Crime Of Driving While Being Black

Doughboy and his friends are put to the test of the measuring rod and fail because the expectations are too high for them and they turn to subcultural deviance. They know that they are not able to live up to these rules and norms that have been set for them. Furthermore, because they are aggravated that they are not accepted in society makes Doughboy and his friends turn to deviance and turn to gangs. The way that Doughboy is portrayed in the film the audience can tell that he does not want to be and act the way he is and that he just lacks support and emotional support from family and friends, and a great example of that is his mother. Doughboy’s mother gives all the love and support to Ricky however, she does not give that same support to Doughboy which makes him feel alienated and rejected and that is when he turns to being deviant.

The social structure perspective is based on the relationship between social status and criminal behavior. Social structure theories tie delinquency rates to socioeconomic conditions such as poverty and cultural values such as gang culture. Social structure theories focus on three predominate views; social disorganization, anomie/strain, and cultural deviance. Boys N the Hood directed by John Singlton is a great illustration of the social structure perspective in explaining criminal behavior. The movie is about three friends who struggle to survive in South Central Los Angeles where friendship, pain, danger, and love form a true picture of life in the "hood." The three main characters are Tre Styles, Doughboy, and Ricky Baker. Tre Styles is a teen who was pushed in a mature direction to overcome living in the hood by his parents Reva and Furious Styles. Ricky Baker is Tre's best friend who is a talented football player who gets a scholarship to move out of the hood. Doughboy is Ricky's brother who sells cocaine and succumbs to the pressures and lifestyle of living in the hood.

Seven years later all the boys are in high school. Ricky the one who wants to become a football player has a girlfriend and a baby boy. Ricky wants to become a football player because he does not want to become like his brother Doughboy, who doesn’t do anything with his life. Ricky and Doughboy are half-brothers, they have the same mother. Tre moved in with his father when he was younger so his dad can teach him to become a “man”. Tre learns life lessons from his father, there is one part in the movie where Furious, Tre’s father, says “a black man has no place in the military.” Doughboy who is Ricky’s half-brother doesn’t have any plans for his life. All he does in the movie is hang out with 3 other people on his mom’s porch drinking beer, selling drugs, carrying guns and driving around. Doughboy has been in and out of jail. Doughboy, his girlfriend

Throughout the 1992 film, “Boyz in the Hood,” John Singleton takes a closer look at urban black America in South Central Los Angeles. Doughboy, Ricky and Trey, along with their parents are chronicled from childhood to adulthood. Each person, though living in the same neighborhood chooses different paths in life. These characters were raised in a very deviant community, however there were many causes as to why they did not all become deviant. Deviance is defined as behavior that goes against what is socially acceptable. It is when a person disregards what is normal in a specific society and acts upon it. Throughout the movie these characters had many chances to engage in deviant behavior, as some did while

uses this advantage to manipulate the gang into taking on a task that is more extreme than their normal daily bad deed; his own ambition. He uses his higher education and adept social skills to trick the boys into agreeing to fulfilling his own ambition; destroying Old Misery’s house. The gang normally use their time to carry out petty crimes like, “At Blackie’s suggestion the gang was to disperse in pair, take the buses at random and see how many free rides could be snatched from unwary conductors.” This activity may be frowned upon and slightly illegal, but they would never get arrested for it. Which is one of Blackie’s main goal as the leader of the gang; he is trying to keep every one out of jail. “Blackie said, ‘Nobody’s going to pinch things. Breaking in-that’s good enough, isn’t it? We don’t want any court stuff.’” However, when T. challenges Blackie to do something more daring, Blackie is hesitant, and T. seizes the chance to replace him as leader of the gang. “‘‘You can stand down, Blackie, if you’d rather…’” T. did this by describing the destruction of Old Misery’s house as grown up and more of a challenge for the boys, leading them astray from their minor crime lives and into the big leagues. T. puts the gang at risk of being arrested for breaking and entering, and vandalism among many other things, he slowly pushes their limits and bends their morals with the project of destroying Old Misery’s

In the 1991 drama “Boyz in the Hood”, Written and Directed by John Singleton. He successfully attempts to portray what life was like and in some areas in America still is for African Americans living in a rough Los Angeles neighborhood. It displays a portrait of the harsh realities that plagues the black community and by displaying uninviting living conditions that is South Central L.A, Singleton aims to share to the world the self-destructive deviant behavior that is to this day, destroying the African American community. Some of the self-destructive deviant behaviors include gang life, selling drugs, and gun violence. Various issues are displayed in this movie involving the black community including deviance, poverty, gentrification, the importance of a father in a young man’s life and black on black crime. Singleton displays a tale of three friends growing up in the “hood”, plagued by drugs and violence and layers textures over rough and compelling visuals of black culture that shows us what it means to come to maturity, or die trying, as a black male. In this essay, I will be giving a thorough analysis of the film, as well as covering certain points from the movie from a sociological perspective to explain why singleton chose to write this film.

Discusses how race is a conceptualized concept most often through stereotypes of different groups with the presence of a systematic structure of racism where the dominant group has placed themselves as superior and all other groups are deemed inferior. This structure often produces a negative impact on same race relations. Identity, according to this theory is created due to psychological enforcement of repeated racial oppression. The movie “Boyz N’ The Hood” demonstrates the effect of this enforced systematic structure and its negative impact on same race relations which lead to the ultimate death of some of the characters in this film (Singleton,1991). The movie takes place in impoverished South Central Los Angeles and depicts scenes of violence perpetrated by gangs against the main characters of the movie. Janet Helms points out that racial theory consists of four models White Identity, Black Identity, People of Color, and the Racial interaction model. She points out that the more an individual becomes aware of the social constructs of race and the racist system the closer

Boyz in the Hood starts off with the character Tre Styles as a young man who lives in South Central, Los Angeles with his mom Rita. The social work student viewed this beginning portion of the movie portraying his young life as a social worker. The social work student noticed that Tre lived with his mother in an apartment in a rough neighborhood. Tre went to school but had problems acting out and being the class clown. Tre and the friends he hung around here had foul language and used profanity as young kids. This is just one example of how Tre’s surroundings influenced his life. According to Newman & Newman (2014), the Social Role theory suggests that a person learns behaviors from observing in their environments. Young Tre Styles learned profanity from somewhere in his rough environment and this is a method of learning socially. Rita, his mother was working on her Master’s degree and wanted better for Tre, so it is unlikely she promoted the use of profanity in her household. A contract between the two was drafter and Tre agreed with his mother that if he did not behave he would move in with his father. Rita stayed true to the contract they drafted and took Tre to live with his father Furious, so Tre could learn how to be a man.

The characters: Tre Styles and Mookie are two young African-Americans in the films “Boyz N The Hood” and “Do The Right Thing” respectively. Both films were released around the same time period, with DO THE RIGHT THING being released in 1989, and BOYZ N THE HOOD in 1991. Both films are coming of age tales for Tre and Mookie, they both reside in a low-income, predominantly black neighborhood. Both films share a common theme: the idea of hopelessness and survival as a young black male in the “hood.” Both men are a product of what can only be described as “urban decay;” they are trying to find their place in a society that doesn’t care much for their well being or success. BOYZ N THE HOOD and DO THE RIGHT THING have a common

Ricky as a character displayed the effects of understanding the traumatic human development and normal human development. Traumatic human development is when one is open to danger and violence. One can be open to traumatic development directly or indirectly on a centered foundation. Ricky environment exposed him negativity. A majority of the negativity that Ricky is exposed to is gun violence, gangs, drugs and other negativity as well. Due to his environment being looked down upon and him being an African American male from a certain area of Los Angeles town he was viewed upon negatively by society. For instance, a scene from the movie dictates Tre and Ricky is pulled over by cops. The cops, one African American the main cop posed Tre and Ricky as a threat to society. Being harassed by the cop made Tre and Ricky feel as though they had no place in of belonging in that part of Los Angeles town. By Ricky being an African American male it was difficult enough for him to be successful in his environment. Ricky was not as fortunate to have the resources he needed. He was limited to many resources but, his limitation did not interfere with him having normal development. The theories that can mainly be relative to this movie, as well as the character Ricky, are person-in-environment, systems theory, and cultural theory (Newman and Newman 2012).

In this paper, I will analysis the film Boyz N the Hood based on and around the criminology concept of the General Strain Theory. The film Boyz N the Hood depicts a story about an African-American boy growing up in “the hood” of South Central LA. South Central is a place where on average 1 out of 21 African American men will be die as a result of “the streets”. African Americans within the African-American community are more susceptible to becoming a casualty to gang affiliation and violence. If a person makes the wrong choices in life or even if they are faced with the right circumstances that force this person to join a gang their likelihood of dying as a result dramatically increases.

All three individuals lived in the lower-class, and due to low income, some were faced with crime as an economic motive others took a different course. In the case of Ricky, he chose used football in order to aid him in getting into university. Meanwhile, Doughboy is shown to have little ambition, and a lack of parental support, this caused him to easily assimilate into the environment from the “hood”.

Visibility in school wasn’t any different, the Saints unlike the Roughnecks were able to get out of class, due to their clean “good boy” perceptions. Once the Saints were out of the sight of instructors, they could leave almost immediately with the help of their cars— strategically parked for an effortless escape. On the other hand, the Roughnecks, didn’t enjoy the same freedom, even if one managed to get out of class, downtown was too far away for someone with no means of transportation. Additionally, the Roughnecks, drew even more attention to themselves as they frequently made remarks to people passing by. Secondly, the demeanor of both gangs were complete opposites of each other, if one of the Saints was stopped by a police officer, his “demeanor was apologetic and penitent” (Chambliss, 2011, pg. 192). On the contrary, Roughnecks, didn’t have much respect for authority, and their animosity, enmity, and aggression was clearly obvious. Finally, society members, perceived the delinquent acts of the Saints less serious than delinquent acts of the Roughnecks. In their view, someone who showcases public drunkenness is committing a more serious crime than someone who drinks in bar.

Some challenges between anti-social behaviors and geographic are evident in the film Boyz n the Hood. It a 90’s films created by John Singleton, about a boy Tre styles who is sent to live with his father Furious styles in South Central Los Angeles after he got into a fight at school. At his father 's house, he is taught morals and values of being a respected man. On the other hand, his friends Ricky and Doughboy who are half-brothers has a different upbringing with no real support system, resulting in forming a gang, involvement with drugs and a tragic ending. This film is based on the African American experience in terms of environmental conditions which results in a great deal of African American males being pushed into the criminal justice system.

John Singleton’s Boyz N the Hood is an American teen drama film released in 1991 that focuses on three black teens who live in the dangerous neighbourhood of Crenshaw, Los Angeles. The main characters Doughboy, his half-brother Ricky, and their friend Tre grow up together but meet drastically different fates as young adults. As Swanson (2011) points out, it is important to understand the tension within black communities in Los Angeles at the time of the film’s release; the Rodney King beating had taken place only months before and LA’s gang wars were reaching a peak. As a Los Angeles native, Singleton’s goal with the film was to alert people about the situation around them, as he said: “I couldn’t rhyme. I wasn’t a rapper. So I made this movie” (Swanson 2011). To reflect the environment as accurately as possible, the film was shot on the streets of South Los Angeles, so the crew was just as on edge as their characters would be; there were even threats of gun violence from local gang members.