Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence in America.

The book, Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence in America, is a memoir told by the American activist Geoffrey Canada who gives his own personal account of what is was like to grow up on the streets of Harlem in the 1950s or 1960s. His account details his perspective of what it was like growing up in this environment where parents, peers, and sometimes even teachers preached the value of being tough. These kids were taught that the ideal response to violence is with more violence. Kids in this neighborhood were taught that they had to be strong and "take it like a man" if they were even confronted on any occasion. This culture of violence can be studied from many different perspectives.

However, the two I found to be the most relevant were the rational choice theory and the sociological positivism theory. Although many people don't understand the choices that young men have to make in these environments, told from the point-of-view of an actual participant, many of their decisions are entirely rational based on the "rules" of society that they are taught. The sociological positivism theory states that societal factors can also have a big determination...

I also believe this to be the case in the book since the community was plagued by poverty, educational failures, and drug use.
Discussion

The level of violence that occurs in inner city areas such as Harlem can be almost unfathomable to an outsider. Examples such as (Canada, 2010):

"It was a bad summer, the summer of 1993 in New York City. Late August saw a sixteen-year-old mother accidently shot by a thirteen-year-old boy. He was trying to shoot a sixteen-year-old boy. The young mother was trying to save her baby, who was playing a few yards away. She was climbing a small fence that surrounded the playground. The bullet entered her head, killing her instantly, leaving her draped on the fence. Several days later the police arrested two other boys, both teenagers, who were accused of killing a thirteen-year-old girl. The girl was raped, cut several times with a knife, then as she lay half dead and moaning, one boy stomped on her neck, over and over."

The graphic depictions of violence such as this and others that are told in the story make it hard to believe that anyone would commit such crimes based on a rational choice. What kind of person would choice to rap, cut, and stomp…