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Tally’s Corner (1967) Elliott Liebow
Study Guide Three
Chapter 5: Lovers and Exploiters (137-161)
1. Explain the complicated relationship between a potential mate’s desirability and the perception of potential financial value in street corner courting behaviors. · TALLY, waiting for Jesse: "She's not
pretty," he said, 'but she's got a beautiful job." (137) · LEROY: "She just got herself a government
job. She never misses a day's work. She's a real mule." "Hell, who
wants to live with a mule?" "Man, that's
the best thing to live with. When you got somebody who can pull that wagon,
you really got something." (139-40) (Later he will end the
relationship, Leroy broke off with
Louise to return again to Charlene, a woman who needed his support.) · SWEETS:
"Man, don't pay rent in no places. My lady friends do that."
"She's real nice-- works two jobs." · WESLEY:
From now [on], if a girl ain't got money and a car, I'm not talking to
her." (138) · "A man should take anything
he can get when he can get it." · "From now [on], if a girl ain't got money
and a car, I'm not talking to her." · "Tally eagerly proclaimed that his own
motto for dealing with women was "Everything New for '62." 2. Read this
exchange between Wesley, Thelma and Richard out loud: WESLEY: From now [on], if a girl ain't got
money and a car, I'm not talking to her. 2. What
accounts for the attractiveness to street corner men of women of mixed race? · "Other
things being equal, the more closely a woman approached her white
counterpart, the more attractive she was considered to be, by both men and
women alike. "Good hair" (hair that is long and soft ) and
light skin were the chief criteria." · However, with the possible exception of Sea Cat, the men were uniformly afraid of women whose skin color was markedly lighter than one commonly seen on the street. The explanation given was simple and straightforward: "A light-skinned woman will turn on [against] you."... One day, just as [Sweets] knew she would, she turned on him and called him ''bad names." (That is, "n-word "black [some thing]" and othe color slurs. 3. What evidence does Liebow use to assert that the conception of men and women as ‘cynical, self-serving marauders’ is in reality a fictional pose? "In action, however, the impulse to use women as
objects of economic or sexual exploitation is deflected by countervailing
impulses and goals, especially the desire to build personal, intimate
relationships based on mutual liking or love." (144) a) Sea Cat Illusion: · Sea Cat says things like: "[men] who spend money
on women are "spoiling the women for the rest of us." (143)
Sea Cat was generally acknowledged as one of the most successful lovers and
managers of man-woman relationships, yet it is in Sea Cat's relationship
with women that the public pose of the cynical user of women gives way most
completely to the private realities. Reality: · Tally can't believe that Sea Cat "was putting out the
woman who had been living with him for the past seven months." (142) · He discouraged [the advances of] Sally, because she was
too voluble and unpredictable; Louella because he
was afraid she couldn't sustain a casual
relationship and would "be all over
me." (147) · He took in Doris and was very tender with her: He says "I like her and I don't want to spoil anything." (149) "We talk for a while and then we go to bed," said Sea Cat. He said they slept naked, being careful never to touch one another. She had had a bad experience with a man, he explained-- he didn't know what -- and she was afraid of men. She was afraid of him, too, he added, "but she's learning not to be) (148) b) Tally Illusion: · Tally says things like: "Where
"pussy" is concerned, a man should "take what he can get when
he can get it." (143) · "Everything New for '62." (143) · Tally, who was fond of assessing women in
money terms, claimed not to understand how Sea Cat could put out a woman when
she was working every day. Reality: · Emma Lou had been living with Tally for a few weeks and wanted to go on living with him. Tally wanted her to leave. Emma Lou offered to turn her weekly pay (about forty five dollars) over to him in its entirety. Tally refused and shortly forced her out, although he had no other regular woman at this time. (147) Illusion: · "You like your boys, all right," said Carol,
"but you better start learning to like some of that money, too."
Carol turned to me. "Do you know what she did the other day," she said,
indicating Lena with a contemptuous toss of her head. "This man wanted
to give her twenty dollars for some pussy and she wouldn't give him
any." Reality: · Lena won't go with him because she does not like him. Thus the men talked of themselves as exploiters and users
of women. But talk is cheap. In practice, in their real relationships with
real women, the men frequently gave the lie to their own words. (143) 4. In streetcorner language, what does being ‘nice’ mean? · "Her ethics bespeak a fundamental honesty and
decency. She does not say one thing to your face, another behind your back.
She is not sexually promiscuous and while she may not necessarily remain
wholly faithful to her husband or boyfriend, she "cuts out on him"
discreetly, with selected persons, and usually only after provocation, such
as mistreatment or repeated and public infidelity on his
part. Honesty means simple honesty in the property sense, too. She does
not steal. In her social relationships a nice woman displays a generosity of
spirit; she is friendly, accessible, tolerant, and open and easy of
manner. Importantly whatever her ''ways" or “stvle” she is
fun to be with. " (footnote 8 150)
5. How
are both an ideal and a real mode
of behavior at work in these relationships? "In a world where sexual
conquest is one of the few ways in which one can prove one's masculinity, the
man who does not make capital of his relationship with a woman is that much
less a man". (149) · In their ideal mode, i.e. on the corner,
men talk of themselves as exploiters and users of women. But talk is
cheap. In practice, in their real relationships with real women,
the men frequently gave the
lie to their own words. · In the real mode, men can be both exploitive and
loving in their relations with women.
6. How
is this attitude reflected
in the men’s attitudes towards contraception? "Sea Cat was changing
his clothes preparatory to going out. I flopped on his bed to wait for him
and a package of prophylactics fell out from under the mattress. In replacing
it, I discovered a dozen or more similar packages. I asked Sea Cat if he
always used them. He said no, sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn't.
"It depends on the girl. If she's nice, friendly and all that, the kind
I wouldn't mind helping out, then I don't use them. But if she's not nice, I
don't take any chances." (151) 7. How
does Harry legitimize his genuine
love interest in Mary in the eyes of the other streetcorner men? "By claiming
to exploit-- or actually exploiting-- Sally and Irene, Harry is
free to declare his liking or love for Mary without seriously compromising
his own or others' image of him as the tough and cynical realist." (153)
8. How
do Leroy’s declarations of romantic
love in his letters to Charlene more truly reflect the streetcorner man’s
attitudes about love? "...declarations of romantic love are integral parts of a great many of the man-woman relationships, especially when the relationship has been strained, as after a quarrel, or during the early stages of its growth while enthusiasm still runs high." (154) Stanton on Bernice:
"She's coming over to [live with] me and man, I sure do love that woman!
I'm going to treat her right, too. When I give her something, it's hers, and
I'll never take it back." (155) 9. But
what is, more often, the reality
of the situation he is in? How is Sea Cat’s relationship with Gloria typical? "most
man-woman relationships fall into the second mode in which both
the exploitative and non-exploitative (e.g., "liking") impulses
are operative in the same relationships, as they were, in fact, in
Leroy's relationships with Louise and Charlene and in Stanton's
relationship with Bernice." (155) Gloria: the widow of a man who left her life insurance and
interest in two businesses. She owns two cars, one of them a Bonneville
convertible, and a house at the beach. 10. Identify Liebow’s thesis in this chapter:
Chapter 6: Friends and Networks (161-208)
1. Why
do friendship relationships assume a much greater value in street corner
culture than they do in middle
class society? While middle class adults
devote their energies in many arenas, to family, career and the community,
the streetcorner man devotes all of his energies to his personal
relationships. His neighborhood is not a geographic area but web of personal
relationships he develps on the corner. The people with whom the streetcorner
man lives his life are so important to him that life is not worth living
without them. 2. How are friendship and kinship blended on the corner?
J.R. and Boley, the
relatives of Tonk’s live-in girlfriend Pearl, joined Tonk on the
corner. Clarence was Preston’s nephew who found work for both of them at a
construction job where they worked with Tally, Wee Tom and Buddey: all fast
friends. Tally had met Wee Tom before on another job. “Through Tally, Wee Tom
joined them on the walk home, began to hang around the Carry-out and finally
moved into the neighborhood as well. Budder had been the last to join the
group at the construction site. He had known Preston and Clarence all along, but not
well. He first knew Tally as a neighbor. They came to be friends through
Tally's visits to the girl who lived with Budder, his common-law wife, and
his wife's children. When Tally took Budder onto the job with him, Budder
became a co-worker and
drinking buddy, too.
Thus, in Tally's network, Wee
Tom began as co-worker, moved up to drinking buddy, neighbor and finally
close friend; Budder from neighbor and friend to co-worker. Importantly, and
irrespective of the direction in which the
relationships developed, the confluence of the co-worker and especially the
neighbor relationship with friendship deepened the friend relationship.”
(165) 3. What is meant when two people in the ghetto describe themselves as ‘going for cousins’ or ‘brothers and sisters’?
"going for brothers": the use of kinship as a model for the friend relationship: "Most of the men and women on the streetcorner are unrelated to one another and only a few have kinsmen in the immediate area. Nevertheless, kinship ties are frequently manufactured to explain, account for, or even to validate friend relationships." (166)
Sea Cat's room was Arthur's home so far as he had one anywhere. It was there that he kept his few clothes and other belongings. Sea Cat and Arthur wore one another's clothes and, whenever possible or practical, were in one another's company. Sea Cat worked regularly; Arthur only sporadically or for long periods not at all. His own credit of little value, Arthur sometimes tried to borrow money from the men on the corner, saying that the lender could look to his "brother" for payment.” “Once, in his room, Sea Cat
complained that a can of hair spray cost him more than $1.00, but that, with
Arthur around, a can didn't even last a week. Arthur seemed not to have
heard. Slowly, he got up from the bed, took a can of hair spray from the
dresser, ostentatiously loosened his belt, pulled his pants away from his
waist and with great deliberation sprayed his genitals, looking at Sea Cat
with an air of blank.innocence all the while. Sea
Cat shook his head. "See what I mean?" he said, but he couldn't
quite suppress his laughter.” ‘goin for cousins’ : “When Lucille and her teen-age son were looking for a place to live, Stoopy told her of a place in the Carry-out area and Lucille moved in. As neighbors as well as co-workers, Stoopy and Lucille's friendship deepened and they "went for cousins." It is a way of saying, "This woman [man] and I are good friends but we are not lovers…. [W]hether Stanton and this woman were in fact brother and sister was less important than the fact that they "called" themselves.” 4. How
is this ‘pseudo-kinship’ reflected
in the relationship between Leroy and Richard? “Richard and Leroy had been
going for brothers for three months or so when Leroy got in a fight with a
group of teenagers and young adults.Leroy suffered serious internal
injuries and was hospitalized for more
than a month. One week after the fight, Richard and one of the teenagers who
had beaten up Leroy, and with whom both he and Leroy
had been on friendly terms, got into a fight over a private matter having
nothing to do with Leroy, and Richard killed the teenager.”
5. Why
is developing these relationships an essential survival skill on the corner? “[F]riends
are of special importance to one's sense of physical and emotional
security.” 6. How
do the corner men tend to romanticize
these relationships? “The pursuit of security
and self-esteem push him to romanticize his perception of his friends and
friendships. He wants to see acquaintances as friends, and not only as
friends but as friends with whom he is "up tight," "walking
buddies," "best friends," or even brothers. He prefers to
see the movement of money, goods, services and emotional support between
friends as flowing freely out of loyalty and generosity and according to need
rather than as a mutual exchange resting securely on a quid pro quo basis.” 7. How
did this communal relationship
wind up at Malvina’s House? “Leroy said all the roomers in the house didn't pay Malvina any fixed amount of rent. Everybody just gave what they could when they could., but each person or couple purchased their own food and kept it under lock and key in one of the four refrigerators in the kitchen… [C]areful mental accounts were kept, not only of rent, but of less formal exchanges as well… [F]riendship does not often stand up well to the stress of crisis or conflict of interest, when demands tend to be heaviest and most insistent. Everyone knows this. 8. How
is the reality of this type of
relationship? Why? “One gains a feeling
for the fluidity and processual character of
personal relations and their networks by looking at one such network over
time. [They are] a "fair weather" phenomenon…” · “Richard, did
not go to Arthur's funeral, and never again mentioned avenging his
friend's death, even when the subject of Arthur came up.”
9. How
does this pattern play out in the following relationships? a. Tally and
Richard’s relationship? b. Tally and Emma
Lou’s relationship? c. Tally and
Lonny’s relationship? d. Tally and Bess, Earl, and Lucille? 10. What is
Liebow’s thesis in this chapter?
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