familial groups.
- Behavior in a black ghetto is merely a local expression of a "culture of poverty" which is found worldwide. The critical dimension here is that the state of poverty, in a culture in which wealth is also present, creates certain behavioral patterns which hold, regardless of what mainstream culture is like. For example, matri-focal households and aggressive males are part of this "culture," and are therefore to be expected in our black ghetto.
To pursue our argument further, Hannerz suggests that ghetto sex role behavior cannot be accounted for as protest against middle class values. Such an explanation would postulate that, for example, father absence leads to feminine identity and a subsequent exhibition of hyper-mascuiine traits. Hannerz argues that since there are men in the ghetto who could serve as role models, the subculture position is fallacious; however his own argument is misdirected. Hannerz is right, if not original, in attacking a theory that fixates on father absence to explain sex role learning. Why not father salience, mother salience, sibling presence and salience, peer groups, etc., not to mention effects of street society, power positions, and so forth? But this has nothing to do with whether the black ghetto is a culture or a subculture.
There is a fair amount of psychological anthropological literature which talks about the effects of such variables regardless of a particular culture's definitions. But what we need for blacks are studies which link these influences to behavior. In our anthropological studies of the urban ghetto, we must see to what extent our cross-cultural findings of the last twenty years in the fields of perception, cognition and socialization can account for what we see in the ghetto. This, not polemic about what kind of culture or subculture ghetto life is, is what is required. To say, as Hannerz does, that black male behavior is ghetto specific is not an explanation and is barely a description. But an extensive ethnographic study to account for behavior as a result of certain developmental and situational pressures which are themselves extensively treated and tested in anthropological literature is the kind of contribution I hope to see come out of psychological anthropology in the future.
Nevertheless, whether to conceptualize the black ghetto as a subculture, a culture, or a local manifestation of a culture of poverty is an important problem for educators. Each leads to different action and each position can find its defenders. I think all three are true to a certain extent, each perhaps helps us better understand one or another aspect of behavior. But I think none of them alone can help us very much. Further, the blacks are stratified so that for some groups one may matter more than for other groups.
Educators should therefore recognize the inadequacy of any one approach. Valentine (1972) comes close to this kind of approach in his discussion of "biculturation."
It would be useful to educators to understand contemporary human behavior, to specify the importance of what goes on outside of school to the learning of social behavior, and to study the techniques of instruction that exist there, and the processes of learning that are involved. In some ways we know more about Samoa than about what happens six blocks east of my office.
