Carl E.James, Life at the Intersection

Life at the Intersection: Community, Class and Schooling by Carl E. James contributes to the thin literature that explores the often negatively portrayed community of Jane and Finch in Toronto. Just minutes away from York University, Jane and Finch has been plagued with a reputation as a dysfunctional, unsafe, and potentially the most “at risk community” in the nation. In Life at the Intersection, James provides a counter narrative that challenges readers to see the complexities that lie within this community. The six chapters socially and politically locate Jane and Finch, proceed to contextualize and give voice to the community beyond the popular newspaper headlines, and raise questions that broaden the current discourse. This book covers issue of race, class, media representation, and education. James begins by highlighting and defining the social habit of attempting to “place someone within a social, economic, cultural, or geographic context of a city or society” (p. 16) and argues that in so doing, generalizations are often made and stigmatizations attached. James pushes against the practice of placing Jane and Finch as Canada's most troubled community through his analysis of other stigmatized communities across Canada that share a similar profile, and questions why these other communities are not as stigmatized. He concludes that media discourses and the racialization of space are at play and continue to shape how communities are perceived and suggests that societal structures need to be taken to task for the ways that they create the very circumstances that they stigmatize. James continues his problematizing of the social habit of attempting to socially, culturally, and economically place people through an extensive critique of the role of media portrayal. He provides a profile of the Jane and Finch community, highlighting the demographics of the neighborhood. He brings to light the way in which media often presents Jane and Finch as a predominantly Black area, when in actuality, those of African descent make up a small fragment of the population. He also critiques various media representations of the community and draws special attention to how the community is continually portrayed as a haven for people in transition, noting that those that live inside and outside of the community both are keenly aware of the neighborhood's reputation and react in contradictory ways. For example, in the case of Brampton, Ontario, a small suburb outside of Toronto, residents were so averse to the Jane and Finch community that when a rumor started in 2007 that a portion of a new Brampton subdivision was being subsidized by the government to encourage those from the Jane and Finch community into home ownership, and to move to a better neighborhood, homeowners in the subdivision were outraged. In contrast, many within the Jane and Finch community are aware of the stigma attached to their neighborhood and actively resist through the formation of community organizations and projects, and are very proud of their community and the array of resources it bodes. James’ analysis of media representation speaks to the way in which media can serve as a medium that racializes spaces, by portraying Jane and Finch as a problematic Black space and thus cementing in the public consciousness, a false sense of reality and fear. Using the notorious school shooting of Jordan Manners as an example, James furthers his argument that the media, through its continued practice of placing, stigmatizes the Jane and Finch community. In this example, James demonstrates that the way that Jane and Finch is placed (or located) socially, economically, and culturally in the media, colors how the shooting is presented and ingested by the public, through its painting of the shooting victim as a good child from a troubled community. By framing Manners as such, his goodness is characterized as an exceptionality in his community and shortly after his death; the popular racialized tropes were reinscribed into the popular psyche, with Jane and Finch again being characterized as a culturally inferior social problem. James argues that constructions like that of the murder of Jordan Manners serve to reinforce stereotypes, while obscuring the social, economic, and political problems that create the circumstances where these kinds of crimes can occur. Focusing on the cultural inferiority, James argues, serves the purpose of giving the public a feel good solution, but does little if anything to incite real change. James calls for truth telling that looks beyond racialized discourses and is critical of the role of institutional structures. The continued practice of placing and its effect on the educational experiences of those in the Jane and Finch community is also explored by James. He posits that the label of “at-risk” attached to many of the schools in the community obscures the issue that many schools in working class neighborhoods overall, tend to be economically and socially disadvantaged, with poor infrastructure, resources, high teacher burnout rates, and despondency. James provides a profile of the schools in the neighborhood, highlighting the vast ethnic, racial, and linguistic diversity and that despite the mantra of multiculturalism and inclusiveness, many students face problems, which range from issues of safety to poor teacher perceptions. Students perform poorly and James suggests that they need to be fully and effectively engaged and that connections need to be made between their education and future place in society. He furthers his argument that the dysfunctional placing of this space sends a negative message to the students by harming their self-perception and thus perpetuating negative outcomes. He suggests that collaboration between youth, parents, community, and institutions can begin to address some of the issues and reminds readers that despite these issues many in the community are resilient, optimistic, and feel that education is a tool that can be used to resist stereotypes and to achieve socioeconomic mobility. The book concludes with James giving voice to members of the intersection who grew up and lived in the community, allowing them to tell their stories in their own words. In so doing, he is able to punctuate his powerful push back against the dominant narratives that color the public perceptions of the Jane and Finch community. He calls for a collaborative engagement of parents, youth, institutions, and community organizations using a social justice framework to recognize and combat the structural factors that operate as barriers to achievement. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Life Beyond the Intersection: Community, Class and Schooling and recommend it to those interested in issues of race, class, communities, and education in the Canadian context. This book makes an effective case for how the stigmatization of a community can shape how others view it and how community members view themselves. This book is an especially important contribution to the Canadian literature and Sociology as a discipline, because it challenges readers to think critically about how they perceive communities such as Jane and Finch, and summons them to consider the complexities of the institutional factors that continue to shape the Canadian landscape and produce unequal outcomes

Context (archaeology · Finch · Media studies · Narrative · Race (biology · Racialization · Sociology · Education Systems and Policy · Gender Studies · History