Letters to the Editor
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Salon's effort to balance the slate with after Gary Kamiya's nonsense is a good effort...
I just wish Salon..would hire some Black staff and Black pundits it would help as well. Kaymiya was clearly out of his element..
BTW I hope Salon when they do get the courage to hire Black folks will allow them to write about other topics other than the usual race related ones..
Keeping hope alive..
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I think MOST people who fail fail for reasons that are fairly specific to their own condition
And trust me I'm the first person to scream for 'law enforcement' reform, sentencing changes and upending the whole system. But by and large MOST people who screw it up screw up because of something they did or did not do, willfully. We can quibble about why people go to jail and for how long but we can't argue that people DO in fact take drugs, break into cars, drop out, get pregnant, are lazy, too proud and a million other things that cause them to fail. We can help them, we can punish them less. We can be reasonable.
But seriously, don't go to court stinking of whiskey when you're there to answer for a DUI. Don't be a 10th grade drop out. Don't smoke crack. Don't beat your pregnant 16 year old girlfriend. Don't get tasered. Don't skip on probation. Don't rob people. Wake up everyday you have work and go to work. And if you need work, get up everyday and look for work until you have a job. Don't smoke weed on the job. Don't steal from your employer. Don't lend your cousin your trailer to cook meth. Don't throw bricks at someone's house. Take your meds. Don't sell them. Dress your kids in the morning feed them breakfast and get them on the bus. Make sure they have coats, and lunches and when they come home some ugly uncle isn't there to molest them.
We have come to the point I'm afraid where functioning at all is optional and doing the right thing is a breakthrough. It's not a breakthrough, it's your damn job. For your kids, for you. It's ugly and dreary and hard work. It can be depressing. It's your responsibility as a human being with self respect and dignity and humanity to be thus. Black, White, no matter. If you're trash you're trash. And unless and until you are seriously ill or handicapped that's your life to manage through.
Poverty is a ugly word. It should be.
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So Umm...
Who is responsible for white poverty then?
If middle class blacks are of the opinion that poor blacks are responsible for their own situation, I would have to say that it is likely for the same reason that middle class whites blame their poor counterparts as well.
If you have worked hard and gotten to the middle class, you resent the notion that other people are barred by their circumstances.
That isn't to say that Middle Class Blacks don't aknowledge the unique difficulties that being African American entail, but they see themselves rising above it, and wonder why their poorer counterparts can't as well.
When you see the massive self inflicted wounds that the poor endure (drugs, crime, and failure to exploit education) you are left with little recourse but to blame the person who chooses that life style.
Yes life is easier if your middle class, that's why people work hard to get there. Life is probably easier if you're white too, an unfortunate by product of being a majority. The fact that a road is harder for one individual vs. another doesn't excuse one from walking it.
When unemployment figures come out, there is always someone who points out that the figures do not count those that gave up looking for work. I have never considered this course of action no matter how bleak my prospects looked. To activly choose criminality or hoboism over employment is not something that anyone who has earned their status in the middle, working, or struggleing class can respect.
And so, if you're not willing to put your shoulder to the grind stone, keep your nose clean, and get an education, should I really be concerned for your failures?
Of course, don't worry about me and my opinion of you, some nice folks will be along in a moment to remind you you never had a chance, and that there is no shame in just giving up. Is it any wonder the poor stay poor?
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Responsibility
One thing that troubles me about both this article and Kamiya's is the blurring of the many meanings of responsibility.
Did my parents make me who I am? Sure, you could say that, say that they are responsible for how I turned out. But regardless, they've got lives to lead, so the responsibility for running my life is mainly mine. And whether or not I choose to take responsibility, the outcomes are mainly mine to suffer or enjoy. We call that responsibility, too.
I think the biggest mistake, though, is seeing responsibility as something where if one person has it, another must not. Are blacks responsible for their own lives? Sure. Are whites responsible for their conscious racism? Yes, and the unconscious bits, too. Are we all responsible for building the kind of society we want to live in? Yes indeed.
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"By and large MOST people who screw it up screw up because of something they did or did not do, willfully."
This is sometimes true, and it's sometimes not. (If you get cancer,for example, and lose your job and insurance coverage, it's probably not your fault.) However, "screwing up willfully" is a lot harder to do if you're upper middle class to affluent. I know plenty of well-off to rich kids who have gotten pregnant (mom and dad paid for the abortion), used drugs (rehab at some expensive facility rather than jail) and dropped out (admission at another prestigious school after a suitable break to find themselves). A case in point is my own brother, who now works hard but whose late teens and early twenties were spent using drugs, dropping out, and marrying a worthless user. When he had financial trouble after the divorce, my parents took over his house payment for a few months. He still has his house and a new job and is doing great--but let me tell you, for most people, that would have been bankruptcy time. A lot of people don't have this kind of social safety net. Everyone is going to do something stupid in his or her life, even those of us who pride ourselves on our sober responsibility, but the impact of that stupid choice really is disproportionate.