Cintron’s article “Gangs and their Walls” is a complex deconstruction of the ways marginalized people try to reappropriate power from a majority society. While there are many gems of analysis in this piece, one that stood out for me is his discussion of the “social sphere.” On page 193, he writes: “In short, the maintenance of social order is also the maintenance of exclusion,” and on page 194 he links this to the central fear of a society.
Following those statements, he reluctantly gives us a highly qualified solution for reducing the problem of gang warfare: instead of creating zero-tolerance policies against gang warfare, we should encourage them to participate in what he calls “majoritarian society,” i.e. public forums.
What are some problems with this solution? What are some merits? Finally, since he doesn’t explicitly relate his analyses to literacy, how do you think literacy is involved in this?