This essay was my first assignment for my Writing Studio 205 class. It is an argument paper. The main topic of our course this Spring 93 semester has been work, and my essay deals with the American Dream as it pertains to blacks. I believe that America's educational system is in deep trouble and the brunt of the effect of deterioration of the educational system will be felt by blacks and other people of color. Quality education is a precursor to success in the workplaces of America. There is such competition for jobs that it not only matters where you go to college, but also high school as well. This lack of quality education in America agitates me, and I wrote this essay to vent my frustrations with America and inform people ignorant of important aspects of black America of the truth. This essay is very important to me, and I hope that others will understand the importance of addressing the educational system in America, so young blacks like myself will not have to write any more essays about the effects of ignoring the problem.
Welcome to Madison Square Garden. Today we will discuss the "American Dream" from different perspectives in America. Our first speaker will be Monique Pitts. Please welcome her.
"The Myth of Sisyphus" parallels the lack of an "American Dream" in black America. In " The Myth Of Sisyphus, " Albert Camus describes the tragedy of Sisyphus, forever punished by the gods to push a rock up a mountain, watch the rock roll down the mountain, and then push it up the mountain again. His plight reminds me of an aerobic workout tape. . .
" One! Now push that rock up that mountain! Two! Now watch it roll back down! Three! Now push it up again! C'mon Sisyphus! I don't see you pushing!"
In the words of Camus, "there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor."
The "American Dream" is still alive for white Americans. They still dream of large houses, big paychecks, and hard work leading to a comfortable retirement. However, like an animal battling to fight extinction, the "American Dream" is on its last breath in black America . . .
" Uh, you know that stuff we told you about apple pie and equal opportunity, spacious skies and rags to riches and making more money than your parents did? Well, uh, we forgot to tell you something. That was only supposed to apply to white people."
Does the "American Dream" really exist in the black community or do blacks labor under the false impression that our lives will be better in the future? Am I wasting my time paying for a degree from college in a country where I have to put my skin color on every form I sign my name to?
Sisyphus intrigues Camus because he questions Sisyphus' thoughts about his fate.
" At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in the sight pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which becomes his fate, created by him, combined under his memory's eye and soon sealed by his death."
As Sisyphus returns to his rock, does he question his fate? Unlike blacks in America, Sisyphus created his own fate. Sisyphus is aware that he will labor in futility until the end of time. He is not under any false impressions that the gods will call his punishment off because of good behavior. He knows his fate and has accepted it. Do blacks also labor in futility, hoping that someone will go back and change history? Sisyphus accepts the rock as his future. This absurd form of acceptance is the only thing that keeps Sisyphus from going crazy. He is superior to his fate because he survives despite it.
Do blacks in America also accept their fate? Are we living under a veil of hope that one day America will become that word that everyone loves to throw around, colorblind? Are we even conscious of our fate? Did the " American Dream" ever exist for us, or did we just believe that things had to get better because they couldn't possibly get any worse? Leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. believed in the "American Dream" and inspired millions of blacks to believe in it also. He believed that hard work in America could pay off for Blacks just as it did for whites. The generation that grew up listening to Martin Luther King, Jr. is the most successful group of blacks in the history of America. Was that success fueled by a desire to attain the "American Dream" or just by plain hard work? This question is one of the utmost importance.
Benjamin Franklin wrote that "Laziness travels so slowly, that poverty soon overtakes him" and "Diligence is the mother of good luck, and God gives all things to industry." In other words, if you work hard and are not lazy, you will not be poor. Furthermore, hard work dictates good luck in America. Franklin was one of America's founding fathers. The people looked to him for guidance. Was he telling the truth? Who worked harder for America than black people? Who worked harder in America than black people? I don't believe that Franklin was targeting the black audience when he wrote these words to live by. In Franklin's time, blacks weren't even seen considered human beings. Whites thought they were doing black people a favor by allowing them to pick their cotton and build their railroads. I believe "civilizing the niggers" was the catch phrase back then . . .
WHITE PERSON IN 1780: " These barbarians need to learn to live civilized. Edward, hand me the chains and the rope. We're giving the niggers chance to live and work in America. America is so much better than that Godforsaken Africa. One could even envision the day the niggers learn to read and write. Of course that would never be in my lifetime."
BLACK PERSON IN 1993: "Thank you so much white people. How could I ever repay you? I now live in a country where I'm considered stupid, ignorant, and inferior just because my ancestors lived near the equator and needed protection from the sun. Now, I'm not even accepted in Africa because I'm not considered a real African. Again, I really cannot thank you enough."
The only work that gives blacks notoriety or is deemed worthy by whites is anything in the athletic or entertainment industries. How many commercials or shows are there on network television with Black business people in them? I can count the number on my hands with fingers to spare. Black Entertainment Television (BET) is a black owned and operated cable network which programs specifically for blacks because of the deficiency of quality shows with blacks on network television. That means I have to pay for cable television each month just to see black people engaged in something other than singing, dancing, playing sports, telling jokes, having babies, selling drugs, going to jail, or killing each other. Mainstream America has also convinced blacks and whites that blacks will only succeed in America is they can sing, dance, or play a sport. In other words, entertain the white folks.
This message that entertainment or athletics provide the only way for a good life is cemented in the black community. Our "American Dream" entails that we be able to dribble a ball or hold a note for twenty seconds. That's the only way a black person is ever going to make it in this country legally. And if you do something illegal, you're going to jail for the rest of your life. Entertainment or athletics. That's the only way to go. Those are the only black people valued in America. "Forget Barbara Jordan, I want to meet Michael Jordan." College will get you nowhere. In the times of slavery, slaves were not allowed to go to school because white people didn't think school served any type of purpose for slaves. Now blacks go to school, but there is no guarantee of success in the workplace.
The black people that don't have a talent or can't afford college are faced with an even larger problem. They do the jobs that are devalued in America. They are the people who clean up offices or work minimum wage jobs. Where is the dream now? I'm working eight hours a day cleaning up behind people and making minimum wage. That's not a dream. It's a nightmare. People can work hard their entire lives and still be poor because they work at jobs which are not valued by others. As America immerses itself completely into modern technology, David Cohn warns us that "... we must make work truly dignified...in the sense of evaluating a man for what he is and his usefulness to society rather than by his clothes or his occupation." Many white Americans work menial jobs also, but if a poll were taken of who would be most likely to be a maintenance worker, most would say a black or person of color. Plato once said that " every man [should be] set free from all other occupations to do, at the right time, the one thing for which he is naturally fitted." Does that mean that the black maintenance worker's fate is to labor for minimum wage? For him, the "American Dream" couldn't have ever existed. Sisyphus would call this man a fool for denying the existence of his fate. In America we are taught to believe that if you work hard, you can do anything. No one is relegated to a job for their entire lives.
Do we live in a country where everyone is said to have equal opportunity when in reality only some have it? Am I really able to do anything I want and be all I can be? There are jobs in America that no black person has ever held, like Treasury Secretary or Chairman of the Defense Department. There is only one black governor in the United States. How many people even know who he is? Franklin was not talking about blacks when he made his speeches about how to succeed in America, but are blacks still excluded in similar speeches today? This realization of the hypocrisy of America is what drives many young blacks into illegal business.
One such illegal business that white America loves to glorify in the black community is drug dealing. Contrary to popular belief, the majority of black drug dealers are high school graduates. Some have even gone to or are in college. The problem is that college is expensive and time consuming. In America, we are taught that anything worthwhile takes time. Well, tell that to people living in the projects on welfare who can barely afford to live day to day. There are many drug dealers who are not poor, but are enticed by the prospect of quick money. What do you tell these young people ? Go to college for four years or more and maybe, if you're lucky, your boss won't be racist and he'll let you earn thirty thousand dollars a year by the time you're thirty five. That doesn't sound too exciting to me. It makes me want to leave college, myself. Many people sell drugs because it is reality to them. Realistically, they know they won't be able to afford college for four years and they don't want to work at McDonald's because they feel that they are too intelligent for that. Drug selling is their way out of the poorhouse and into the mansion.
Malcolm X's "by any means necessary" has more relevance today than at any other time in history of Blacks in America. Blacks are tired of being oppressed in America and they are fighting back against the establishment any way they can. Most of these young people have a firm grip on reality. They are not in a dream world. They don't dream that things will get better. They'd don't believe in the "American Dream." How could they? They see everyone else succeeding but them. The "American Dream" was built on the back of Black people. While the slaves were building the country, the whites could sit and produce such writings as Franklin's "The Way to Wealth."
I don't believe in the "American Dream." I never have. How could I possibly believe in something that I can't relate to? I grew up in a Black neighborhood. From kindergarten through seventh grade, I went to predominantly Black schools. I didn't live in a bad neighborhood, but there were drug addicts, drug dealers, murders. These things are all part of growing up in a large city. On television, I learned that America was all about large houses, two cars in the driveway, vacations in the summertime, parents that don't get divorced, no unemployment, grandparents that live in the country, etc. Where was this America in my life? Some people I know would be happy just to find a job, let alone one better than their parents'. My parents didn't buy a car until I was in the ninth grade. I lived in an apartment for fourteen years. For the first five years of my life, my trip to grandmother's house was a short walk across the hall. My parents grew up in East Baltimore and spent their teen years in Flaghouse Projects (The house where Betsy Ross sewed the first American flag is in the middle of the projects. How ironic?). This was my America. I thought everyone lived like me. I saw nothing wrong with my life until I came into contact with white kids my age and compared their lives to my own. That's when I realized that something was wrong. Our lives were drastically different. How could sixteen year olds have cars that my grown, employed parents couldn't afford? When I went to a predominantly white, private school in the eighth grade, like Sisyphus I realized my fate as a Black person in a white world.
I believe that my parents' generation is the last generation to live comfortably off blue collar labor. No longer can you earn fifty thousand dollars a year working at General Motors, as two of my father's siblings and a sister-in-law do. They didn't go to college. There was no need to go to college. A high school diploma and a will to work was all that was needed. My grandfather worked as a baker for the Giant Supermarket chain for twenty years and now lives comfortably off his retirement pension. My grandmother worked for the Lerner clothing chain for twenty five years and now enjoys her retirement. They have not had great lives, but now they are able to enjoy their remaining years after struggling for sixty plus years. There was no dream in their lives, only the desire for a better life and the will to make sure they got one.
My generation of blacks face a tough task. In America, you are not a valued member of society if you don't wear a suit and tie or heels to work everyday. A high school diploma has as much value as a penny in America today. A college degree is necessary for entry level positions that didn't require a high school diploma twenty years ago. No matter how many statistics are hurled at the public concerning increased minority enrollment in college, the reality is that most of the people receiving degrees from colleges on graduation day will be white. When one Black person goes to college, many times one hundred are left behind. Some can afford to take community college courses here and there, but community colleges are not cheap, either. What are they to do? Maybe McDonald's is hiring. Maybe if they save money, they can afford to go to college by the time they're forty. That doesn't sound like the American dream to me. How am I supposed to make more money than my parents and have a better life than they did when I can't even move out on my own because I don't have a job, have no skills, and a useless piece of paper sitting on the mantle in the living room? Just being in college does not satisfy me. When I'm at home, my college enrollment means nothing. It doesn't get me through supermarket check-out lines any quicker. People don't chant my name. Folks don't want to take my picture. Most people I know don't even realize that I'm in my second year of college. They think I've been missing for the past two years. I pay six dollars instead of nine dollars at my favorite club every Friday night because I have a college ID. That's the only dividend that college affords me in Baltimore.
There is no American Dream for me. There is only reality. I acknowledge my fate as a person forever classified and judged in America by the color of my skin. I don't accept this fate, but I'm not going to waste my life trying to be accepted by white people. Maybe I should stop every white person I see and show them my Syracuse ID or my high school graduation picture from Roland Park Country School, one of the best private college preparatory schools in the nation. But that would be doing a disservice to myself. Just as Sisyphus didn't show spite towards the gods for punishing him, I will not allow the history of America to deter me from fulfilling my own dreams of success. Blacks do not labor in this country in vain, but there is no "American Dream' for us. We work so that our position in the country can get better. Each day is a challenge that we take head on, aware of the obstacles that face us, but not fearing them. We are Sisyphus, facing his rock again, smiling because we have come this far despite America's efforts to keep us down. We are superior to our fate because we survive despite it. Thank you.
Thank you, Monique. And now please welcome our next speaker, Yong Sing Yu...