Dr. Kim DeVries

ENG 5870

Spring 2009

I Don’t believe the hype, and because of the life I’ve had, and the way I was raised, I never did. The truth is, all of us are at risk in one way or another, and I have been to jail, and been told by the other white guys that I was in danger of getting my ass kicked out of “the woodpile” if I traded food with black inmates. But, I was raised to treat people as my equals regardless of their color, or my grandfather’s racial jokes.

Also, before I ever went to jail or college, I was a trouble maker, and some of my friends were black, and young stupid men also, and a few of them saved my ass on more than one occasion. Then I dropped out of high school, took the CA proficiency test, and enlisted in the Army—Infantry, Airborne. There were a lot of hard young black men in my basic training class, and some of them were really bad guys, but most of them were just like me, with different taste in music, and a different color skin, and sometimes a different accent, or lingo, but generally just guys like me, and more than half my squad was black or Hispanic, and some were assholes, but most were just regular guys and we had to back each other up, or we could get dead.

Then I got out of the Army, and went to jail, and the only trouble I ever had really was with the other white guys, and a few Hispanics, and I went to college, and majored in sociology, and read history, and statistics, and said….”Well duh, why do you figure they are angry young men? Why do you find it surprising that the ethnic groups in America with the highest proportion of young men in Jail (or the military) are blacks and Native Americans, I mean really? Is everyone in this country stupid?”

If you tell a people, for four-hundred years or so, that they are inferior, stupid and weak. And then you beat them, kill them randomly, rape their women, and in the case of Native Americans try to wipe them out entirely…sorry just doesn’t fucking cut it. I find it amazing that so many educators are still so prejudiced based on the way someone looks or talks, and are so unaware of the fact. I judge people quickly, based on looks, but only to determine if they might be dangerous, and I know that the most dangerous people do not look it, and I still treat them with respect and consideration until they prove themselves to be assholes. And I have met more assholes of the caucasian persuasion than any other skin color, probably because there are just more of us, and I am one, but really. Look at DNA studies, there is only one race and that is the human race, everything else is ethnicity, and treating a decent kid badly because one is afraid of what he or she represents is just wrong, they know it, and if we think about it, we know it too. No wonder they are angry, wouldn’t you be…I was, and I wasn’t even black or native American, or Hispanic. I’m still angry, I just try to settle my issues with words instead of violence, but then, I had both the opportunity, and the encouragement to learn how to use the words.

There are more black men in prison than in college in California, and, at least for the most part, it is not their fault, it is an institutional prejudice so ingrained that most people don’t even recognize it as existing anymore, yet American schools are more segregated now (in many areas of the country anyway) than they were before Brown vrs the Board of education. That is the truth, or at least the fact, since I am leery of truths, but what Ferguson had to say in her sttudy has been said before, in other studys, for at least tha past century starting with DuBois in “The American Negro,” It is not new, but it is still relevant because no matter how much America talks about equal rights and opportunities for all, the statistics, and my personal observations say that that is bullshit, and we need to at least know it if we are going to teach. Oh yeah, and I dig “Public Enemy.”