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African Americans in West Baltimore and the Shadow of the State
Princeton University Press
February 2015
On Sale: February 1, 2015
440 pages
ISBN: 0691162840
EAN: 9780691162843
Kindle: B00O99SLCC
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction
Baltimore was once a vibrant manufacturing town, but today,
with factory closings and steady job loss since the 1970s,
it is home to some of the most impoverished neighborhoods in
America. The Hero’s Fight provides an intimate look
at the effects of deindustrialization on the lives of
Baltimore’s urban poor, and sheds critical light on the
unintended consequences of welfare policy on our most
vulnerable communities. Drawing on her own uniquely
immersive brand of fieldwork, conducted over the course of a
decade in the neighborhoods of West Baltimore, Patricia
Fernández-Kelly tells the stories of people like D. B.
Wilson, Big Floyd, Towanda, and others whom the American
welfare state treats with a mixture of contempt and
pity—what Fernández-Kelly calls “ambivalent benevolence.”
She shows how growing up poor in the richest nation in the
world involves daily interactions with agents of the state,
an experience that differs significantly from that of more
affluent populations. While ordinary Americans are treated
as citizens and consumers, deprived and racially segregated
populations are seen as objects of surveillance,
containment, and punishment. Fernández-Kelly provides new
insights into such topics as globalization and its effects
on industrial decline and employment, the changing meanings
of masculinity and femininity among the poor, social and
cultural capital in poor neighborhoods, and the unique roles
played by religion and entrepreneurship in destitute
communities. Blending compelling portraits with
in-depth scholarly analysis, The Hero’s Fight
explores how the welfare state contributes to the
perpetuation of urban poverty in America.
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