"It Was Either The Drive-Bys Or The Rabbis"
From an excerpt of the Matthew Garrahan interview in the Financial Times of the Black Eyed Peas' Will.i.am, reprinted at azcentral.com:
The "I Gotta Feeling" hitmaker can understand why people trapped in poverty find it hard to get out because of the ''psychological'' influences around them.He explained: ''There's a family of influences that dictate behavior. In the ghetto, there's a liquor store, a check-cashing place and a motel. What that tells you psychologically is, get a check, cash it. Take a couple of steps. But some liquor and get drunk, go home and get kicked out of your house. And here's a place to sleep along the way.
''If you live in a good neighborhood, you drive home and there's a bank. There's grocery stores and big houses - but no motels. What that tells you psychologically is you protect your money and buy good things for your family to eat in your nice big house. So it's a different system.''
As soon as he could afford to, he moved his family, switching east Los Angeles for a Jewish area in the San Fernando Valley. "I moved my mom, cousins, my uncles and my grandma. I moved them to the Valley to be near the rabbis. It was either drive-bys or rabbis. I picked the rabbis."
Some truth to it but there is also truth to the statement, can take the girl out of the Bronx but can't take the bronx out of the girl.
Some is environment some is learned behavior and priorities, which are often learned from environmental influences when young. Much of it has to do with how toung and impressiona they are when they leave and how complete the environment change is. Bringing the family may just extend the old environment, since the family is a major part of the environment and learned behavior.
Joe J at September 23, 2012 8:39 AM
Interesting article on Will.I.Am' marketing talents. Clearly, the man is a clever marketer. I found myself starting to respect his abilities until I got to the end of the article and he was quoted as saying this:
"...so I ask the world’s first self-defined popthropologist where he thinks America is going, what might happen to the country if Romney beats Obama in November...“People say Romney ran businesses and that means he should be president,” he says finally. “But America isn’t a business. America needs to be like a parent...”
And I realized that he's just another liberal pushing for nanny government.
prawn toe at September 23, 2012 8:50 AM
"He explained: 'There's a family of influences that dictate behavior. In the ghetto, there's a liquor store, a check-cashing place and a motel. What that tells you psychologically is, get a check, cash it. Take a couple of steps. But some liquor and get drunk, go home and get kicked out of your house. And here's a place to sleep along the way.'"
Nah. That's the cart before the horse. The character of the neighborhood doesn't determine the behavior of the people. The behavior of the people determines the character of the neighborhood.
There's a bank in the "good neighborhood" and a check cashing place in the ghetto because people in the good neighborhood want to deposit their checks and people in the ghetto want to cash theirs. The bankers and check cashers (and motels, liquor stores and grocery stores) are responding to the behaviors of the people in their respective neighborhoods, not dictating their behaviors.
Ken R at September 23, 2012 3:04 PM
Amy Alkon
https://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2012/09/it-was-either-t.html#comment-3338870">comment from Ken ROne thing to look at is the ratio of single-parent families in each neighborhood.
Amy Alkon
at September 23, 2012 4:12 PM
America needs to be like a parent
That's exactly the kind of attitude that leads to neighborhood populated by currency exchanges, motels and liquor stores.
the wolf at September 23, 2012 7:43 PM
"The character of the neighborhood doesn't determine the behavior of the people. The behavior of the people determines the character of the neighborhood. "
Why can't it be both?
NicoleK at September 23, 2012 11:33 PM
"The character of the neighborhood doesn't determine the behavior of the people. The behavior of the people determines the character of the neighborhood. "
Why can't it be both?
Posted by: NicoleK at September 23, 2012 11:33 PM
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Yeah, I think it's both, too. Leaving is a behavior. The neighborhood doesn't have will.i.am the success anymore because the character of the neighborhood encouraged that behavior just as much as it encouraged Johnny Layabout's check-cashing-liquor-buying-motel-staying. Behavior like his (developing a marketable skill and not alienating people who could help him market it) is now contributing to a different neighborhood because the character of *that* community attracted that sort of behavior. It doesn't really matter which is the chicken and which is the egg...all or most of the good eggs are going to leave a bad nest.
Jenny Had A Chance at September 24, 2012 1:25 PM
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