Cities as battlefields: understanding how the Nation of Islam impacts civic engagement, environmental racism, and community development in a low income neighborhood

Abstract

This article challenges social (dis)organization theory by investigating the impact of religious culture on civic engagement. Using qualitative data ¹ from ‘Bridge View,’ a historically African‐American neighborhood in San Francisco experiencing environmental racism, this article asks: (1) How does the Nation of Islam (NOI) affect social organization in a low‐income community? And (2) How does the metropolitan distribution of wealth, opportunity, and resources play out in urban space? The findings suggest that the NOI has often had to replace important public institutions responsible for providing social services in low‐income communities—police protection, community welfare, and education. These findings suggest that we need to rethink the relationship between race, culture, structure, and political mobilization and incorporate a more fluid conceptualization of culture into social (dis)organization theory.

Notes

1. The ethnographic data used in this article were collected through youth participatory action research (YPAR) a critical tool for social change, in which ‘difference’ and power relations are key lines of analysis (Lykes & Coquillon, 2006).

2. Islam is the fastest growing religion in the United States and Europe and there are 1.2 billion Muslims worldwide. In the United States Islam is growing at a rate that is expected to make it the second largest aggregate religious community—smaller than Christianity but larger than Judaism—by the year 2015 when it will have nearly doubled its estimated 1980 size (Haddad, 1986; Moore, 1995). Moreover indigenous African‐American Muslims have been estimated to comprise roughly 30% of the total Muslim population in the United States (Nimber, 2002). However, there is a great deal of heterogeneity within the Muslim population ranging from Black Nationalist (NOI) to Islamic separatists (e.g. some Sunnis) to a more assimilationist ecumenical outlook (American Muslim Mission).

3. I have changed all names of people and places to ensure anonymity.

4. According to Small (2002, p. 2) ‘Much of the work has been criticized for perpetuating a view of the ghetto as inherently pathological and disorganized (Abu Lughod, 1997; Wacquant, 1997). Thus, recent researchers have left neighborhoods’ levels of organization as an empirical question, and argued for the terms ‘differential social organization’ (Sampson, 1999) or ‘social organization’ (Wacquant, 1997)’. The difference between ‘differential social organization’ and ‘social organization’, according to Small, is that the former emphasizes between‐neighborhood differences at the expense of within‐neighborhood change, a tendency that both Small and I critique.

5. According to Small, examples of structural conditions in neighborhoods are rising educational levels, residential stability, and stable material hardship.

6. Social disorganization and social organization are different sides of the same coin. Social organization examines how neighborhoods organize their resources, and is characterized, in part, by a neighborhood’s ability to supervise teens, the extent of mutual trust among neighbors, and the efficacy of social networks to name but a few (Small, 2002).

7. For example, ‘the realization of common values in support of social goods,’ the ‘collective socialization of the young,’ and the ‘enforcement of norms of civility and mutual trust’ (Sampson, 1999, p. 247).

8. While most social scientists agree that ethnographic research provides an important tool for addressing these questions, the problem still remains that social disorganization theory has been defined in so many different ways that it means too many different things to too many different people (Small, 2004). As a result, this article abandons studying social disorganization theory, or the lack there of, in favor of studying a specific phenomenon—in this case Black political mobilization in relation to institutional racism and the remapping of the Black American Ghetto.

9. At the heart of this critique is the belief that poor urban neighborhoods are not disorganized but, rather, are characterized by alternative forms of social organization (Small, 2004; see also Whyte 1943; Gans, 1962; Suttles, 1968).

10. YPAR stands for Youth Participatory Action Research.

11. In terms of the three neighborhoods we are studying: one is a predominantly white American neighborhood, one changing from predominantly African‐American to Mexican American and white American (as well as Eastern European), and one changing from historically African‐American to Mexican American, Asian American, and more recently white American (Bridge View).

12. This Black out‐migration Project is not the same as the Black out‐migration Project funded by the Mayors of for Community Development in 2007 although the two projects do intersect and I am a lead member of both research and design teams.

13. We analyzed and coded two web documents in this article.

14. See the Participatory Action Research Collective website at: http://web.gc.cuny.edu/che/who.htm

15. The exact report is not referenced because the article contains the real names of people and places in Bridge View. However, the ‘naval Shipyard was established in 1869 as the first dry dock on the Pacific Coast, in southeastern San Francisco, California, adjacent to San Francisco Bay. In 1940, the Navy obtained ownership of the shipyard for shipbuilding, repair and maintenance activities. After World War II activities shifted from ship repair to submarine servicing and testing. The navy operated Hunters Point Annex as a shipbuilding and repair facility from 1941 until 1976…. The shipyard consists of 936 acres; 493 on land and 443 under water in the San Francisco Bay.’

16. According to the 2000 Census, San Francisco is the city with the lowest percentage of families with children among major cities in the United States,

17. See 2000 Census. An additional factor complicating Bridge View as a traditional Black American ghetto, besides its ethnic heterogeneity, is its high rate of homeownership and fairly low residential instability. According to one source Bridge View has the fourth highest homeowner rate in the city. This is most likely due to at least two factors: (1) Before the Naval shipyard shut down in 1974 many African‐Americans were able to buy homes in racially segregated Bridge View because of a thriving local economy; (2) In 2006 a median‐priced house in San Francisco cost more than $800,000, whereas in Bridge View a condo cost about $400,000, and a three‐ or four‐bedroom home could be had for a bargain San Francisco price of $550,000. Due to the relative affordability of Bridge View in relation to other San Francisco housing markets, gentrification has been on the rise since the 1980s, pushing Black families out while increasing the rate of homeownership in the community.

18. One‐third of the city’s homicides in 2006 took place in Bridge View.

19. According to one source Bridge View has the fourth highest homeowner rate in the city.

20. A Superfund site is a hazardous waste site that is part of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (USEPA’s) Superfund Program.

21. A Brownfield is an abandoned, idled, or underused industrial or commercial facility where expansion or redevelopment is limited because of environmental contamination. The exact citation for this article is not referenced because the article contains the real names of people and places in Bridge View.

22. The exact citation for this article is not referenced because the article contains the real names of people and places in Bridge View.

23. The exact report is not referenced because the article contains the real names of people and places in Bridge View.

24. Patriarchy in the NOI is a serious problem. That being said, it is no more of a serious problem than it is for any other major religion in the world including Christianity and Judaism. According to Ava Muhammad, one of the only female Ministers in the NOI: ‘I’m asked about that a lot, when asked about women’s leadership role in the religion…. My response has always been that the role of women in the Nation of Islam is really no different than it is in any other religion. Christianity, Judaism and Islam—all of which are necessary for the enlightenment of humanity—all suffer from a similar affliction of being overly male‐dominant, even in the interpretation of scripture. As the world becomes more conscious, and the Internet and other things level the playing field of knowledge, that’s going to continue to change.’ (See Fleisher, 2005.)

25. The exact citation for this article is not referenced because the article contains the real names of people and places in Bridge View.

26. The exact citation for this article is not referenced because the article contains the real names of people and places in Bridge View.

27. The sociology of culture and social movements has produced numerous conceptualizations of culture ranging from Goffman’s (1974) ‘frames’ to Bourdieu’s (1977) ‘habitus.’ However, most researchers have been unable to incorporate a sophisticated conceptualization of the role of culture and youth development into urban poverty theory. For example, how do young people work in partnership with adults to improve the conditions in their communities? Swidler (1986) begins to address this question by offering a definition of the cultural toolkit.

28. Emphasis added.