Grinding: Black Women and Survival in the Inner City

• In Event: 152 - Regular Session. Race, Class, and Gender 2

Abstract

Nearly two years of field research among adolescents and adults in the Central East neighborhood of Oakland, California provides an ethnographic account of how young Black women accomplish the routine tasks necessary for basic survival in poor inner city neighborhoods. Previous studies have explored the experiences of African American men and boys living in disadvantaged communities, whereas this research pays special attention to the experiences of African American women and girls. In particular, few scholars have explored the collective experiences of young women living in the inner city and the innovative strategies they develop to navigate daily life in this setting. This research reveals how young women describe the day-to-day work required to survive and stay safe in poor urban communities as the “grind.” My analysis uncovers the different types of physical and emotional work young women do to negotiate the demands of living in underserved communities regularly exposed to violence. Like young men in the neighborhood women and girls must contend with underemployment, poverty, race and class isolation, and regular exposure to violence. I explain how young Black women and girls are impacted in very specific ways by these key structural shifts and as a result of harsh structural conditions negotiate the daily grind through creative forms of both physical and emotional labor.

Author

• Alexis S. McCurn, California State University-Dominguez Hills