Urban White Working-Class Males and the Possibilities of Collective Anger: Patrolling Riley Road

Abstract

The study, which was conducted in white working-class bars, investigates how a group of white working-class mates aged 25–30 struggle to construct a sense of masculine identity in the context of a postindustrial economy. Previously, Willis (1977) argued that secondary-school “lads,” in part, shaped their masculine identity around the male Saber jobs they hoped to hold in the future. In a deindustrialized economy, Weis (1990) found that white working-class high school boys retained a sense of masculinity by envisioning a future male-dominant domestic framework. This research investigates how a group of white working-class men turn to their community for a sense of identity, and how these men channel their anger at their devalued economic status into policing their neighborhood from an African American male presence. It will be argued that possibly through policing, or forcibly defining the borders of their community, these men are trying to act out versions of their embattled masculinity.