Cultures of Inequality, Threat and Imprisonment

“They had everything we had, the schools, the opportunities, the chance to make something of themselves, but they didn’t take advantage of it.” This statement was made to one of the authors late in the evening of December 31, 1999. The speaker, an Afrikaner, was telling the American how we, outsiders, did not really understand the issues during apartheid. He was speaking of the Black South African majority, many of whom he felt had values that made them less willing to work hard, more willing to depend on the dole, and more crime prone. We have heard similar statements in western European countries, Canada, and in numerous American cities. The objects of these assertions changes in each place, but the underlying conceptualization of these “men in the streets” is the same. “Those people” are in disadvantaged circumstances because of their own doing.