‘The Alchemy of Race and Rights’: The Logic of Historicizing the Contemporary Racialized Youth and Gang Phenomenon

The Alchemy of Race and Rights: The Logic of Historicising Narratives of Race, Youth and Gangs, Esmorie Miller maintains that explanations of the racialized youth gang are de-historicized and instead proffer majoritarian understandings reinforcing links between race, crime, and punishment. She argues that racialized youth are represented in public narratives as ‘dying to belong’, lacking confidence in the system, and are reluctantly, yet inevitably, drawn into deviance. The chapter draws upon cross-national research conducted in London (England) and Toronto (Canada) and aims to highlight the institutional dynamics of policy and practice often absent from majoritarian gang narratives. She argues that the racialisation of the contemporary youth gang, particularly the focus on individual responsibility ahead of institutional legitimacy, can be read as a continuity of the historic outsider status whereby racialized peoples, in general, and youth, in particular, are relegated from the benefits of modern rights.