I just got back from Omaha, Nebraska, where I had a chance to present some work at the Coalition for Urban Metropolitan Universities (CUMU) annual conference (here’s a storify by UNO with all the conference twitter activity). Let me start by saying this: the conference was inspirational, Omaha was lovely, and there were tons of talented people presenting valuable work. More than that, it was good to attend a conference where civic engagement seemed truly valued. Even here at Rutgers-Camden, where so many people are trying to change the university’s culture and so many people value this work, there can be a culture among faculty of questioning whether civic engagement takes us away from our research and limits our productivity. I really appreciated being in a place where these things were seen to work together, and people were sharing the ways they made it work. All that said, I also noticed a disturbing trend. Too often, needing to show the “goodness” or “value” of our work required exaggerating or even pathologizing the communities in which we were doing that work. 

@SteveDanley problems w/ "saving from" narrative. Teaches ppl to reject own community – same community that is support network. #CUMU2015

— Stephen Danley (@SteveDanley) October 12, 2015

It’s something I see occasionally here in Camden as well. Once, a prominent activist here in the city told me that a well-known non-profit leader needed Camden to be broken, because it made the non-profit’s work “fixing” the city even more impressive. This dynamic was subtly present all throughout the conference. At times it was obvious, there was a keynote speaker who talked about how if kids weren’t in his program they would be “getting tattoos” and “joining gangs” like all the other kids. At other times it was latent, like the relentless stats about how host cities were struggling, or lowest in this or that category. 

I think this is one of the real dangers of civic engagement work. The (understandable) pressures on a university are surrounding funding, there’s a need for work to be pitched as impressive. Too many presentations at CUMU had this feeling; the feeling of a funder that feels like the program needs to be saving the world or it will be cut. Which is sad, because it meant all of us missed an opportunity to discuss the challenges and trials of this work. Good work still requires learning, and carefully crafted PR pitches too-often prevented that from happening. 

But it’s also troubling for a deeper reason. Pathologizing the communities we work in is deeply problematic because it dehumanizes those around us, and sets ourself apart. Statements that universally critique things like tattoos, and even gangs, fail to try to understand why these things exist in communities. Sometimes this can be obvious. Critiquing cultural decisions, like tattoos, is tone-deaf. It ignores the statement often being made by tattoos (an expressive or occasionally rebellious one that pushes back against a mainstream requiring of uniformity) and also the larger trend that tattoos are more acceptable in the workplace. Hopefully, we can all agree that civic engagement doesn’t require telling the communities we’re working with what tattoos to get or what music to listen to. 

Issues like gangs are much more controversial, but I think it’s almost always a mistake to paint with a universal brush. The urban ecosystem often has internal logic, even when it’s brutal logic, and gangs serve many functions. Many of them are brutal, illegal, and difficult (and, it goes without saying, many in these communities do not engage in these violent behaviors), but gangs also can thrive in part because they fill gaps by supporting (whether economically, through the black market, or even through donations) local institutions. 

I’m reminded of an experience from my own past. While I was a high school athlete, the most prominent team in the Washington Metropolitan area was DC Assault. Years later, the man running that program was arrested for running a massive and complex cocaine drug ring. But many local community members, former players, and current leaders (including my own high school coach), wrote letters of support during the ensuing court case, in part because the program had been so generous to so many players and families. 

Which is all to say, it’s complicated, and that painting anyone (whether its those with tattoos, or those selling drugs) with a single brush is ultimately counterproductive. In part, it’s counterproductive because it ignores the humanity of those people. But in part it’s counterproductive because it’s inaccurate, and it allows people who are taking advantage of youth to turn around and say, but look, I helped you when other people didn’t. I had your back. I’ve seen up close how exploitive that can be in the basketball community, but it can also be honest, and sometimes even exploitive help is help in the short-run.

Circling back to CUMU and the role communities play in this eco-system, it’s critical that we understand the role of local culture rather than demonize it. One cannot address the ills of gangs in our society without understanding the roles they play in local communities, without understanding how it is that these gangs sustain themselves. Furthermore, by demonizing cultural aspect of local communities, we run the risk of telling local communities that they can only succeed by escaping. When that message gets internalized, individuals turn on the community in which they grew up — undercutting one of their only support networks moving forward. 

As a university in a challenged urban area, our mission should be first to understand, rarely to judge, never to tear down and always to build. We can’t do that if making our work look good is so all-important that it requires pathologizing the communities with which we work.

Tags: CUMU