If I Were A Poor Black Kid...

The other day, I probably read the most idealistic op-ed ever. And I mean ever.

Let me begin by saying that I did not grow up with a family that was well off. My mom and my grandparents financed their cost of living primarily by credit, and indeed we're paying for it now. However, I lived a pretty comfortable life growing up. I was never abused. I went to school. I got good grades. I only ended up with a GED instead of a high school diploma because of issues surrounding a half credit. I'm presently in the middle of my seventh school year taking of either being in college or taking collegiate courses.

At the same time, I grew up with a luxury that is a cornerstone of suburban life -- stability. Stability is what people drove people in the suburbs in the first place. White Americans fled the urban core for the suburbs in the white flight eras of the 1960s and 1970s, for a culture of stability, for they resented the change brought on by black Americans moving into their neighborhoods. Black Americans fled to suburbia increasingly in the 1990s and 2000s for a more stable, healthy climate as opposed to the turbulence of the inner city. Families are more apt to settle in the suburban world because of the stable, family-friendly environment. But of course, I am well aware that stability is indeed a perception.

Gene Marks, the author of the piece that is the namesake of this post, wrote a list of things that he would do if he was "a poor black kid" in the inner city. He reasoned that his children were no smarter than the kids coming out of the 'hood, and thus a lot of his reasoning is based upon a vicariously distorted, romanticized view of himself as a progressive, education-hungry "poor black kid" in America. He meant well, he really did, and he said a lot of stuff that, if pursued, could lead a poor black kid to some measure of success. However, he still falls into the same trap that most suburbanites fall into when it comes to commentating about issues of the inner city -- "if I can do it, you can do it, too, and if it's available to you, you can do this, and you'll be successful" -- completely ignoring what is really at the genesis as to why many inner-city black children fall into a pattern of mediocrity.

It's rooted in the climate and more importantly -- the culture that they were raised in. While it would sound synonymous, I differentiate climate being more local (as in local in the home) in comparison to culture, which refers to the community. The one thing that I've never seen written very often about in the editorial press, such as the one that inspired this post, is the entire culture that is brought about by low incomes and poverty. Sociologists have written about it but few social commentary pieces when it comes to the plight of inner city black children ignore it aside from how low incomes and poverty create a much more fertile ground for criminal activity. Some of it is a passive aggressiveness of an entire community, some of it is a lack of hope of an entire community, but a lot of it is rooted in socially desecrating patterns that, unfortunately, do not get broken.

The cornerstone of inner city life is survival. There's no ifs, ands, or buts about that. Ignore the more sexual hedonistic, materialistic, and misogynistic shit that you hear about in popular hip-hop music. It's really about survival. And because of the stakes getting raised higher because of the impoverished culture, survival takes precedent. And because its more about survival and less about stability, there exists a value structure that is completely different than what is in the suburbs or in more affluent neighborhoods. Think about, especially for those that are reading this and live in Houston -- how can Gulfton in Southwest Houston be one of the most dangerous areas in the entire city, yet Bellaire, a city that is an enclave within the city of Houston and sits one mile east of Gulfton, can be one of the safest areas in Greater Houston? Same thing can be said for the Spring Branch area of Houston versus the Memorial area of Houston that sits to the south of Spring Branch across the Katy Freeway. A different culture spurs a different climate which is going to spur different results.

A survival culture and stability culture are different and sequential. You have to survive before you can achieve stability. If you're in the suburbs and you're not fighting for your own survival, then all you're left to fight for is either achieving stability or maintaining it. What this translates to for children growing up are less stressors, which will provide children the ability to do better academically, to do better socially, and to be better off in general than their inner city counterparts. I'm not saying that there isn't a survival culture in the suburbs, however, because it exists, but not to the rampant, widespread degree of the inner city where its an affliction on a wider swath of a demographic. I also want to make it known that I'm not saying "better off" in terms of superiority, either. Middle class and wealthy suburban kids, or hell, middle class and wealthy urban kids statistically fare better academically (better grades, high school graduation, and collegiate attendance), socially (less likely to be involved in crime), and better off (quality of life), than poor kids from the inner city or even poor kids in the suburbs because of the different climate of which the culture they are apart of spurs.

In short, and really the whole point of this post is this: the survival culture creates a different value system. Good grades and education is important, yes, but if whole point of making it in inner city dystopia is doing what you can to survive and that mantra fuels a troubled climate in the household which creates issues at schools and on the streets, then good grades and education is not going to carry weight. It's especially true when it comes to young black men my age -- the reason why the likelihood of inner city black men getting killed or going to prison is so high because of climate they were raised in, fueled by the culture that is crafted by low incomes and poverty.

So going back to what Marks wrote about: it's idealistic, not because there aren't any poor inner-city black children that aren't studious, because believe me, there are many, but because the climate that the grow up in as a consequence of a survival culture generally doesn't provide for it. I guess the best way to put in terms of attempting to summarize the survival culture is the point of instant gratification as compared to eventual, worthwhile payoff. If Marks was really a "poor black kid" in the inner city, then he'd see for himself why many of the things that he would supposedly do would almost never occur. It's easy to say vicariously what you would do in someone's situation until you actually get why they're in that situation in the first place.