Did We Fail?

Kinda amped and sad right now because I just watched something powerful.

Don't know how much you all are peepin' HBO in the post-Sopranos, no-Wire (yet) era, but I just watched the documentary, Little Rock Central: 50 Years Later.

Honestly, it made me cry. It just showed in startling detail the ignorance, poverty, hopelessness, and defeatism that is gripping the black community. Most poignant statement in the documentary: "Martin Luther King Jr's dream has become a nightmare."

DAYUM.


The documentary was basically about how despite the huge advancement made by the Little Rock 9 -- the group of African-American students who integrated Little Rock Central High School in 1957 -- the high school remains segregated ecomically, socially, and of course, racially.

Black teachers and students functioning in today's Little Rock described the high school as two high schools in one. White kids make up the majority in Advanced Placement classes and student government. They dominate all the successful outlet and are taking full advantage of all the successful resources.

Meanwhile, the black students, who are on average reading nearly three grade levels behind the white students, makeup the majority of the special education classes, remedial reading and the level of apathy they feel regarding their own lives is unreal.

Sociologists and other academics have debated about whether or not poverty is a disease. I don't think there is any question that it is. I grew up poor, on welfare and was raised by a single mother who did what she had to do to get food on the table.

The only reason I didn't wind up like some of the kids featured in this HBO documentary is, despite our sometimes grim financial circumstances, my mother refused to allow poverty to chip away our pride and self respect.

Unfortunately, that isn't happening in most poor black communities. Poverty has seized the self-esteem, ambition, drive, pride and respect of the people, turning them into lifeless, hopeless beings that promote failure and mediocrity at every turn. Kids no longer desire to leave their situations behind, but to stay in them and raise future generations that behave just like them. During this one telling moment in the documentary, one of the few black girls in the AP classes said that most of her friends wouldn't even take the AP test or investigate taking AP classes because they associated moving up to AP as leaving their own behind.

"You stay where you're comfortable," she said.

This documentary reminded me of a study done not long about the differing levels of self esteem between black and white kids. Of course, the disparity was amazing. Black kids don't feel that good about themselves, and white kids do. And, why should black kids feel any differently? Mass media has convinced them their only worth is entertainment or sports. A white person that flips on the TV sees they can be anything they want to be, from drug dealer to doctor to university professor.

I know I'm rambling here, but over the last few years I've really started to question whether integration was a good idea. When black people were forced to operate and live among our own, there was a deeper sense of harmony, racial pride and respect. We were all we had, so we had to get along.

Now that we are consumed with fitting in and attaining success in the mainstream, our values are displaced, we routinely sell out our own to acquire material things that are idolized by the mainstream, and the racial pride we once thrived on is no longer there. Our picture of success is a mainstream picture, whereas it used to be a community one.

So I have to ask: Did We Fail?