“I Can’t Vote if I Don’t Leave My Apartment”
The Problem of Neighborhood Violence and its Impact on the Political Behavior of Black American Women Living Below the Poverty Line
Alex J. Moffett-Bateau (John Jay College, CUNY)
Black women are more likely to be victims of violence than any other group (DuMonthier, Childers, and Milli 2017). As a result, research has consistently shown that Black women who experience violence encounter a number of negative outcomes (in physiological health, incarceration, happiness, educational, psycho-emotional wellness, and even the economic), in their present and futures (DuMonthier, Childers, and Milli 2017; Richie 2012; Ritchie 2017; Miller 2010; Lentz-Smith 2020; Crenshaw 1991; Hill-Collins 1998; INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence 2016; Clark et al. 2008; K. Mitchell 2011; McGuire 2011). As a student of politics, I wanted to understand whether firsthand experiences of violence impact the politics and political identity development of Black women. Since research has found Black women living in poverty to be the more vulnerable to violence, I focus on my analysis on adult Black women who live under the poverty-line in Chicago public housing, and have firsthand experiences with residential violence (Richie 2012; Ritchie 2017).
As I discuss in my article on neighborhood violence, my data demonstrates that when residential violence happens, relationships become central, not only to the survival of individuals, but to the full expression of their politics. Residential violence can, and often does, scar the development of individual politics, and more generally it shapes the socio-political tools of Black women living below the poverty line. Residential violence can also have a significant impact on the political lives of marginalized Black communities that are exposed to a disproportionate amount of violence. (Sampson, Wilson, and Katz 2018; Morenoff, Sampson, and Raudenbush 2001; Brown and Weil 2020; Vélez, Lyons, and Santoro 2015).
Lastly, I found that through gathering information, building relationships, and engaging in an ongoing information exchange with neighbors, marginalized Black women living below the poverty line in neighborhoods with high rates of violence, can develop visible and effective socio-political tools (Desmond and Travis 2018; K. Mitchell 2020; Berger 2006; Watkins-Hayes 2019; Williams 2005). Political engagement is not simply constituted of singular [traditional] political actions. Instead, politics constitutes a set of behaviors done in concert with other people, to shift the reality of things within a given socio-political community (Eliasoph 1998; Hanchard 2006; Chantal Mouffe 2005; Kelley 1996). In this sense, membership within local socio-political community expresses a belief change is possible for the individual and the community. The belief in a future, including, but not limited to, a cleaner neighborhood, access to jobs, and a safe, daily, lived experience, allowed women to participate in their own lives publicly and visibly. Simply put, women who believed changing the material reality of their world was possible, used their socio-political tools in a way which reflected that belief (Moffett-Bateau 2023).
A key component of my research was the use of Black feminist methods and Black feminist political theory (Moffett-Bateau 2015; Burack 2004; Evans-Winters 2019). Due to that, my methodological choices reflect what Benita Roth (2004) calls, a “vanguard center politics.” In simpler terms, when Black feminist mention “the vanguard center,” they mean the people who experience the most oppression. Black feminist political theorists argue, Black women living below the poverty line have the clearest insight into the nature of the socio-political world in the United States (Roth 1999; King 1995). The socio-political insight of Black women living below the poverty line, is a function of having so few protections granted to them by our social, political, cultural, or even beauty expectations.
Similarly, Black feminist political methodologists argue that in order to gain the clearest and sharpest glimpse of the white supremacist and racial capitalist boundaries shaping our world, you must look directly at the experiences of the most oppressed communities of people within the United States. Otherwise (for example), your research may be blinded by the protections offered to English speakers, documented visitors and documented citizens, men, skinny white people, the middle-class (of all races), or even living in a neighborhood with no violence. With that in mind, this research focused on the socio-political lives of 31 Black women who lived-in (or used to) a Chicago public housing development named the Altgeld Gardens and Phillip Murray Homes. All of the people in this study were living below the poverty line. I followed them around for a year (2011-2012) and sat down with each person for an in-depth interview.
As Zora Neale Hurston (2006) modeled in her work, I argue any Black feminist intellectual or political project must allow the Black people within it to speak for themselves, to choose for themselves, and to articulate their own politics for themselves, using whatever language, dialects, slangs, creoles, etc.… they desire (hooks 1994; Collins 2000; Hurston 2006; “The Combahee River Collective Statement” 1974; James 2016). The prioritization of allowing Black women to use their own words and style, is why in-depth interviewing was a central component of this projects methodology ( Moffett-Bateau 2015; Evans-Winters 2019; Burack 2004).
One of the ways I sought to accomplish this goal was by paying close attention to the words and experiences of my respondents. I also interviewed each person in their home (or a besties home, their choice) so the Black women who participated in this study could be as comfortable as possible. The words and experiences of each respondent went on to inform the conceptual framework this article is built on. The purpose of the conceptual and theoretical framework put forward in my research, is to help develop a more accurate understanding of the socio-political dynamics within highly stigmatized Black communities in the United States (Cohen 1999; Collins 2000; Simien 2006; Harris 2009; Dawson 2003; Alexander-Floyd 2017; King 1988; Jordan-Zachery 2014; Roth 1999; Moffett-Bateau 2015). Within the article, in addition to fleshing out the connections between residential violence, socio-political community, and political identity development within Black women living below the poverty line, I sought to develop two conceptual ideas. The first was residential violence and the second concept was socio-political community.
In the article, I argued that residential violence is a dynamic set of behaviors and not just a singular behavior where one person physically hurts another. Residential violence includes domestic violence, crime, gunplay, psycho-emotional abuse of residents by government bureaucrats, harassment and abuse of power by government bureaucrats, sexual assault, police brutality, and benign neglect, just to name a few. Methodologically it is tempting to try and compile a disaggregated list of violent acts and assess their individual impact on the socio-political lives of Black women who live in poverty. However, that approach misses the pervasive nature of violence in the everyday lives of Black women living in public housing. For the Black women who participated in this study, violence was not something that happened once or twice in a lifetime, it was an omnipresent constant.
Whether it was in the form of illegal gun play outside of their apartments, police officers who forced themselves into a respondent’s home, street harassment, robbery, carjacking, gang activity, an abusive family member, or even sexual assault. Each of these forms of residential violence contribute to a neighborhood context where the experience of violence is a persistent and unrelenting force in the lives of Black women living below the poverty line (Crenshaw 1991; Hill-Collins 1998; Lentz-Smith 2020; Miller 2010; Morenoff, Sampson, and Raudenbush 2001; Richie 2012; Ritchie 2017). The question is not, what type of violence has the greatest impact on their lived political experience. Instead, I examine what the firsthand (and ongoing) experience of pervasive residential violence does to the political development of Black women living in poverty across their lifetime. This is important because the concept of residential violence helps researchers develop an enhanced understanding of the ever-present and everyday nature of local violence in the lives of highly marginalized groups, for example, Black women living below the poverty line.
I use the concept of “socio-political community,” to describe a voluntary grouping of people, who profess a sense of socio-political loyalty to one another. Specifically, socio-political communities are made up of people who intentionally, conspicuously, consistently, and publicly, attest to their mutual linked-fate (C. Mouffe 1991; Chantal Mouffe 1993; Cohen 1999; Dawson 1994; 2003). In the cases I analyze within this paper, the shared identity which linked the respondents’ fates is the residential neighborhood they lived in, as well as their shared race and class identities. In short, membership within a socio-political community requires members to understand their social identity, neighborhood, workplace, or circumstances (for example), as more than a descriptive identifier (Hanchard 2010). A socio-political community understands a shared reality, as a shared political destiny (Dawson 1994).
My research found that individual socio-political development among the respondents within my case study, depended on (1) the amount of firsthand residential violence the person experienced in their neighborhood, and (2) the extent the individual felt they belonged (and/or felt connected) to their local socio-political community. In other words, residential violence isolates and harms some individuals by dampening their politics, as well as their socio-political tools. This political dampening appears to be particularly successful in individuals who are isolated from their residential socio-political community (and/or any socio-political communities). Individuals who lack friends, family, or acquaintances in their local neighborhoods, seemed to experience more socio-political harm when living in neighborhoods with high levels of residential violence. For people with firsthand experiences of residential violence, the higher their level of isolation from [any] socio-political community, the more pronounced their social, civic, and/or political alienation.
However, respondents who felt they belonged and/or had a sense of connection to their residential socio-political community (and/or any socio-political communities,) experience some reduction of the harm residential violence inflicts on individual socio-political development. More simply, people with friends, family, and acquaintances within their local residential neighborhood, seemed to feel less psycho-emotional, socio-political, or even physiological harm, when living in neighborhoods with high rates of residential violence. For individuals with firsthand experiences of residential violence, the higher their level of belonging and/or connection to their local socio-political community, the lower the impact of residential violence on their individual political development. Some reduction of residential violence induced socio-political harm, can happen via connection to any socio-political community, anywhere. However, in this study, the closer [geographically] the analogue socio-political community and the stronger the sense of belonging to that socio-political community, the stronger the reduction effect on the harm residential violence inflicts on individual political development.[i]
People who experienced residential violence firsthand within their neighborhood and felt isolated from their local socio-political community, were rare participants in politics. However, individuals who experienced firsthand residential violence and also felt connected to the people living in their residential neighborhood (or former neighborhoods), maintained and sometimes further developed their individual politics, in spite of (and sometimes in response to) personal experiences with residential violence (Bateson 2012; Blattman 2009). In short, residential violence can shape the long-term political identities and politics of residents (Rios 2011; Ralph 2014; Garcia, Taylor, and Lawton 2007; Brison 2002). When a person experiences residential violence firsthand, relationships become central, not only to the survival of the individual, but to the fullest possible expression of their humanity (Isoke 2013; Williamson 2016; Berger 2006; Watkins-Hayes 2019; Perry 2013).
Belonging mattered because it signaled a certain level of connection to local socio-political community, which served as a measure of protection against residential violence (Gay, Hochschild, and White 2016). Belonging to their local socio-political community fueled people with a sense of investment and commitment to their neighborhood, which seemed to extend into how respondents described their politics and socio-political tools (Wong 2019; Masuoka and Junn 2013). I argue, belonging to local socio-political community fuels individual political development via an increased sense of political self-confidence. People who were connected to their local socio-political community were more actively involved in local organizations and residents’ groups, which tended to provide informal political education and information dissemination. Belonging to a local socio-political community with a shared political imagination in regard to what is possible for the community’s future, combined with political education, seemed to increase the individual sense of what is politically possible for their community.
On the practical end of things, people with higher levels of belonging to their local socio-political community, simply had more places to go when violence disrupted their safety (and/or well-being) at home. For respondents within my study, higher levels of belonging to the local socio-political community, also seemed to facilitate additional access to resources within the private management company, the Chicago Housing Authority, government bureaucracies, and/or the many social-service organizations and companies (Michener 2018; Soss 2002; Weaver, Prowse, and Piston 2019; Popkin 2016). Within public housing, as in life, survival comes down to who you know.
Black communities living in neighborhoods where they are victims of re-occurring firsthand residential violence, experience a significant portion of their socio-political lives transformed by violence (Brison 2002; INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence 2016). Politically, this means there are entire groups of marginalized communities who do not feel safe, and as a result are not engaging in any form of public and/or visible politics. A democracy with segments of the population restricted in this way is not a fully-functioning democracy.
Regardless of socio-economic-status, if someone experiences daily residential violence and they believe they have no meaningful method of self-protection or protection for their family, they are unlikely to connect to the neighbors living in their local socio-political community. It is meaningful many of the women who felt threatened by the violence within their neighborhoods, placed their children in schools outside of the Altgeld Gardens development complex when they had the resources to do so (car, time, tuition, etc..).
Places like Altgeld Gardens, where neighborhood characteristics, like residential isolation, infrastructure neglect, state-surveillance, tremendous environmental racism, lack of public transportation access, police brutality, food deserts, violent crime, and state-sanctioned violence, complicate what we know about social networks (Sinclair 2012; Huckfeldt 1980; Bolland and Moehle McCallum 2002). Ultimately, the individual firsthand residential violence experienced, and the connection people feel to their local socio-political community, are critical factors in understanding individual political identity as well as socio-political tools.
Read the full UAR article here.
[i] It is important to note that the digital divide is alive and well. Most of the people I knew in the gentrified Chicago neighborhood of Hyde Park, where the University of Chicago is located, had wi-fi internet in their homes, and unlimited internet on their smart phones. However, many, if not most of my respondents in 2011-2012 did not have any internet connection within their CHA apartments. Similarly, many, if not most of my respondents did not have a smart phone, let alone internet on their phones. As a result, I cannot comment on whether belonging to a digital and/or social network based socio-political community, could mitigate the harm of firsthand experiences with residential violence. While it is certainly possible, it is up to future research to figure out if this is the case amongst today’s multi-marginalized populations in the U.S. (Washington 2022; Gurusami 2019).
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Alex Moffett-Bateau (she/they) is from Detroit, MI. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago, and a BA in Political Science and African American Studies from the University of Michigan. Dr. Moffett-Bateau is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at John Jay College, City University of New York. She is a queer, radical, Black feminist abolitionist and student of disability justice. Their research and writing focus on extra-systemic and subversive politics.