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July 24, 2004
Loury's Challenge Revisited
It bears repeating that a central challenge to African Americans is to see the legacy of Brown through. But as we have been discussing in Off Your Knees, there is a serious question as to whether or not ghettoes are ever going to get the resources necessary to become self-sufficient and a credit to the balance sheet of American prosperity.
Glenn Loury, several years ago, encapsulated precisely the entire question of racial justice in an essay that I have kept on my site since then. Entitled 'An American Tragedy', I find it resonates clearly these many years. I have adopted it in its entirety as the way I see the race problem. Ghettoes are designed to be dysfunctional and everything we percieve as wrong with blackfolks may or may not be true, but it is certainly true that no matter who you are, you'll perform worse in the ghetto.
The excerpt I highlight today is really directed at the excuse making that passes for realism when we confront the problems with American public education.
The problem with talk about black culture, black crime, and black illegitimacy, as explanatory categories in the hands of the morally obtuse, is that it becomes an exculpatory device--a way of avoiding a discussion of mutual obligation. It is a distressing fact about contemporary American politics that simply to make this point is to risk being dismissed as an apologist for the inexcusable behavior of the poor. The deeper moral failing lies with those who, declaring "we have done all we can," would wash their hands of the poor.
I have come to the preliminary conclusion that this is part of the core undoing of our society. What we seek in the Old School is the undisputed title of Black, and yet we must fight for that to be a dignified label in light of the degenerate 'culture' promulgated by mass media. Soul Plane is just a lighthearted (benefit of the doubt) tip of the iceberg. It goes without question that successful African Americans like Cosby are indeed Black in all the best ways, and yet masses of African Americans languish relatively speaking. While we all share American culture and the mass influence of the vulgar marks us all, we need to make distinctions of quality and make them stick. We are all Americans and we all share the blame for letting our popular culture be polluted. Michale Powell's crusade at the FCC is too little, too late. We are ignorant. We are vulgar. We are more Fear Factor and less Jeopardy. It's not the fault of our participation, but the fault of our tolerance.
How does the deserving elite, those who have matriculated through talent and persistence - always a minority, insure that what they have become is preserved? It will not suffice to simply write the rest of the population off. All of us must participate in the strongest, most principled aspects of our core culture and values. Without this there is no nation, there is only coercion. If we don't want cast off millions to believe that cash rules everything around them, then we need to mediate our relationships to them via other means.
To my mind that means education is essential. We, who have got, must insure that those who don't got, can get. How?
Loury challenges us to bomb the ghetto. We know that the ghetto doesn't work. We know it stifles the imagination and stunts the social growth of those it incubates in its foul domain. No matter how fabulous the 'hood rich may appear, they suffer the same poverty of spirit as the thugs, haters, pimps and whores their songs are all about. This should come as no surprise.
There's another way of looking at ghettoes however, which is to recognize that ghetto life, for all of its dysfunction remains constant because that is how humans live when they don't have. The inhabitants of any ghetto are just the same as the inhabitants of the legendary Sherwood Forest. HaveNots are the same all over the world and there is no reason to believe that America should be the exception to this rule. American ghettoes don't burn to the ground because ghetto life works. It doesn't provide a reliable supply of college graduates or urban professionals, but it also doesn't self-destruct in a blaze of anarchy. Reconciling the promise of the First World with some acknowledgement and respect of the absolute value of life, even in the context of ghetto survival is the great challenge we face.
Get It Together or Leave It Alone?
To what extent is the equilibrium offered by ghettoes acceptable to the idea of America? My gut says forget the idea of America and deal with what America really is. Yet if the nation is to be consistent then it cannot allow certain problems to fester. Is the ghetto a festering problem? Not politically. This is hard news for the people in the ghetto, but I think it is news we must accept. No political majority of Americans are going to get off their butts and infrastructurally remodel ghettoes. The left wing of the Democrats is devoted to the proposition that we must - if and when they win the White House, then we'll see some significant change, but I am betting that change will be too little too late.
This relates to public education in that one must ask at some point whether or not educational standards should be absolute. If they are, then it means of necessity you will be teaching things to ghetto kids whose value only exists inside the classroom and outside of the ghetto. But I think there may be a ray of hope if we can change the paradigm of the classroom - make it interactive with the rest of the world. That will cost. The other alternative which also seems attractive to me is to teach class-appropriately. That is to say, don't teach horticulture in the city - but teach plumbing. Tough choice. More n this point separately.
Posted by mbowen at July 24, 2004 08:53 AM
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This is at Cobb's joint. Glenn Loury, several years ago, encapsulated precisely the entire question of racial justice in an essay that I have kept on my site since then. Entitled 'An American Tragedy', I find it resonates clearly these... [Read More]
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Comments
That is to say, don't teach horticulture in the city - but teach plumbing. Tough choice.
No it's not, it's the right thing to do.
The tough thing is preventing the "negative tracking" of the past. To me, the best thing to do would be to bring back home ec and industrial arts and make it mandatory for the 3 or 4 years of high school.
Posted by: DarkStar at July 24, 2004 08:42 PM
"All of us must participate in the strongest, most principled aspects of our core culture and values."
Awesome! Hope more of us can live up to your challenge.
Posted by: eMineMineM at July 25, 2004 09:13 PM