• About Me
  • Other Writings
  • Interview Clips
  • All About Me: American Racism, American Narcissism, and the Conversation America Can’t Have
  • Video Clips
  • Boy @ The Window Pictures
  • Boy @ The Window Theme Music

Notes from a Boy @ The Window

~

Notes from a Boy @ The Window

Monthly Archives: September 2009

Crying Over E.P. Thompson

29 Tuesday Sep 2009

Posted by decollins1969 in 1

≈ Leave a comment



This post might be a bit much for many of us. It may well be too much for me. For it’s about some of why I became ambivalent about the academic enterprise. It also describes some of my cynicism — that’s right, cynicism — toward ’60s-style liberals in America, including those whom, as liberal as they may be, aren’t really progressive in any cultural or sociological sense.

You see, I took a class my first semester as a grad student at Carnegie Mellon University called Comparative Working-Class History. It was mostly a study of the beaten-down, pre-industrial and Industrial Revolution-era workers who lost their control over the tools of production, and their Marxist-like struggles to regain some control over such tools. Either directly, or through the state (socialism), or through over, violent means. Not that I didn’t sympathize, but I always thought this story too simplistic, not concerned enough with the psychology of human nature or the social constructs under which people are willing to live, even at the expense of their own improvement.

Anyway, the course was taught by a professor whose research looked at the role of Russian women in the economic transition between Czarist Russia and the Stalinist Soviet Union. Although I had no real personal stake in this course initially (I was too busy plotting ways to make all of my courses about multiculturalism, my dissertation topic), I eventually did because of an incident on the first day of class. The Saturday before, August 28, 1993, the great British Marxist E.P. Thompson had passed away. The writer of The Making of the English Working Class (1963) had lived to the age of 69, but apparently had been sick for nearly three years before his death. It was a sad time, for a generation of historians had been influenced by Thompson’s work. His 1963 publication was a cornerstone manual for addressing what most historians now call social history. Unlike so-called socialized medicine, it’s not when the government rewrites history. It’s about people writ large, about how groups of folks have responded to large-scale change, to oppression and exploitation, to difficult if not impossible circumstances.

Certainly Thompson wasn’t the only historian of his time to write in this manner — and hardly the first (anyone ever heard of W.E.B. Du Bois or Franz Fanon?). But for those historians whom had embraced neo-Marxism, if not scholars of color who wrote like neo-Marxists, Thompson was their Edward R. Murrow or Dwight D. Eisenhower. This was also the case of our professor, whom, in discussing E.P. Thompson’s death, her memories of him (more on that later), and his significance to the field, started sobbing in front of the twelve of us. I couldn’t believe it! I wanted to say, “There’s no crying in a graduate seminar!” She was crying as if this were a dear mentor or a close friend. This wasn’t about gender for me, it was about professionalism — she was a tenure-track professor, after all. I knew that there would be some long days in this class after her crying episode.

And they were. All semester, there was a three-way tug-of-war between me (and occasionally, my former Pitt grad school colleague who decided to hop the bridge to Carnegie Mellon to take this course), ten brown-nosing students who’d agree with her despite the evidence, and her. I didn’t expect my now fellow Carnegie Mellon grad students to take my side. But I did expect them to read Thompson and Wilentz and other folks for themselves and not just to get an A out of our professor. There may have been one or two other classes I dreaded more in three years of grad school. Yet I saw no one more unaware of their biases than our professor in this course.

It all came to a head when it was time to discuss David Roediger’s Wages of Whiteness (1991) and, indirectly, Sean Wilentz’s Chants Democratic (1984). Both authors looked at the formation of the White American (and male) working-class in the first half of the nineteenth century. Our professor, as usual, took the stance that the only ideology of significance was one that proclaimed class inequalities the predominant issue explaining the radicalization of the American working-class. Finding this a bit laughable (a mistake on my part), I pressed my argument that at least in the case of US history, race and class distinctions have been and remain intertwined. So much so that a typical neo-Marxist analysis of the American working-class couldn’t apply.

The next two hours were me and my Pitt colleague against ten brown-nosers and our professor. Luckily in my case, I could not only quote Roediger and Wilentz, but Herbert Gutmann, W.E.B. Du Bois, and a host of other scholars to press home my counterargument. At the end, our professor said to me, in utter exasperation, “I guess we should just go back to original sin.” It meant that I was being a racial determinist, which I suppose was suppose to be an insult as well as her version of “No mas, no mas!”

I learned a lesson beyond my grades or my head-long march toward my doctorate that day. That most so-called liberals in America, whether an assistant professor or an avowed ’60s radical, are really not leftists at all, at least on issues involving race. They may not believe in promoting inequality or racism. But they don’t necessarily see groups of color as actors, activists, or as capable of taking actions independent of their ways of thinking about the world. They explain issues of inequality in ways that actually degrade the achievements of Americans of color who’ve managed to overcome such inequities. In my professor’s case, even as the wife of a prominent soon-to-be Pitt history professor, whose work has helped us as historians better understand the relationship between trade, ideas and economics on four sides of the Atlantic.

Still, the worst thing I learned is that it took Roediger’s Wages of Whiteness to confirm ideas that Du Bois had begun writing about nearly a century before. That, for me, made me apprehensive about wanting to work with scholars who may well see me and my work as well-intentioned, but inferior to theirs. I guess I could’ve cried in despair about this, but I didn’t.

On the Other Side of Tomorrow

27 Sunday Sep 2009

Posted by decollins1969 in 1

≈ Leave a comment


It’s hard to believe that a city that I lived in for nearly twelve years just finished hosting a historic G-20 summit. And no, it wasn’t New York or DC. By the way, for my social justice-oriented readers, I haven’t turned soft on gross economic inequalities or on the oppression of globalized corporations that leave so many of us without the futures we deserve. I’m merely recognizing the irony of an international summit of this magnitude being hosted by the city of my early adulthood years, Pittsburgh. Looking at the scenery and pictures from the week, I realized that I’ve never seen Pittsburgh look so, well, beautiful. For at least one week, the street named Boulevard of the Allies in the ‘Burgh has lived up to its name.

That’s not how I felt about the town when I first moved there for college in August ’87. In fact, that’s not the way I’ve seen the city for most of the twenty-two years since I disembarked from my Amtrak train and waited over an hour for a taxi in downtown Pittsburgh. It was and remains a post-industrial, po-dunk Rustbelt town that sometimes strives to be a cosmopolitan city. It is Western Pennsylvania at its best and worst, conservative, isolated, and xenophobic, yet hardy, honest and hopeful at the same time. Overall, Pittsburgh was a preeminent industrial center with a population of over 800,000 some sixty years ago. Only to spend the next three generations in decline economically and demographically.

Not only has the population moved out to the point where Pittsburgh’s population dropped below 300,000 as of three years ago. Anywhere I’ve ever been, I’ve bumped into people I’ve taught, gone to school with, or otherwise met in Pittsburgh. I’m convinced the reason why I can turn on any Steelers road game during football season and see a sea of Steelers fans wherever the team has traveled. Seattle, Green Bay, Wisconsin, Atlanta, Dallas, ex-Burghers are there. This has been great for the Steelers and for the NFL. Not so good for an area that has more people over the age of sixty-five per capita than anywhere else in the United States outside of suburban Miami.

I’ve gotten myself into numerous arguments with other folks from Pittsburgh about how the town really is. I’ve met too many people — most of whom are White and have had a limited set of experiences in the area — who love to tell me how wonderful Pittsburgh is. I’ve had native Pittsburghers tell me that my experiences living there don’t matter, that because I didn’t grow up there, I had no right to say anything negative about the town. My mother-in-law — not exactly a well-spring of optimism when it comes to the ‘Burgh — picked an argument with me about Pittsburgh last year, yelling that I “never say anything good about Pittsburgh!” The only other group of folks I’ve met more sensitive about their town than Pittsburghers are folks from Mount Vernon, New York.

Maybe I am a bit hard on my second hometown. Maybe I expected it to be more like Philly or even Baltimore or Cleveland. Whatever. The fact is, I stayed after my first semesters at the University of Pittsburgh for a reason. The quality of education for the low cost as an out-of-state student. The relative diversity of the campus versus the lack of it in the rest of the city and area. The relative peace and quiet that Pittsburgh as a town in decline possessed in the late-80s was exactly what I needed after years of chaos and hardship at 616 and six years of Humanities.

That’s why I stayed. Over the years, between dating and sports and civic events, graduate school and post-PhD teaching, employment, unemployment and underemployment, I did find myself liking a few things about Pittsburgh. Like the strange places in which I would find great food. Mineo’s Pizza in Squirrel Hill — the best NY-style pizza I’ve had outside of New York. The now defunct Rosebud’s Deli on Penn Avenue dahntahn — deli sandwiches of the kind I only find in Westchester County now. Pasta Piatta, Max & Erma’s, Eat & Park, all great for me on my less-than-$15,000-a-year budget from ’87 to ’99.

Appreciating the beauty and diversity (not ethnic, mind you) of Pittsburgh’s working-class neighborhoods. Enjoying the few but sizable parks in the town. The fact that its people really enjoyed their sports, especially the Steelers, but even the Pirates and the Penguins. The real, almost self-effacing honesty of those whom I met there, became friends with, dated, and in one special case, married. The fact that all of my degrees are from schools in Pittsburgh. These are all reasons I have for liking my twelve years there.

Still, it’s a quirky town, serving Primanti Bros sandwiches with fries and cole slaw stuffed in the sandwich. Where you can still buy chipped ham (pressed fat that looks like the remnants of ham) at Giant Eagle. Or have trouble understanding someone speaking in Pittsburghese talking at more than 100 miles an hour. And it’s the only town in which I’ve been called the N-word or threatened with physical harm simply because I’m Black.

When I think of Pittsburgh, I think of all of those things. But I must admit, I think of my educational experiences and times with my future wife the most. I wouldn’t have the life and opportunities I have now if I hadn’t lived there. It’s nice to see Pittsburgh shine as a post-industrial city with an global economic conference, an irony considering its history. It’s wonderful to see progressives protest there as well. Welcome, Pittsburgh, to your tomorrow.

Parting Shots

26 Saturday Sep 2009

Posted by decollins1969 in 1

≈ Leave a comment


ESPN has a Sunday morning show called The Sports Reporters, a staple of their programming since ’88. Whether hosted by the late great Dick Schaap, or by John Saunders today, the show’s highlight is a segment titled “Parting Shots,” when the circle of sports columnists provide their most honest and insightful comments on all issues related to sports. Oftentimes as you watch these men—I say “men” because it’s rare when they have a female columnist on the show—you get the sense that they’re unknowingly showing their true colors about what they think about the world of sports and about their intelligence. They can come off as arrogant, jealous, petty, holier-than-thou, and with an ax to grind. Unlike Cyndi Lauper’s song “True Colors,” many of their otherwise thoughtful comments aren’t “beautiful, like a rainbow.”

Unfortunately, our world of false divisions created in the media’s coverage of politics has also transformed sports coverage over the past two decades. And not for the better. Between Sports Reporters, Around the Horn, Sportscenter, The Best Damn Sports Show Period, and pregame shows for NFL and NBA (I don’t watch baseball), sports “reporting” has become a poor version of CNN’s defunct program Crossfire. Mind you, Crossfire at it’s best wasn’t that good. Watching a bunch of middle-aged, predominantly White and male journalists and pundits comment on the affairs of the day in the American sports world is watching cynicism and jadedness in constant motion. I guess they believe that they’re channeling the views of their readership. But really, their opinions merely reflect the amount of time they’ve spent around the business of sports.

Like any other large business, the reality of what it takes to put a package together for consumers will likely make any observer shake their head. Yet the guts of what’s going on in the business of sports (e.g., non-guaranteed contracts, the long-term effects of physical contact and injury, how issues like diversity, politics and ideology play out, the branding of sports for the benefit of sponsors and media coverage, etc.) is usually left on the back burner of these programs. Heck, most of these reporters don’t know enough of the technical stuff to discuss the differences between a pick-and-roll and a give-and-go (basketball), or the difference between an out-route and a go-route (football). There are plenty of days over the past two decades that I’ve turned on one of these programs and wondered if they would be better served by picking up four gambling winos at random points in New York — like at various OTB outlets — and letting them pontificate for a half hour or longer.

Like a good sports junkie who played and watched sports but also wanted to hear what those who covered sports though, I watched certain shows dutifully in my relatively younger years. In the late-90s, I did watch Sports Reporters, because it was a unique show out of the few shows that were on the air at the time. Even then, I noticed a pattern. It was obvious to me that the theme of each week for some of the reporters were scandals, in which individual athletes had screwed up off the field. Nothing wrong with that. A public figure like a professional athlete involves themselves in a DUI or in hauling 70 pounds of an illegal substance in the trunk of their car, that deserves coverage. But then, to turn it into a soapbox issue about how privileged these athletes must be because they may or may not have been coddled throughout their lives borders on the ridiculous. That kind of pseudo-sociological and psychological analysis should be left for the average Joe. Not for a reporter with a bachelor’s degree or master’s in communications or journalism.

I do understand. Professional athletes aren’t the people that commercials and soundbites and posters show them to be. They make millions of dollars to do things that many of us have done at some point of time growing up, except not against people with superlative physical talent. The journalists who often end up working the sports desks of local newspapers and television news rooms often worshipped these athletes and a particular set of sports growing up. To realize that so many of them are flawed people who can make idiotic and sometimes criminal decisions is disheartening. To have to cover these men (and sometimes women) while they may be engaged in such activities would likely make even the most Polyanna-ish reporter somewhere between skeptical and cynical. But it shouldn’t mean that I have to read a column or blog, watch an allegedly serious program or pregame show and hear conjecture well beyond the expertise of such journalists.

Sure, I’ve become somewhat cynical about professional athletes and mainstream American sports over the past decade or so. I understand that the days of unyielding idolization of athletes ended for me around my senior year of high school. That so many had scars and flaws that both made them the great athletes they were and left them vulnerable to temptations, trials and tribulations that could afflict any of us. Still, it’s not just about individual athletes and their multitude of sins. It’s about how we as a society deal with talent, nurture it without nurturing the person that possesses it, and then condemn the person with the talent without understanding that these individuals shouldn’t be summed up simply by how much talent they have (or don’t).

This is all the more reason for better, more in-depth coverage, with thoughtful analysis beyond the minds of the vast majority of journalists and columnists covering professional athletes. Actually, covering any athletes or athletics broadly speaking. We honestly don’t have many reporters with the ability to truly analyze the individual athlete beyond today’s gotcha-yellow journalism or with the acumen to understand the connections between the business of sports and the issues of our society. I guess that’s because most in the field saw sports as an escape from the daily tortures of living in a volatile nation, a constantly changing society. Seeing sports in this light creates a sense that there is no place for a grown-up to go to escape the fact that our world is a flawed and unfair place.

My favorite sports reporter on Sports Reporters was the late Dick Schaap. Not only did he understand the various complexities involved in discussing the sins of individual athletes. Or the connections between sports and our societal issues. And the business of sports and its connections to American politics and ideology. Schaap also understood his own industry, the people on the program, and where things may be headed. He kept a sense of optimism about how the success of an athlete could inspire a tweener, or how the success of a team could galvanize a city.

We forget that sports in our society, especially for the young, is as much about inspiration and imagination as it is about scandals and soundbites. With Schaap long gone and the holier-than-thou or over-the-top reporters in control of the “serious” discussions, I don’t watch Sports Reporters anymore. And of what I do watch now, I watch only out of habit. I watch only because the political reporters are even worse.

The Legend of Sylvia Fasulo

21 Monday Sep 2009

Posted by decollins1969 in 1

≈ Leave a comment


There weren’t a whole lot of things during my Boy @ The Window years outside of 616 that were worse than the guidance — or the lack thereof — I received from my guidance counselor Sylvia Fasulo. She was the ultimate Doubting Thomas, one that would probably make Jesus himself shake his head. It wasn’t just that she never thought that I was up to handling any Humanities or AP course while in high school. It was obvious that Fasulo thought that I wouldn’t amount to anything at all. Some of this, I realize, was about race, gender and class — I was a poor Black male, after all, and she was one of the few people that even knew about the poor part (for worse, not for better). But I also knew, even then, that it was about me. Fasulo didn’t believe in me, as a person or a student. When I figured this out, it made my moments in her office a form of torture only slightly above my wonderful moments with my idiot ex-stepfather.

About a week before the start of of high school, in September ’83, I met Fasulo for the first time, as I had to sign up for my freshman year classes. Meeting her was a sure sign that I hadn’t stopped growing. I towered over the four-foot-nine middle-aged woman. But boy could she smoke up a storm! If any of us nonsmokers who had Fasulo as a counselor picked up lung cancer immediately after high school, we should’ve gotten together to form a class action!

I wondered to myself, almost aloud, why Fasulo was a guidance counselor at MVHS. The woman had an A.B. — as some Ivy Leagues and other pretentious universities still call them — from Vassar. Class of ’49 as a matter of fact. Her diploma was on the wall in her small office, letting every one of her students know that she wasn’t exactly from humble beginnings. My first meeting with her was the first of many conversations — or soliloquies I happened to be present for — about her glory days at Vassar.

For the next three years, I put up with her constant “Are sure about…” questions regarding the classes I took. She didn’t think I could handle five Humanities Level 1 courses in a school year. Then she made me get permission from a teacher I despised to take AP American History even though I had the grades necessary to take it. Her always telling me that this class or that class “might be too hard for you,” as if I were a child with a severe mental disability. Fasulo was a piece of work, and I trusted her about as much as I trust law enforcement when they’ve told me that I “fit the description of” so-and-so when I’ve been stopped for walking while Black.

Fasulo’s favorite phrase for me by the beginning of my senior year was, “There goes Donald, always daring to be different.” It referenced my refusal to join our chapter of the National Honor Society and my insistence on carrying three AP courses and applying to schools like Columbia, Yale and the University of Pittsburgh that year. When it came to helping me work through my preparations for college, Fasulo was about as helpful as redneck would be in giving me directions to my White girlfriend on the White side of a Southern town — if I had one at the time, of course.

It’d be an exaggeration to say that Fasulo had it in for me. Yet she wasn’t exactly helping me with good advice about the quality of the schools I wanted to apply to, whether they had good history or computer science departments, or whether the schools had more than a handful of Blacks attending. These were the questions I wanted her to help me answer. I did almost all of that research myself.

What Fasulo was good at was communicating her low expectations of me. She emphasized “safety schools” over and over again, as if I didn’t stand a chance in heaven of measuring up with the more selective schools. “You need to pick a safety school,” she’d say. Or “SUNY Buffalo’s a good safety school,” she said a fair number of times.What, was she going to get a kick-back from someone at SUNY Buffalo for my enrollment there? Per her constant advice on this, I wasted an application and applied there. But not without insisting that Columbia, Yale, and Pitt would stay on my application list. Pitt, of course, was the one school that didn’t fit and the one that Fasulo shook her head about the most. “They’re out of state!,” she said to me in a bit of exasperation about my choices. I explained that the University of Pittsburgh’s out-of-state tuition was actually less than the in-state tuition of any of the New York State schools, and by a wide margin. Not able to resist, Fasulo responded, “There you go again, daring to be different,” adding a frustrated chuckle.

Because of my research, I also ended up applying to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Rochester Institute of Technology, the University of Rochester and Hobart & William Smith Colleges. Five schools in Upstate New York, two Ivy Leagues, and Pitt. No wonder Fasulo was confused. I hated having Fasulo as my counselor at this critical crossroads. She was condescending, demeaning and chain-smoked up my clothes for my troubles. Most of all, I hated having to reveal things about myself to her that I otherwise wouldn’t have shared. Like my family’s financial situation. Fasulo became only the second person I would tell that we were on welfare, that my father and mother had divorced and that he hadn’t made a child support payment since ’78. I had to talk to her about my role in my family as acting first-born child and my responsibilities. It was necessary and humiliating at the same time.

Despite and not because of Fasulo, things worked out for me in the end. Going to Pitt, meeting the people and the professors I’d become friends and colleagues with, was probably one of the best decisions I ever made. Still, I had one parting shot from her in the middle of my junior year at the University of Pittsburgh. It was the holiday season in ’89, and I took time during my time back in Mount Vernon to visit my favorite teacher Harold Meltzer. I had just missed him, but bumped into Fasulo. It was about as fortuitous as having diarrhea and being no where near a toilet or toilet paper.

She asked me where I was in school, and I told her about my considerations for graduate school, law school and the world of work. It was a toss-off sentence, my attempt to end a conversation, not begin one. “Being a lawyer’s hard work,” Fasulo said in response. She then went on to tell me about 70-hour work weeks and billable hours and the bar exam, as if any of this was supposed to be surprising or would somehow scare me. I cut her off, saying “You know, you’re not my counselor anymore, so thanks but no thanks for your advice,” and left her office while she tried to explain her idiotic perspective.

So what’s the lesson here? That we have a strong sense of how to seek wisdom, and from whom, so that we don’t end up going down the wrong rabbit hole in our lives? That short Italian guidance counselors born in the late-1920s have no business advising poor smart Black males? No, the real lesson is that anyone either being paid to advise students or playing that role in some capacity, official or not, has to understand that this isn’t about them, it’s about that student or group of students. When it becomes a way of weeding out students based on some preconception of talent and where that talent fits, that’s when it’s time to seek another job or role, one that doesn’t involve the possibility of damaging someone’s life.

The Entitlement of Privilege

16 Wednesday Sep 2009

Posted by decollins1969 in 1

≈ Leave a comment


Privilege and entitlement. We assume it only applies to people in positions of power or influence. Or that it’s something that rich folks, famous people, professional athletes, musicians, artists, writers, or actors exercise. But from years of observation, I’ve come to understand this. That in a nation as imperial as ours, as rich as ours, as powerful and power hungry as ours, that privilege permeates everything. It’s why our social safety network is so deeply flawed. It’s why universal health is greeting by many as if Armageddon is just around the corner, while the cruelty of American Idol and The Bachelor might as well be manna from heaven. It’s why the allegedly richest nation in the world has mediocre public education, even in its wealthiest school districts. It’s why we can’t walk down the street without being smacked in the face by privilege.

Yes, even walking down the street. Most people in this country don’t even have the decency to say “excuse me” or to move slightly to the side whenever other people approach. Couples act as if there couple-ness gives them the absolute right to take up an entire sidewalk, as if it’s alright for other people to step in mud or out in the street. Groups of folks who think that their numbers give them the right to be oblivious to the rest of the world, forgetting that a public sidewalk is just that. It’s as if others have to beg for the right to exist in order to walk a block in a standard American downtown.

I used to think that this was a racial issue, and it very well may be. But privilege exercised in this manner does cross racial, socioeconomic, even regional barriers. And not just on sidewalks. In getting off elevators or trains, in which people refuse to step to the side and expect you to say “Excuse me” to them in order to get off before they get on. In meetings, where people will cut you out of a conversation if at all possible, as if manners don’t matter at all. From cashiers giving you bills, change and receipt all at once, as if you’re five years old, don’t own a wallet or purse, and are supposed to shuffle off at warp speed so that they can serve the next customer. To people constantly cutting you off in traffic without using turn signals or even hand signs.

So many have written about civility and etiquette as if they only went out the window because the very nature of American culture changed in the good old ’60s, because dissent and rebellion became a common part of it. As a Black male who has been called the N-word in public before, and for all of the other persons of color who’ve experienced far worse, the culture isn’t that much difference in terms of language than it was fifty years ago. What’s different now is that there’s virtually no pretense of manners. This isn’t due to dissent or rebellion. It’s because of privilege. It’s privilege that enables people to lack the simple social skills of politeness, to not say “Excuse me” when they blatantly step on your foot or cut in line.

If this were caused by dissent or rebellion, there’s no way our government could’ve gotten away with the Patriot Act, with the two Gulf Wars, with Iran-Contra or Supply Side Economics, with “mend-it-don’t-end-it” welfare reform or not ratifying the Kyoto Agreement. We’d be more like France or Germany with workers shutting down the country in order to force our government to change. No, the attitudes that most of us exhibit in public are ones of complacency, of the need to get away from as many people as possible. We’d rather drive our cars and talk on the phone than put some music on, watch out for pedestrians and think of the fellow drivers around us. Or walk and window shop in a mall like an oblivious fool as if we’ve phased out of our world and into a parallel one. Or better still, act as if others don’t matter at all.

The sense that the public sphere belongs to them, and them alone, is so common that we only seethe when we actually pick up on these everyday sorts of slights. I’m convinced that the last six decades of American dominance in the world has left us at home with the feeling that no one else’s feelings, ideas, beliefs, theories, and lives matter. It’s why we can be all right with the deaths of 1.7 million Vietnamese in a war of little meaning, but only be heartbroken by the loss of 59,000 Americans. It’s why we can be ho-hum about three million homeless Americans (and growing certainly within the past year) and upset that a stimulus package will keep several hundred thousand Americans from joining them on the streets. It’s why we can avoid a “dangerous neighborhood” with a wink of glee in our eyes and fall apart when one violent crime occurs in a middle class or affluent community, often saying “I never thought that it could happen here.”

I’ve always wondered how Americans (and, for that matter, other Westerners) could be the way that they are in an increasingly interdependent, global, cooperative world. The answer’s been here the whole time. With the end of the Second World War, America was literally half of the world’s economic engine, had the atomic bomb, the world’s second largest army and the largest navy. We were, as they say these days, the shit, and we’ve let the world know if for the past six decades. Like an aging beauty queen, even with the cracks and wrinkles, we act as if we’re still in our prime. We’ve borrowed from China and Saudi Arabia to botox our forehead, to have collagen injected into our lips and cheeks, had liposuction on our midsections and otherwise to keep up appearances. Like every empire of the past, we’ve entered a dangerous phase, a make-or-break period in which our decisions to exercise privilege or to see beyond ourselves could make the difference between a well-fed and good-looking corpse or a nation that understands that the world is not ours, it’s everyone’s.

The oblivious, sheep-like sense of entitlement that we exercise in our everyday interactions is directly tied to how we operate as a nation. We can’t expect one to change without the other changing as well. If we want a government that’s responsive, efficient, and truly bipartisan, then we need to insist on living our lives in a less privileged manner. Otherwise — to quote the artist Sting — for those of us who at least recognize the dangers of privilege, we might as well be “singing in the wind or writing on the surface of a lake” for all our words might matter.

Capo, Mi Capo

14 Monday Sep 2009

Posted by decollins1969 in 1

≈ 2 Comments



I’ve learned so much over the years about mediocrity, authority and leadership that I should be about as jaded as a Buddhist statue. Yet I sometimes still find myself shocked when I encounter people in leadership positions who may be incompetent, but who are definitely jaded and borderline sadistic. Among those who’ve disappointed me the most are educational administrators — deans and department chairs, advisers and guidance counselors. No one, though, was more shocking to listen to than my high school principal, Richard Capozzola.

My first day of high school was one that introduced me to the reality of self-fulfilling prophecies and the damage that low expectations can do. On a day in which we were beginning Humanities at the high school level, our principal announced over the PA system that the freshman class was to assemble in the auditorium. It was third period, the first of two study hall periods for me, so I saw this as an opportunity to learn more about MVHS. Our principal, Mr. Richard Capozzola, was welcoming our incoming class to high school. He was an old-looking man in his late-forties, I guessed, balding but doing the comb-over thing to cover his hairless middle. This was before he went the toupée route. He was short, like most of the Italian administrators, wore a bushy mustache and generally acted as if he were a warden instead of the chief administrator for an educational institution. After welcoming us, Capozzola said, “There are 1,075 of you here today. Four years from now, only half of you will graduate” from MVHS.

My mouth fell open, and not just because of what he said. I couldn’t believe that someone whose job it was to make sure as many students received the best possible education would assume that only half of his students were capable of finishing high school. For a moment I thought what Capozzola said was for effect. But the look on his face and the words that followed said it all. Capozzola talked about “discipline” and “behavior,” “detention,” “suspension” and “expulsion” throughout the rest of his speech. Nothing about grades or test scores, Regents exams or graduation. The only message he was trying to send was that he’d prefer if the students who didn’t plan on graduating dropped out by the end of the day. If I’d been a student who had struggled academically and socially before high school, that’s the message I would’ve taken with me out of the auditorium that day. Instead I was pissed with Capozzola and anyone who thought that this was the way to make students feel at home. It felt racist, considering the school was about three-quarters Black, Afro-Caribbean and Hispanic by then.

I also had two run-ins with my Capozzola in April ’87, a couple of months before I graduated from MVHS. It was a day in which I managed to escape my AP Physics class and was awarded a small college scholarship. I was about to find out how quickly life can turn full circle.

That morning, I already had survived one confrontation with “Capo.” I was standing outside the school waiting for the doors to open to start the day, like I had for the past four years. I had my Walkman on as usual, when Capozzola walked up to me and demanded that I turn it off and take it off.

“No, I don’t have to do that,” I said.

“What did you say?,” the balding, rug-wearing runt said to me in response.

“I’m well within my rights. I have headphones, which is all that sign requires,” I said, pointing at the various “No”s sign of what MVHS prohibited on its grounds. A Walkman with headphones wasn’t on the list. I continued.

“The first bell hasn’t rung, and I’m outside of the school building, and you have no right to tell me to turn my Walkman off.”

“You and me better not cross paths anytime soon,” Capozzola said, slightly flustered by my barrage and turning pinker by the second, before walking through the front doors and then to his office.

“Capo” and his crack security team made every effort to punish us for any misdeed. By ’86-’87, this included tardiness for getting from one class to another. We had five minutes to get from one class to another on a twenty-three acre, two-story building and campus. Because students would take more than five minutes to arrive to class, Capozzola, Carappella and company created a random “sweeps” policy. At random times each day, the security staff would lock down various parts of the school, temporarily trapping students who hadn’t made it to their next class on time. The guards would then “sweep” up the miscreants, who’d either end up in detention or, depending on their frequency of being caught by the guards, suspended from school.

That afternoon, I left AP Physics for Division E principal Dr. Zollicoffer’s office, one of the few Blacks in authority at MVHS. He was a very tall and big man, at least six-four, and well over two hundred and forty pounds. He apparently had been aware of my existence for the past four years. In his gravely, football-player-like voice, said, “The Afro-Caribbean Club has decided to honor your achievements with dinner and a $500 scholarship.” I sat there, completely shocked. I hadn’t heard of this club, barely knew who Zollicoffer was, and hadn’t been expecting anyone to give me a scholarship, at least not anyone from Mount Vernon. He spent the next few minutes chatting me up about how significant a person I was to the Black and Afro-Caribbean communities in Mount Vernon, my responsibility to “give back” to “my people,” about where I was going to college and what my major would be, and so on.

The period-ending bell had rung and students had been shuffling through the hallways by the time he gave me the chance to say “Thank you. Thank you very much!” and leave. I ran through the hallway and around the building to get my stuff from AP Physics, and proceeded to the gym on the other side of the school when the second bell rang. At that point, I was about eighty feet from the gym, and trapped between two gates.

The guards escorted me to Capozzola’s office, who immediately smirked at this turn of events. Even though this was my first offense, he wanted to make an example of me.

“I can make it so that you’re not only suspended, you won’t graduate with your class,” Capozzola said.

“I was in Dr. Zollicoffer’s office and on my way to gym when the sweep happened. You can ask him yourself,” I said.

Reluctantly, Capozzola picked up the phone and called his Division E principal, who I heard laughing on the other end of the phone at one point, as Zollicoffer explained that I’d been awarded a small scholarship.

“You can go, but I’ve got my eye on you now,” he said, almost with a sigh, after he hung up the phone. I was smart enough not to say anything else in return. But my sarcastic smile probably said it all.

The last time I saw Capozzola was little more than a year later. I was on one of my meandering walks lost in thought about what I needed to do to find a summer job, during my unemployed summer of ’88, when I bumped into my former principal at the corner of North Columbus and Euclid. The toupée was gone, as was his prison warden swagger. Capozzola recognized me immediately and stopped me to talk. He apparently had been forced to resign as principal. Of course, he said that he was burned out trying to save the school. I don’t remember much else. I was in college now, in between my freshman and sophomore year, and listening to an a-hole go on and on about his trials and tribulations. To say the least, I didn’t feel sorry for him.

But I have thought about that conversation in recent years, with all the work I’ve been a part of around K-16 education reform, about how teachers and principals experience burnout, often never to recover. At least most of them know that it’s time to go when that happens. Maybe Capozzola was a great principal or teacher once. Somehow I doubt that. What I do know is that thousands of students attending MVHS never had a chance to become decent students or graduate, thanks to his leadership. That’s the damnable part about having someone like Capo in a crucial leadership position.

President Obama and The Rules of Racial Standing

10 Thursday Sep 2009

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, Boy @ The Window, Eclectic, Patriotism, Politics, Pop Culture, race, Religion

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Birthers, Conservatives, Contradictions, Derrick A. Bell, Derrick Bell, Faces at the Bottom of the Well, POTUS, POTUS 44, President Barack Obama, Race, Rep. Joe Wilson, Rules of Racial Standing


President Barack Obama has a problem. And no, it’s not just emotionlessness, or fringe evangelical conservatives, or his attempts at universal health care. President Obama’s problem is the same one that every person of at least some African descent faces in America. His problem: The Rules of Racial Standing.

Of course, President Obama should know what I’m talking about. After all, he studied under the author of these rules while at Harvard Law, the one and only Derrick Bell. Bell, a two-time New York Times bestselling author in his own right, devoted a chapter in Faces at the Bottom of the Well to these unofficial Rules of Racial Standing. Bell’s point: that few– if any — of those of African descent have the legal, political or social standing necessary to address deeply divisive issues such as race. At least, without being considered irrational and discountable. Below is my summary of Bell’s Rules of Racial Standing, as published in my Radical Society piece “Rules to Live By”:

First Rule
(“Rule of Illegitimate Standing”) …No matter their experience or expertise, Blacks’ statements involving race are deemed “special pleading” and thus not entitled to serious consideration.

Second Rule
(“Rule of Legitimate Standing”) Not only are Blacks’ complaints discounted, but Black victims of racism are less effective witnesses than are Whites, who are members of the oppressor class. This phenomenon reflects a widespread assumption that…cannot be objective on racial issues…

Third Rule
(“Rule of Enhanced Standing”) …The usual exception…is the Black person who publicly disparages or criticizes other Blacks who are speaking or acting in ways that upset Whites. Instantly, such statements are granted “enhanced standing” even when the speaker has no special expertise or experience in the subject he or she is criticizing.

Fourth Rule
(“Rule of Superenhanced Standing”) When a Black person or group makes a statement or takes an action that the White community or vocal opponents thereof deem “outrageous,” the latter will actively recruit Blacks willing to refute the statement or condemn the action. Blacks who respond to the call for condemnation will receive superstanding status…

Fifth Rule
(“Rule of Prophetic Understanding”) …Using this knowledge, one gains the gift of prophecy about racism, its essence, its goals, even its remedies. The price of this knowledge is the frustration that…that no amount of public prophecy, no matter its accuracy, can either repeal the Rules of Racial Standing or prevent their operation.

There are exceptions to these rules, such as when a prominent Black throws other Blacks under the proverbial bus in a way that is consistent with the views of a majority of Whites, or at least, conservatives regardless of race and ethnicity. Or by having someone White or of legitimate standing vouch for his or her otherwise controversial views. These rules not only apply in a legal proceeding. They have found their way into every corner of American culture and politics.

With President Obama, we have a living contradiction of Bell’s Rules of Racial Understanding. Not only is he technically multiracial yet considered by himself and others as Black. Obama holds the most powerful political office in the world, maybe in the history of the world. On most matters he has standing the equivalent of the Sun when compared with the Earth. But because Obama’s also Black, he also lacks sufficient standing on the most controversial issues of our age. Anything involving race, racial bias, prejudice, religion, the growing socioeconomic divide, terrorism, American patriotism, civil liberties, or social justice is potentially toxic for Obama. While being president gives him standing few on the world stage could imagine — much less enjoy, being African American dilutes Obama’s standing at the same time.

And we have neo-conservatives like Limbaugh and Palin — and as of last night, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) — evangelicals, and much more obvious bigots that remind us of this rather interesting contradiction every week, if not every day. Birthers declaring that Obama is an illegitimate president we allegedly haven’t seen his birth certificate. Folks accusing him and Congress of creating “death panels” for the elderly as a way to pay for universal health care. Madmen bringing guns to town halls or hoarding guns because they believe that Obama’s the anti-Christ. The last time I believed that about anyone was when I was eleven years old, and just about as naive about the world as the fully-grown nuts rolling around now.

To say that this has nothing to do with race or Bell’s Rules is to suggest that many of us are so narcissistic that we can conjure up denial at will. But it’s not just Whites or conservatives (or, rather, neo-reactionaries) who can knee-jerk themselves into nonsensical “it’s not about race” answers. Obama and his administration have done the same thing. They’ve treated the political discourse and discord of the past eight months mostly with academia-like silence. Great if one’s attempting to rise up the White male-dominated corporate ladder or trying to get tenure at a predominantly White university. Not so great if you’re the President of the United States. Obama either sees himself as T’Pol or Spock, a logical, emotionless Vulcan. Or he’s taking cues from Michael Douglass’ character in The American President. Both of which communicate a certain degree of cynicism about his opposition and the American electorate in general.

Does this mean that Obama can’t be post-racial, or overcome the thinly-veiled racial, pro-business and anti-intellectual proclivities of his opponents? Does this mean that Bell’s Rules of Racial Standing could place a stranglehold on his presidency? Only if Obama and those who support him take a pessimistic approach to governing and social justice. Despite all the wackos out there, the yellow-journalism that is offered up to the public, and our own hysteria about the decline of our once great nation, Obama has an opportunity. He holds the keys to the kingdom, something that wasn’t supposed to happen until I reached retirement age three decades from now.

This is where Bell’s Fifth Rule on Prophetic Understanding becomes important. Without an understanding that effort on the most gut-wrenching issues is necessary, even if it results in a loss. Otherwise, there would no need for an understanding of the first four rules in the first place. Maybe that’s what has been lacking in Obama for the past five months, at least until yesterday. That sense that striving and struggle — risk-taking — is needed out of our leadership, even when that leadership flies in the face of what is comforting and familiar to most, whether it be shameless supporters or venomous opponents. Hopefully, Obama will do more than give speeches and issue communiques in dealing with Bell’s Rules so that we can truly have change that we can believe in.

← Older posts

Boy @ The Window: A Memoir

Boy @ The Window: A Memoir

Places to Buy/Download Boy @ The Window

There's a few ways in which you can read excerpts of, borrow and/or purchase and download Boy @ The Window. There's the trade paperback edition of Boy @ The Window, available for purchase via Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Window-Donald-Earl-Collins/dp/0989256138/

There's also a Kindle edition on Amazon.com. The enhanced edition can be read only with Kindle Fire, an iPad or a full-color tablet. The links to the enhanced edition through Apple's iBookstore and the Barnes & Noble NOOK edition are below. The link to the Amazon Kindle version is also immediately below:

scr2555-proj697-a-kindle-logo-rgb-lg

Boy @ The Window on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-The-Window-Memoir-ebook/dp/B00CD95FBU/

iBookstore-logo-300x100

Boy @ The Window on Apple's iBookstore: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/boy-the-window/id643768275?ls=1

Barnes & Noble (bn.com) logo, June 26, 2013. (http://www.logotypes101.com).

Boy @ The Window on Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/boy-the-window-donald-earl-collins/1115182183?ean=2940016741567

You can also add, read and review Boy @ The Window on Goodreads.com. Just click on the button below:

Boy @ The Window

Twitter Updates

  • RT @rachelvscott: Jackson residents are still fighting for access to clean & safe water. So where do things stand with millions of dollars… 2 hours ago
  • RT @ASALH: John Bracey has joined the ancestors. It is with great sadness that we acknowledge the passing of Dr. John Bracey, an ASALH lege… 6 hours ago
  • RT @equalityAlec: I have just published the final part in my series on how the media helps cops frame their own failures and violence in a… 6 hours ago
  • RT @reneeygraham: .@cbssunday did a story about K-pop and cited New Kids on the Block, the Spice Girls, and One Direction as influences, bu… 16 hours ago
  • RT @profgabrielle: It’s time for #legacyadmissions and #bigdonor bake sales. Full pay students at universities often get preferential admi… 1 day ago
  • RSS - Posts
  • RSS - Comments

Archives

  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007

Blogroll

  • Kimchi and Collard Greens
  • Thinking Queerly: Schools, politics and culture
  • Website for My First Book and Blog
  • WordPress.com

Recent Comments

Eliza Eats on The Poverty of One Toilet Bowl…
decollins1969 on The Tyranny of Salvation
Khadijah Muhammed on The Tyranny of Salvation

NetworkedBlogs on Facebook

NetworkedBlogs
Blog:
Notes From a Boy @ The Window
Topics:
My Life, Culture & Education, Politics & Goofyness
 
Follow my blog

616 616 East Lincoln Avenue A.B. Davis Middle School Abuse Academia Academy for Educational Development AED Afrocentricity American Narcissism Authenticity Bigotry Blackness Boy @ The Window Carnegie Mellon University Child Abuse Class of 1987 CMU Coping Strategies Crush #1 Crush #2 Death Disillusionment Diversity Domestic Violence Economic Inequality Education Family Friendship Friendships Graduate School Hebrew-Israelites High-Stakes Testing Higher Education History Homelessness Humanities Humanities Program Hypocrisy Internalized Racism Jealousy Joe Trotter Joe William Trotter Jr. K-12 Education Love Manhood Maurice Eugene Washington Maurice Washington Misogyny Mother-Son Relationship Mount Vernon High School Mount Vernon New York Mount Vernon public schools Multiculturalism MVHS Narcissism NFL Pitt Pittsburgh Politics of Education Poverty President Barack Obama Race Racial Stereotypes Racism Relationships Self-Awareness Self-Discovery Self-Reflection Sexism Social Justice Teaching and Learning University of Pittsburgh Violence Whiteness Writing

Top Rated

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Notes from a Boy @ The Window
    • Join 103 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Notes from a Boy @ The Window
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar