Ideas about european cluture, the African experience and "mainstream" American culture

While engaging in a dialog with a friend whose political instincts and social world view I respect an interesting thing happened. Now, it turns out that we were communicating by email. We were talking about the implications of the Barack O'Bama campaign. My buddy invited a few other people that were friends of his to engage in the discussion.

In response to my maybe cynical, definitely intended to be insightful and less than enthusiastic analysis of the campaign and the impact of a O'Bama presidency, one of the friends jumped in just as they had been invited to do.

Turns out he was of European ancestry and he began to talk about how as a high school teacher many young black males were not resilient and were dropping out of school The also noted that "mainstream" society didn't understand what Black folks problem was because after all they had been given 40 years of affirmative action. So, why can't they get their shit together. He noted that neither he or anyone he knew were the beneficiaries of slavery or the segregated past that emerged post-Reconstruction (of course I am paraphrasing him).

I was flabbergasted, astounded and surprised by his response and by the fact that my buddy considers him his buddy. I said something to that effect in an email that I sent to everyone since the statement in contention was sent to everyone. The point is that he was making my point and not realizing it.

It reminds me of an incident which happened about 15 or so years ago while my oldest child was in high school. An incident occurred at her school where a young man of African descent had been called a n****r by another student of European descent. The Black student responded to the psychological insult to his spirit with a physical insult upside the white students head. The Black kid was expelled from school. When the mother protested to the assistant principal she was told that the school had a zero tolerance policy for physical violence and her soon would "just have to get used to" this particular insult and others that might come his way. I was asked to intervene as an advocate for the parent and child.

I arranged a meeting with the high school principal, the parent and a couple other people from the community. The assistant principal whose behavior is in question was not available. However, in talking with the Principal I suggested that one reason students of African descent become violent is because they feel they are in a hostile environment at the school. That many Black kids report that when say something about objectionable behavior their concerns are often ignored and they are told that the were misinterpreting the situation and were overly sensitive about their issue of concern and were wrong about the intentions or motivations of the person who displayed the behavior they were complaining about. After this I reported that the parent on whose behalf we were meeting was concerned that the assistant principal had told her that her son would have to live with being called names that were offensive to him.

The principal's response was that he knew the assistant principal personally and he was sure that the assistant principal did not mean what we were suggesting he said. In fact, the principal expressed doubt that the events occurred as the parent related them or that the assistant principal made the statement attributed to him by the parent.

I was incensed. I was livid. I was enraged. But I was cool. The principal was engaging in the same behavior that I had suggested the students of African descent were subjected to at the school It was not an object lesson for the principal because he was convinced that he was right and the parent was mistaken in her characterization of events.

When I saw the response of my buddies friend in the email. I felt similar to that day in the principal's office. It was a sense of hopelessness at one level. How can you expect someone to commit social suicide by acknowledging their privilege and the structural aspects of society that favors them and handicaps another. Then to beat the band, my buddy chirps in with several examples of individual achievement to butress this friends argument that the system is fine and if any one is not making they must carry the individual responsibility.

I recognize that there are two ways of seeing the world and actually even more ways to be in the world. it just seems like they don't.