Black In America

If you get the chance, tune into Black in America on CNN. It follows the current lives of several African American families, including a few patriachs who were among the first to integrate schools in Little Rock Arkansas in 1968. Very good and interesting show.

What motivated me to write this is because of what pisses me off and what always pisses me off; the blaming of the ‘victim’ due to nothing short of ignorance. And if that’s not a touchy feely enough of a word, then from not understanding. Better?

And that’s alright I guess. Why do people need to understand? Maybe that is where I need to continue my own work in accepting those differences. Accepting that a good percentage simply will not see it. Maybe that is part of human nature. But, I’m not there yet, so fuck those people for being short sighted.

Cause this is the first thing that caught my eye. This African American SOCIOLOGIST, if you can believe it….I mean yes, I can believe it because attaining a degree and advanced degree does not inherently bring wisdom. I learned that pretty quick in making my way as far as I did. I cannot speak to PhDs and MDs, though I’ve worked side by side and have found some of them to be some of the stupidest people. Honestly. Well, stupid where it matters and smart where it matters far less. Unless it’s a surgeon of course.

Anyways this guy was a well published sociologist so my frustration quickly mounted. He expressed his bewilderment as to why African Americans would CHOOSE a life of crime and dead ends when with a little extra hard work, you know, a little more elbow grease, they too could aspire to have the good old American Life. You know, just baffling what they choose.

And since I’m still growing into acceptance and not there yet, I just want to reach through the TV screen and write “Moron” on his forehead with a black Sharpie.

It drives me nuts. And what actually strikes me as humorous about this, is that again this guy is a SOCIOLOGIST. This is his area of ‘expertise’ yet he doesn’t have the foggiest idea why African Americans would choose a life of drugs, crime, and violence over a life free of such destruction.

Must be because they are not as smart as him and definitely lazy, right? Sure. Just like the wife of domestic violence. The door is open yet she CHOOSES to stay in the relationship.

Really Smart Sociologist: “Preposterous? The door is open. Call somebody. Yell out. I surely would. What could she be thinking?”

I know what I’m thinking; find another career. You are absolutely terrible at yours.

To put race aside for a second, poverty is an illness in itself. It is perpetuated, handed down, and is institutionalized. The psychological ramifications on the individual, family, community, and beyond cannot be ignored to any degree, if one seeks to understand how imprisoning and damaging it is to all of these units. To scoff, point fingers, and postulate how one should think or act only illustrates one’s own total lack of…getting it.

Us more well-to-do whiteys and brothers, if you will, since I said I was casting race aside for a second…like a girl’s panties…..BarcABoo needs some lovin’….sorry

But sticking w/ the socio-economical perspective…for the middle to upper middle class, in which I was raised, college was something I just was expected to attend. I didn’t really have to work for it. I didn’t have to think outside of the box. I was part of the herd. The sheep doing what I was supposed to be doing. All in line with what my peers were doing. To fall outside of that was to feel bad.

“Oh, cool. Santa Barbara. That’s where I’ll go. I’ll surf and try to kiss pretty girls.”

I wasn’t a visionary. I wasn’t a free thinker. It was expected.

Well, I didn’t expect kissing pretty girls, but I was damn sure hoping I would be.

Now, there was next to no independent thinking going on at this stage. State Schools, UC schools, Junior Colleges. These were the options. The predicaments. For Christ’s sake, going to a State School was somewhat stigmatized. Not to mention JC. We were groomed for success with great schools and great teachers. Almost entirely free from real distractions. And if we were slackers, we had families who had money to keep us largely, if not entirely out of trouble.

Now lets take a look at a poor, violent filled neighborhood. Where teen pregnancy is rampant, drugs are rampant, and violence is rampant. Where would each of us be today if we were raised in that SOCIALIZED environment. We would still largely be sheeps in our early years. (Though whom have you met at this age who really charts their own course?)

Our peers would mean everything to us. Our families would mean everything to us. We would be sponges to our environment and would VIEW the world through our environment. I surely would not be thinking UCSB and hot chicks. I wouldn’t even know HOW to think that way. Not to mention my folks, who would have been raised in this downtrodden environment would have suffered the psychological harm and damage of being raised poor. Witnessing the violence, doing their best to not be weighted down by all, etc.

And that’s the cycle…

Parents…typically kids starting off as parents. “Baaaaaaaa.” They are now the role model, the programmer to insert info into these beautiful blank slate children. This children who would in development take all their cues from mom and dad. You can imagine the deficiencies already, can’t you? And it only gets more problematic.

The parent’s IF together, which they probably are not, can only do the best they can. It will all be ridiculously too hard, showing strain and instability. Baby blank slate taking it all in. Learning. Not receiving enough. Receiving too much.

Round and round we go. It’s not good.

We are largely a product of our environment. We can’t lose sight of that if we seek to understand others.

And to quickly put race back onto the table, like me and this imaginary girl for some kitchen lovin’…..I’m heading down to SB next week by the way. I’m like a caged tiger….grrr

But that is one of the damaging things that we are still doing w/ African Americans. Sure they are no longer enslaved in the literal sense, but we have still yet to free a large percentage of them who are enslaved by the clutches/cycles/shackles of poverty.

Other poor ‘races’ including white folk suffer from the same cycles. Poverty in itself is a bitch.

So, back to my global premise to finish this thing off….and fantasy girl. We need to take care of all of us for the general well being and benefit of all of us. We split, fraction, isolate, and maintain all that with stupid ass dumbshit ideology like Captain Sociologist over there, and we all are hurt by it. But of course, especially those on the receiving end of it all.

But, alas, human nature. Part of human nature is to divide, choose sides, and attack ‘others’. Xenophobia is in black font in the dictionary for a reason. It is one of our traits.

Can we as a people intellectually rise above our primitive impulses and reverse our communal actions that do so much harm?

Hell no. We’re a bunch of monkeys. But I do feel we have to do our best to try.

BN