Letters to the Editor
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No easy solution I'm afraid.
The New York Times recent article on the plight of Black Men in this country makes it clear just what this subset of Black Men are up against. Lack of education, marketable skills and a criminal record does not auger well for success. Keith is one of thousands of impoverished young Black men who have and will die this year, usually at the hands of other impoverished young Black Man. I choose my words carefully because not all young Black Men end up dead on the mean streets of this country. Many are doing well. Many go on to live productive and successful lives.
What can be done for those who are at risk? I am not optimistic. Few people from outside of these communities will or can enter them to help. They are just too dangerous and outsiders are just that, outsiders. Not at all to be trusted. Viewed as sellouts. Told “You think your better than I am and now you want to come here and tell us how to live……” The anger on the part of the Black underclass is real and directed towards the Black Middle class as well as White America. Lets face it most the Black Middle class has its hand full with trying to prevent their own sons from being abused and killed on those same mean streets and believe me it is no easy task
We must recognize that the Black underclass is so disconnected from mainstream America that is has it’s own language, dress and culture. Its value system is totally different and it does not look to mainstream America, the Black Upper and Middle classes as role models. It has evolved that way over a very long time. For the Black underclass, mainstream America is where the sellouts and, those who do not “keep it real” live.
So don’t think that writing an article or book will solve the problem. Awareness will not do much. We all know there are problems but who wants to risk life and limb to enter a community we do not fully understand, where you could be killed while you attempt to make it a better place. The parallels to the quagmire in Iraq should not be lost on anyone.
As cold as it may be the world is full of desperate people living desperate and horrible lives. We read their stories, say a prayer and are thankful that it is not us. Then we get up and get on with our day trying to make a living and keeping our own ships a float lest we end up like the people we just read about.
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Thank you
Ms. Maran, thank you for this piece. Like many others, I was moved to tears by Keith's story. That's all the words I have right now, as I try to absorb both the enormity of violence, the faces and lives of its victims, and also, Pastor Peoples' message that we can curb the violence by seeing each other as individuals, each loving and supporting another. So complex, and yet so simple...
Thank you.
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Not just another....
As a mother of two kids that went through the Berkeley Public Schools I cried reading this article. I remember in kindergarten when my son and all the kids were playing together looking at them and realizing what different destinies were attached to each of them. Some of the destiny they would make, but a great deal was already made for them by their class and race. For those few early years I felt a glimmer of hope, but with time I saw how when I would take my son's best friend home he would have to walk through a gauntlet of young men that he wanted to emulate. By high school, his friend was deeply into the gangs and he dissappeared from our lives. They, my son and his friend, were in different worlds. We saw him once in a while, but then he dissapeared after coming to our house one day and taking a bicycle of our front porch. Last we heard he was in jail.
What do we do? That is the question. Obviously what we are doing as a society right now is not working. All the good intentions of the diverse schools failed to face the reality and lacked the financial and political resources to erase the differences in the destinies of class and race. Ultimately, the schools serve those who will be served because they have the entitelment of race and class-- and yet they are the ones that stay away from our public schools cringing in fear.
What do we do? I have been asking myself that question for the 18 years I have seen this first hand among my children's friends. I know we have to do something that is my physical, emotional and intellectual reaction. How do we serve Keith and all the other children that are killed and or discarded into prisons? I used to think I knew, but I surely don't know anymore.
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I hate everything!
I hate everything! Salon sucks!
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slavery and then some
The article isn't directly blaming slavery for Keith's death, but it's pointing out the fact that the origin of many black people in this country was slavery and that it created a crushing legacy that has been hard to escape for generations. Oprah has said that the reason domestic violence in the black community is so high is because it was learned in the times of slavery and passed down through the generations. Nobody lives in a bubble, and to think that the poverty, crime and education gap facing black people today has nothing to do with slavery is at best naieve.
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Racial Respect -- not "Tolerance"
Am I to make the inference that because Keith's life was worthwhile only because he was "working hard to become a responsible adult"? How about him being worthy because he was Keith? Because he was born?
The article meant well, and highlights a tragic state of affairs -- yet in the article itself we can see the reasons for it. That the writer of the article seems to be comppletely unaware of the condescension is part of a larger problem on a whole.
Here, Black people don't seen to have default, inherent worth. They have to PROVE they're worthy... then, perhaps, we can mourn their loss.
Until this mind set is stopped; that Black children are not constantly burdened with the thought and feeling (instilled by well-meaning white teachers, etc) that they have to somehow pay off some debt that they owe, that they have to atone for the sin of being born black, that they have to prove themselves worthy of being here -- unlike say, a Paris Hilton where she is who she is, dammit and makes no bones or apologies (she is rich and white and kiss her butt, SHE IS HERE) -- then Black on Black crime will continue. What is the point of life when you're constantly paying a debt that is imposed on you?
Even the sentence that "they fought for freedom to kill one another" I take issue with. What does one have to do with the other? If they hadn't had to fight for freedom, would killing one another be fine? Should they have had to fight for freedom to appreciate one another? SLAVERY, and its mores, and values and lies that come out of it, was AMERICA's sin, not Black people's. NEVER FORGET THAT.
You "tolerate" a fly buzzing around you while you fish -- YOU RESPECT another human being.
The situation is tragic because a boy, a beautiful child, lost his life, too soon.His family's loss is ours' -- all of us -- as well.