​The roles of political and economic leaders

Directions for Study Questions
Please answer ONLY ONE of the following questions on Mark Nathan Cohen’s essay, “The Culture of Intolerance” (number your responses):
1. How does Cohen explain the increasing production of inequality in the United States? To what extent does this chapter (published in 1998) correspond help us to understand inequality two decades later? How also does the production of inequality help us to understand some of the dynamics that shape life and opportunity in Laurence Ralph’s Eastwood? Support your discussion with examples.
2. What, according to Cohen, is the relation between inequality and “intolerance”? As Cohen sees it, what role do political and economic leaders play in fostering intolerance? Can you provide a contemporary example of what Cohen is getting at here? How convincing and useful (or not) do you find Cohen’s discussion on intolerance. Why or why not?
3. Briefly summarize Cohen’s criticism of what he calls the “culture of intolerance.” What role does capitalism play in this culture? What specific solutions does Cohen propose? What can you do, as an individual and as a citizen, to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem?
Please answer ONLY ONE of the following questions on the Conclusion and Postscript of Renegade Dreams:
1. Ralph begins his conclusion with the story of a “violent altercation” that resulted in the death of a young man, Derrion Albert. He begins his analysis of this tragic incident with the following statement: “Should the reader view this scene as simply another ‘senseless’ murder, if the reader views the wood-wielding assailants described above as faceless aggressors—and Derrion, just another unfortunate victim—then my efforts have failed” (p. 168). What do you think Ralph is getting at here? What reading does he want us to come away with? How has he sought to shape our reading of Eastwood and its residents?
2. Derrion Albert is murdered with a makeshift cudgel taken from a decaying railroad tie. How does Ralph use the metaphor of the railroad to point both to the present and to longer term relations between violence, history, and inequality in Chicago?
3. Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder commented on Derrion Albert’s murder as follows: “’Youth violence is not a Chicago problem any more than it is a black problem, a white problem, or a Hispanic problem…. It is an American problem’” (p. 169). How does Ralph use this statement to frame the way “gang” violence is portrayed by the media? How does he use the Rodney King beating to support his discussion?
4. A key argument in the conclusion draws on and extends William Julius Wilson’s concept if post-industrial urban “isolation.” How does Ralph both use and challenge this concept of isolation in his analysis of Eastwood as an “isolated ghetto”? In other words, how is the isolation of urban neighborhoods a product of global and national connections?
How does Ralph’s focus on the contradictory stories of multiple individuals in this book (for example, Justin, Blizzard, Amy, Tiko, Pastor Tim, Mr. Otis, Mrs. Dickerson, Tamara, etc.) complicate our understanding of life in “inner city” Eastwood, compelling us to rethink our understandings and dominant representations? Support your discussion with appropriate examples from the book.
I the Postscript, Mr. Otis, already introduced in Chapter 2, “Nostalgia,” finally realized his dream of a museum exhibition on the Divine Knights in the 1960s. What is Mr. Otis’s vision and how does that contradict dominant understandings and representations of the history and role of the Divine Knights?
Read Lawrence Ralph, Renegade Dreams, “Field Notes,” Conclusion, Postscript (pp. 165-184)
Choose one question for each part