I Got Shot, but I Ain’t a Victim: Masculinity, Gun-violence, and Victimization in the Ghetto

• In Event: Victim Identity, Help-Seeking and Self-Protective Behavior

Abstract

This paper, based on two years of ethnographic research in a Toronto social housing development, examines the victimization experiences of young black men – those being wounded and killed by gun violence in Toronto’s most disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Most recently, neighbourhood conflicts between rival social housing developments have expressed themselves in the form of drive-by shootings, with members of rival housing projects entering “enemy territory” and shooting young black men, both exclusively and indiscriminately. Grounded in participant-observation and in-depth interviews with gunshot victims and their friends and family, this research unpacks the various ways that young men make sense of, cope with, and perform victimization in the ghetto, where ideas of “victimhood” clash heavily with the hyper-masculine realities that govern their daily lives. Findings suggest that, in an environment where victimization is sudden, random, and lethal, young men in Toronto social housing have begun to warp their experiences of victimization: a) to make them more compatible with the norms and values that govern their daily lives, and b) to create some semblance of order and control in an otherwise chaotic and paralyzing environment.

Author

• Luca Berardi, University of Alberta