Tallys Corner: A Study of Negro Street corner Men - Book Report/Review Example

Tally's Corner: A Study of Negro Street corner Men Tally's Corner was one of the best sociological ic. It was written by Elliot Liebow in 1960. It was about the condition of Black American family, particularly about black man and about the effects on the family of welfare in connection to a social and economic underclass defined by race. Elliot wrote his book after 18 months of experience he got while living in a group of socially and culturally unstable men in a poor, city neighbourhood in Washington D.C. The main reason of this book when it was published in 1960 was to open eyes of the Americans to the condition of black men in American society. Liebow tells about the black men in Washington's inner city with badly handicapped by lack of education, skills and insufficient income. These men considered the street corner as the cause of security and self respect. Liebow discussed about young and adult which were perfect subject to observe in order to understand the complications and the causes of their style and behavior. These people were surrounded by different problems like insufficient income, low ranked jobs, unsuccessful marriages and their dark future. Liebow's deep and comprehensive observations of his subjects bring a firm logic to their intolerable, uncivilized behaviors. The men of Tally's Corner find sense of freedom and self-respect only among themselves. No matter these men lives different lives but share the same pain of failure, disrespect and harsh environment of Washington. Tally Tally is a main character of Liebow. A man with 30 years of age, brown skin with a build of a professional heavyweight fighter. When Tally was born his father left his mother. He never went to school and started working at the age of eleven. Started with unskilled works like cleaning offices and washing dishes. But Tally only works about six or seven months during the year because of harsh winters, rainy days, and lack of construction work. During his eight years in Washington, Tally has lived in different parts of the city. He was married but separated have eight children. This outline tells about the lives of the middle class black men in America. Liebow also kept his attention on Tally's close friends and ex-friends, like Sea Cat, Richard, Stoopy, Wesley, and Leroy. No matter they have a different personal life, but they share many of the same experiences and lifestyles. When people live with their family they usually learn things like how to run a family and similar experience from their parent and siblings. But in the case of Tally who found family without a father and mother running a house. This type of experience greatly affects the behaviour and results as a irresponsible father or husband. It was a common practice by the Tally's Corner men to blame one's own personal mistakes but the cause of these behaviors lies deeper, according to Liebow. The wife also plays an important role in a failing marriage. Like men, the women of Tally's Corner as children often experienced a family structure in which the father did not fulfil his responsibilities as father and husband. As adults, the women hope that their husbands will provide financial and emotional support for the family. But, their experiences made them not to expect this. And for men it was totally intolerable to live a life without fulfilling the needs of their wives and family and secondly they have no way of any progress in life. This makes them more violent. And thus the only way of showing the manhood was by fighting physically, become violent and sexual acts. Their family structures, childhood experiences, poverty, low wages, physically exhaustive work and the total ignorance as a common citizen resulted in a form of broken family, their outlook and behavior. Even the teenagers spend little time in school; they were commonly found drinking, verbally and physically abusing each other, smoking, or sniffing cocaine all day. Problem and their solution The concept that a problem exist exclusively with the children and their families, and that they need some sort of cultural boost to give them what they are missing is not completely true. Because this concept make these people entirely responsible for what they are. There are many problems that need to be resolved before blaming these people and setting our selves free from this issue. One of the problems that I notice from Tally's Corner and Washington history is the educational system. The American educational system had unpleasant effects on the children of lower class neighbourhood. Many times this issue was raised by the social reformers. They have raised voice for equal access and quality education for poor and minority children. (Macleod, 157). But these schools were producing the structure of inequality. And therefore because of the standard of schools of lower class, children of lower class were considered as deficient. Apart from the American educational system there was another reason that was discouraging the lower class children from acquiring education and high grades. The children were convinced that the job that they will get does not require the education they are receiving. (Macleod, 102). They did not see any reason to get education when they going to end up joining army as construction worker or as an auto mechanic. And on the top of that they normally have only mother running the family thus receiving education seem like wasting money. Therefore they normally prefer to work rather than going to school. There were also occupational challenges which were highly affecting the interest of children to acquire higher education. The employers normally consider the men of Tally's Corner suspicious, inefficient and sluggish. They normally did it by highlighting their academic achievements. Therefore they get jobs of lower responsibility, lower wages and impermanent status. And it was nearly impossible for them to get blue collar job. The employers normally put these men to dangerous jobs and long hour and still gave them not benefits or very few benefits and no stability of job. In addition the Tally's Corner men did not have the surety that these jobs will give them a better future or change their lives. They knew it that the employer is not going to promote them from dishwasher to a manager. And these men were so pressurized by the continuous assault by their jobs that they were scared to look for any better job. Conclusion This classic of Elliot Liebow's has been mainly concerned with inside world of the street corner black men, the world of daily face to face relationship with wives children friends lovers and neighbours. An attempt was made to see what men of Tally's corner see and behave and the reason for his behavior. Employment plays an important part in life. The way in which a man makes a living and kind of living he makes have great consequences over how he sees himself and is seen by others, these in turn impact his relationship with family members, friends and neighbors. And the employment totally depends on education. Therefore providing equality and quality education to lower class is one of the solutions. To say that the reasons for the failure of lower class are their inability to socially improve themselves out of poverty is not very true. I have discussed the evidence of negative effects of American society on the urban poor's behaviors, ambitions, and opportunities. Therefore, American society itself has moulded the street corner man with these undesirable characteristics and behaviours. That is why men of Tally's corner have one place where they felt strong, their failure became success and their weaknesses became strengths and that was Tally's Corner. Work Cited Author. Charles Lemert Title. Tally's Corner Year.2003 Author. Elliot Liebow Title. Tally's Corner Year.1960, 2003 Author. MacLeod, Jay Title. Ain't No Makin' It Year.1995 Read More