Dream On?

s. 169 The voice of the unheard

Maxine Waters on the L.A. Riots

Maxine Waters, afroamerikansk politiker og repræsentant i Kongressen for downtown Los Angeles fik sit kontor ødelagt af brand i forbindelse med urolighederne. Nedenstående er uddrag af en tale, som hun kort tid efter holdt i First African Methodist Episcopal Church

There was an insurrection(1) in this city before, and if I remember correctly it was sparked by police brutality. We had a Kerner Commission report(2). It talked about what was wrong with our society. It talked about institutionalized racism. I talked about a lack of services, lack of government responsive to the people. Today, as we stand here in 1992, if you go back and read the report it seems as though we are talking about what that report cited some twenty years ago still exists today.

Mr. President, our children’s lives are at stake. We want to deal with the young men who have dropped off of America’s agenda. Just hangin’ out, chillin’, nothin’ to do, nowhere to go. They don’t show up on anybody’s statistics. They’re not in school, they have never been employed, they don’t really live anywhere. They move from grandmamma to mama to girlfriend. They’re on general relief and they’re sleeping under bridges. Mr. President, Mr. Governor, and anybody else who wants to listen: everybody in the street was not a thug or a hood. For politicians who think everybody in the street who committed a petty crime, stealing some Pampers fo the baby; a new pair of shoes… We know you’re not supposed to steal, but the times are such, the environment is such, that people behave in strange ways. They are not all crooks and criminals. If they are, Mr. President, what about your violations? Oh yes, we’re angry, and yes this Rodney King incident. The verdict. Oh, it was more than a slap in the face. It kind of reached in and grabbed you right here in the heart and it pulled you and it hurts so bad. They want me to march out into Watts, as the black so-called leadership did in the Sixties, and say, “Cool it, baby, cool it.” I am sorry. I know how to talk to my people. I know how to tell them not to put their lives at risk. I know how to say don’t put other people’s lives at risk. But, journalists, don’t you dare dictate to me about what I’m supposed to say. It’s not nice to display anger. I am angry. It is all right to be angry. It is unfortunate what people do when they are frustrated and angry. The fact of the matter is, whether we like it or not, riot is the voice of the unheard.

⁽¹⁾insurrection (sb): oprør

typo3/⁽²⁾Se kapitel 4

s. 178, note 4 ”Ain’t No Making it” – fremtidsdrømme og realiteter

Jay MacLeod udgav i 1987 bogen “Ain’t No Making it: Aspirations and Attainment in Low-income Neigborhood”, som er baseret på interviews med en gruppe sorte (The Brothers) og hvide drenge (The Hallway Hangers), som han besøgte og fulgte tæt i flere omgange, som teenagere, som unge mænd og til sidst i 2007 som 40-årige. Bogen er blevet en klassiker inden for sociologien, fordi den kombinerer meget dybtgående empiriske undersøgelser med samfundsfaglig teori og dermed konkret demonstrerer, hvordan social arv sætter sig igennem i forhold til muligheder for social mobilitet. De interviewede boede i et fattigt, socialt belastet og nedslidt boligkvarter, Clarendon Heights i en by i det nordøstlige USA. MacLeods indfaldsvinkel til sine studier i området var den dominerende lighedsideologi i USA: “Any child can grow up to be president”. Eller som præsident Ronald Reagan formulerede det i sin State of the Union-tale i 1985: ”Anything is possible in America if we have the faith and the heart.” MacLeods teoretiske udgangspunkt er den klassiske sociologisk problemstilling - forholdet mellem struktur og aktør. For at belyse denne tager han udgangspunkt i Pierre Bourdieu’s habitus- og kapitalbegreber i sin undersøgelse af, hvordan social status reproduceres fra generation til generation i et fattigt boligkvarter. Han påviser her, hvordan den sociale arv er indlejret i såvel habitus som struktur og holder individet fast - selv om habitus også kan rumme fremtidsdrømme, gå-på-mod og aspirationer om at komme videre. De sorte teenage-drenge fra The Brothers havde således høje mål, tog deres skole alvorligt, holdt sig ude af kriminalitet samt alkohol- og narkotikamisbrug, og de ville gerne arbejde for at realisere deres mål. På spørgsmålet om, hvordan deres liv ville være om 20 år, svarede de (i enkeltinterviews): Super: I’ll have a house, a nice car, no one bothering me. Won’t have to take no hard time from no one. Yeah, I’ll have a good job too.Juan: I’ll have a regular house, y’know, with a yard and everything. I’ll have a steady job, a good job. I’ll be living the good life, the easy life.Mike: I might have a wife, some kids. I might be holding down a regular business job like an old guy. I hope I’ll be able to do a lot of skiing and stuff like that when I’m old.Craig: I’ll probably be having a good job on my hands, I think. Working in an office as an architect, y’know, with my own drawing board, doing my own stuff, or at least close to there.James: The ones that work hard in school, eventually it’s gonna pay off for them and everything, and they’re gonna have a good job and a family and all that. Not me though! I’m gonna have myself. I’m gonna have some money. And a different girl every day. And a different car. And like this (poses with an arm around an imaginary girl and the other on a steering wheel). De sorte fattige drenge troede således paradoksalt nok - muligvis fordi deres forældre tilhørte den generation, der havde kæmpet for civil rights - på den amerikanske drøm om lige muligheder for alle, hvis man arbejder hårdt nok for det. I modsætning til de hvide Hallway Hangers, som havde opgivet på forhånd og havde meget små forventninger til fremtiden - og ingen planer havde om at prøve at gøre noget for at påvirke denne. De følte sig låst fast af deres boligområde og sociale baggrund. Til trods for disse forskelle mellem drengene i de to grupper er det kun lykkedes for nogle få fra begge grupper at bryde med deres sociale baggrund og med nød og næppe klatre et par få trin op i den nederste middelklasse. Disse få peger på, at støtte fra forældre eller anerkendelse fra personer i deres omgivelser havde været med til at stoppe den nedagående spiral i deres liv. For de øvrige er deres liv præget af tilfældige jobs, kriminalitet, fængsel, stof- og alkoholmisbrug. Arbejdsopgave: Diskutér i hvor høj grad MacLeods iagttagelser om de socioøkonomiske strukturers betydning for individets handlemuligheder kan overføres på danske forhold.Forslag til videre arbejde: Hør radiodokumentaren Ghetto Life 101, optaget af to sorte drenge fra ChicagoSe videoen fra Miamis ghetto, Liberty City

s. 181 Why All Poor Black Kids Are Obviously Stupid

Boyce Watkins, Proffesor på Syracusa University

Indlæg i Huffington Post, 18.2. 2012 som svar påindlæg fra Gene Marks, hvid columnist i Forbes Magazine, hvor Marks peger pånødvendigheden af, at fattige sorte børn målægge sig i  mere selen for at klare sig i uddannelsessystemet:"be smart enough to go for it.”

I was born to a 17-year old single mother in a housing project⁽¹⁾typo3/ in Louisville, Ky. I struggled through elementary, middle and high school. In fact, I rarely met a school book that I didn't hate. I was, in the words of Forbes Magazine columnist Gene Marks, a "poor black kid."

According to Marks, I was just ignorant, like all the other kids in my "predicament"⁽²⁾ (I didn't learn to use words like that until I was 40). I didn't know the value of this great country called "America" and all the wonderful opportunities that exist for those of us who are simply wise enough to see them. If only I'd been born a middle class white guy, then perhaps I might be able to see the world for what it really is.

Years later, after stumbling⁽³⁾typo3/ my way to a PhD, I figured a few things out. I realized that men like Marks are actually not much smarter than the rest of us, but that White Supremacy 101 teaches them that they are. You see, the best way to maintain the legitimacy of a two-tiered^(4)typo3/ society which subjugates⁽⁵⁾typo3/ a minority group into the underclass is to get everyone involved (both you and the oppressed) to buy into the merits⁽⁶⁾typo3/ of the system. You don't explain to poor black kids that the guns, drugs, horrible educational systems, undeniably⁽⁷⁾typo3/ biased⁽⁸⁾typo3/ justice systems and depleted⁽⁹⁾typo3/ family wealth levels are the reason they struggle: You convince them that they themselves are the problem and that their own inadequacies⁽¹⁰⁾typo3/ are the reason that they are having such a difficult time... the same way I used to continuously change the rules of Monopoly to make my sister think she wasn't very good.

No one can deny the value of personal responsibility. Any Baptist minister in any black neighborhood across America explains that one every Sunday. But for some reason, white guys like Marks are allowed to live with the luxury of not having their capabilities battle-tested like black kids from "the hood." They start life on third base and think they hit a triple, sitting on top of a mountain after having been airlifted. There's nothing I love more than a paternalistic⁽¹¹⁾typo3/ white dude who truly believes he's helping black folks by "civilizing us savage negroes."  From the elementary school teachers polite enough to tell me that I wasn't as smart as the other kids, to my colleagues at Syracuse who've warned me not to ruin my career by doing "that black people stuff on CNN," I've been dealing with this kind of thing for my entire life.

Marks has never known the experience of a kid in South Central Los Angeles, who dodges neighborhood bullies toting AK-47s on their hips. He will never know the experience of a kid who goes to school every day, makes good grades, and then graduates with a fifth-grade reading level. He will never know what it's like to get into a little trouble as a black teenager who then experiences God-knows-what in jail because his family can't afford a good attorney. He will never know what it's like to live in a society where nearly every system and social construct is designed with a pre-built model for your destruction. Mr. Marks is no different from a Washington Bureaucrat, with no military experience, seeking to micromanage the activities of a soldier on the battlefield.

The stories that Marks tells in his column, about kids who study hard, make use of every opportunity and overcome every obstacle happen every single day. There are tens of thousands of youth (like myself when I turned 18) who find a way around their challenges and become successful. In fact, some of us can even be as great the middle class white guy who's had his life handed to him on a silver platter. But the racism behind Mark's words is communicated by the fact that he seems convinced that the answer to our society's commitment to systematic racism is to somehow mandate⁽¹²⁾typo3/ that every black child turn into Superman.……

⁽¹⁾housing project (sb)>: social boligbyggeri

⁽²⁾predicament (sb): knibe

⁽³⁾stumble (vb): snuble

⁽⁴⁾two-tiered (adj): to-delt

⁽⁵⁾subjugate (vb): underlægge

⁽⁶⁾merit (sb): fortjeneste

⁽⁷⁾undeniable (adj) unægtelig

⁽⁸⁾biased (adj): forudindtaget

⁽⁹⁾deplete (vb): nedbryde

⁽¹⁰⁾inadequacy (sb): utilstrækkelighed

⁽¹¹⁾paternalistic (adj): formynderisk

⁽¹²⁾mandate (vb): befale

s. 188 Blacks are Screwed By no one else but Themselves

I 2004 var skuespilleren og komikeren Bill Cosby (se kapitel 5) indbudt af NAACPtypo3/ (1) til at holde en tale i anledningen af 50-året for den højesteretsdom, der ophævede raceadskillelsen i skolerne. Talen har pågrund af nogle linjer her fået navnet “The Pound Cake speech”–”kagetalen”. Nedenfor er der et uddrag af denne tale. Den kan læses (2) og ses (3)i sin helhed pånedenstående links.
Ladies and gentlemen, these people set -- they opened the doors, they gave us the right, and today, ladies and gentlemen, in our cities and public schools we have 50% drop out. In our own neighborhood, we have men in prison. No longer is a person embarrassed because they’re pregnant without a husband. No longer is a boy considered an embarrassment if he tries to run away from being the father of the unmarried child. Ladies and gentlemen, the lower economic and lower middle economic people are not holding their end in this deal. In the neighborhood that most of us grew up in, parenting is not going on. …. I’m talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit. Where were you when he was two? Where were you when he was twelve? Where were you when he was eighteen, and how come you don’t know he had a pistol? And where is his father, and why don’t you know where he is? And why doesn’t the father show up to talk to this boy? ….. These are people going around stealing Coca Cola. People getting shot in the back of the head over a piece of pound cake! Then we all run out and are outraged: “The cops shouldn’t have shot him.” What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand? I wanted a piece of pound cake just as bad as anybody else. And I looked at it and I had no money. …. Ladies and gentlemen, listen to these people. They are showing you what’s wrong. People putting their clothes on backwards. Isn’t that a sign of something going on wrong? Are you not paying attention? People with their hat on backwards, pants down around the crack. Isn’t that a sign of something or are you waiting for Jesus to pull his pants up? Isn’t it a sign of something when she’s got her dress all the way up to the crack -- and got all kinds of needles and things going through her body. What part of Africa did this come from? We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans; they don’t know a damned thing about Africa. With names like Shaniqua, Shaligua, Mohammed and all that crap and all of them are in jail. … Now, look, I’m telling you. It’s not what they’re doing to us. It’s what we’re not doing. 50 percent drop out. Look, we’re raising our own ingrown immigrants. These people are fighting hard to be ignorant. There’s no English being spoken, and they’re walking and they’re angry. Oh God, they’re angry and they have pistols and they shoot and they do stupid things. And after they kill somebody, they don’t have a plan. Just murder somebody. Boom. Over what? A pizza? …. This is a sickness, ladies and gentlemen, and we are not paying attention to these children. These are children. They don’t know anything. They don’t have anything. They’re homeless people. All they know how to do is beg. And you give it to them, trying to win their friendship. And what are they good for? And then they stand there in an orange suit and you drop to your knees: “He didn’t do anything. He didn’t do anything.” Yes, he did do it. And you need to have an orange suit on, too. …..When you walk around the neighborhood and you see this stuff, that stuff’s not funny. These people are not funny anymore. And that‘s not my brother. And that’s not my sister. They’re faking and they’re dragging me way down because the state, the city, and all these people have to pick up the tab on them because they don’t want to accept that they have to study to get an education… … Basketball players -- multimillionaires can’t write a paragraph. Football players, multimillionaires, can’t read. Yes. Multimillionaires. Well, Brown v. Board of Education, where are we today? It’s there. They paved the way. What did we do with it? The White Man, he’s laughing -- got to be laughing. 50 percent drop out -- rest of them in prison.

(1) se kapitel 3 typo3/(2) linkhttp://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/billcosbypoundcakespeech.htm
(3) Blacks are Screwed By no one else but Themselves. Linkhttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kGqlrVmVULc

s. 199

”Legacy of Selma”

s. 199

Obamas tale fra mindehøjtideligheden
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/08/us/obama-in-selma-for-edmund-pettus-bridge-attack-anniversary.html?_r=1