Perseus Academic: Ain't No Makin' It by Jay MacLeod

Interview with Jay MacLeod

March 2008

About the Book and Author

Jay MacLeod brought us to the Clarendon Heights housing project in 1987 with the publication of the first edition of Ain’t No Makin’ It. It was then that we met the teenage “Brothers” and “Hallway Hangers.” Their story of poverty, race, and defeatism moved readers and challenged ethnic stereotypes. MacLeod returned to interview the Brothers and Hangers for the 1995 revision, which revealed little improvement in the lives of these men as they struggled in the labor market and crime-ridden underground economy. For this third edition in 2008, MacLeod once again meets the now-middle-aged men, who have had widely varying experiences with the “American Dream.”

MacLeod is currently a parish priest in England. Combining pastoral ministry with community organizing, MacLeod still plays streetball, or tries to. His working-class parish is one of the most ethnically diverse square miles in Britain, and MacLeod works closely with members of the local mosques to engage disaffected teenagers and to foster friendships across the lines of race and religion.

Below is an interview with MacLeod, who speaks about his expectations for this new edition and his experiences in interviewing these men over the course of twenty-five years.

Q: What first compelled you to write about the lives of the Brothers and Hallways Hangers? Did you go into the project with any expectations?

JM: As a college sophomore I started a summer youth program in Clarendon Heights (not its real name) with three other students. I worked mostly with 10–13-year-old boys over four summers. Crucially, we lived in the neighborhood and became close friends with many tenants. When it was time to write my senior thesis, I decided to focus on the aspirations of the older guys in Clarendon Heights. Why didn’t the white guys even aspire to middle-class jobs? Why were the black teenagers more hopeful about their futures? Plus playing basketball and hanging out in Clarendon Heights was bound to be more fun than doing library research. By that time I was living in a tenement apartment across the street from Clarendon Heights.

How did you approach these young men with your idea for this project?

They knew me from the youth program as I’d worked with many of their little brothers. At first I just hung out with them and observed them closely. Eventually I explained that I wanted to study their occupational aspirations. Most agreed to take part in the research as a personal favor to me. But even then, as teenagers from “the projects,” some of the guys felt that the general public was apt to condemn them, largely out of ignorance. So maybe the study was also a chance to help set the record straight.

You interviewed the men from the Clarendon Heights housing projects several times over the course of twenty-five years. Have your opinions of them changed or evolved since that first meeting?

We’ve all changed. And yet in each forty-something you can see traces of the teenager, and sometimes much more than traces. When I knew them as young men I became increasingly aware of how the deck was stacked against them, and I admired how tough they were. Not the physical toughness but the emotional steeliness. Twenty-five years on I still admire their resilience.

You say you were skeptical about doing this new edition and following up with the Hallway Hangers and Brothers at age 40. How did you think they would receive you?

I honestly didn’t think I’d be able to find more than a handful. And I really had no idea how they’d respond to me. I was anxious about that. But without exception they were incredibly gracious. Friendship counts for a lot in places like Clarendon Heights. That’s one of the things I should’ve learned better.

Did you go into these new interviews with any expectations about how the men’s lives might have turned out? Is there anything that surprised you?

When I went back in 1991 it was depressing to see that most of the men were struggling, including those who were more ambitious and able. The research for this third edition has produced a mixed picture. So yes, I was pleasantly surprised to interview Slick in the Gulf of Mexico on his fishing boat and to catch up with James in Central Park near the corporate headquarters where he works. It was also really good to see some of the guys still plugging away not far from Clarendon Heights, having found ways to cope with constraints on their opportunity and to carve out lives for themselves and their families. But some of the guys are still really struggling, as are some of their children. That doesn’t surprise me but it saddens me.

You say in the book that “if … the best fieldwork emerges when the sociologist is completely immersed in the community under study, it means that his or her personal life will be inseparably bound up with the research.” How have the twenty-five years of writing about these men’s lives impacted you personally? Did this project in some way lead to the work you do now as an Anglican priest?

That first summer in Clarendon Heights I found my vocation as a youth worker. It was immensely challenging and rewarding. This was the intense summer youth project, not the research which started a couple of years after that. My vocation as a priest came later still and incorporates my commitment to community organizing and youth work. I’m actually doing much the same now as in the summer of 1981, only under the auspices of the Church of England. My job as a parish priest is not just to serve the hundred people in church on a Sunday but all 8,000 people who live in the neighborhood. The church’s community projects draw heavily on tricks of the trade that I picked up in Clarendon Heights: using sport, music and oral history to engage disaffected teenagers and to bring the community together. I learned back in Clarendon Heights that community work is not easy, and today my faith in Christ helps sustain me. Clarendon Heights also taught me that redemption should have a social and political dimension as well as a spiritual one. The bible teaches the same.

What kind of feedback have you received about the book from the Brothers and Hallway Hangers? Did any of them read the book or keep in contact with you after publication?

Apart from a four-year stint as a community organizer in rural Mississippi, I’ve lived in England since 1984. Transatlantic flights for a family of five aren’t cheap, so I have trouble keeping up with my parents and my brother and sister! I’ve stayed in better touch with the younger kids I worked with over the four summers in Clarendon Heights than with the guys in the study. Because the Hallway Hangers and the Brothers speak so caustically about each other, I didn’t give them copies of the first edition because of the fallout it might create. They all got copies of the second edition though. Some of them read it and liked it. Most of them probably fell asleep a few paragraphs into Chapter Two. Like my dad!

How do you think the men from Clarendon Heights view your role? Do you think they have expectations of you?

I’ve had various roles that sometimes conflicted: youth worker, researcher, teammate, confidant, friend, adviser, author, confessor. Sometimes the guys from Clarendon Heights perceived the roles more clearly than I did. Part of the challenge back in the early 1980s was that the Brothers and Hallway Hangers had such different expectations of me. The Hallway Hangers expected me to subscribe to the unwritten rules of their street culture, while the Brothers expected me to act like a proper college student.

There must be a great sense of responsibility that comes with those expectations, and with knowing these men and documenting their lives for 25 years. Do you feel like you owe them anything? What, if anything, would that be?

I owe these men a great deal. They have entrusted me with their stories, and their frank and vivid commentary is what makes the book a good read. My first responsibility—to them and to the reader—is to be truthful. It’s my duty to present their lives as honestly as I can.

What impact do you hope this book will have, not just on the academic community, but on American society in general?

If the narrative challenges the reader’s preconceptions and prejudices (as mine were challenged) and contributes to an improved understanding of social and racial inequality, that’s good. If it spurs readers to be part of the solution, even better.

You discuss the experiences of the people from Clarendon Heights as being contrary to the “American Dream” of social mobility. How palpable do you think this division is in America today? As an Anglican priest currently living in England, do you see this as a uniquely American problem?

Class divisions are more entrenched in Britain than in the United States, but people still manage to talk about social class over here. In the United States we tend to be silent about social class. The distinctive American problem is the disparity between what we promise and what we deliver.

You say in your preface that “This third edition accompanies the Hallway Hangers and Brothers into middle age as they scramble for some sort of redemption. How do we respond to the stories of their lives? Can the United States be redeemed as a nation with ‘liberty and justice for all’?” How would you answer these questions?

If readers see that even the Hallway Hangers, far from being a breed apart, are quite like themselves (they want a home for their families far from the projects), then they might understand poverty less in personal terms and begin to see the need for societal change. That awareness is a precondition for the sort of redemption we’re talking about. We’ve got a long way to go!