A Bunker Mentality Among Inner-City Chicago Youth

Miller McCune reports on a study by Mario Small about Chicago youth, arguing that the violence of these neighborhoods destroys trust on a very basic level. Youth have "associates" not friends.

What does this do to any even minimal hope for collective empowerment in these areas?

[See Small's website for links to a range of other really important work.]

Small said they were floored when they found that a kind of �bunker mentality� held sway at both schools, even to the point that the children, both boys and girls, routinely tested their peers and were conducting �background checks� to see whether they could be trusted, cross-checking their dependability with classmates and watching them for months and years.

�It sounded like a warlike situation,� Small said. �I really don�t want to sensationalize this. But, frankly, it is so pervasive among our interviewees and so powerful that I don�t think the analogy is inappropriate. Violence is pervasive in the poorest neighborhoods of Chicago. There are lots of pretty serious beatings, and the 13- and 14-year-olds are already starting to become victims. At this age, the children are still learning how to negotiate their neighborhoods on their own.�

One girl said she invited a classmate to a party and staged a fight with someone else to see if the classmate would intervene to defend her. Another girl, a seventh-grader, said she planted false gossip with people she was �watching� in order to test them. If she heard the gossip going around, then she knew those people were not her true friends.

You �start knowing you don�t need many friends,� a 15-year-old said. �You have friends but don�t let them in too close, unless you�ve been with them forever. Somebody you just met two years ago, nn-mm, don�t let them in too close��