http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/04/desean_jackson_richard_sherman_and_black_american_economic_mobility_why.html?wpisrc=obnetwork
Many of the circumstances mentioned in the article can go beyond "black and white".
But let's start with the following.
“We didn’t run from where we grew up. We aren’t afraid to be associated with the people who came up with us.”
That’s Richard Sherman of the Seattle Seahawks writing in defense of his friend, DeSean Jackson, who was cut from the Philadelphia Eagles amid reports of gang ties. Sherman isn’t trying to litigate the allegations or exonerate Jackson—he doesn’t know the details. But he doesn’t think it’s wrong for Jackson to associate with the men from his childhood.
And why would it be? Yes, some of them have criminal records—and for some, that includes gang activity—but leaving home is hard, and the social distance of wealth makes it even harder. As Sherman writes, “In desperate times for people who come from desperate communities, your friends become your family. I wouldn’t expect DeSean to ‘distance himself’ from anybody, as so many people suggest pro athletes ought to do despite having no understanding of what that means.”
These circumstances aren't limited to African-Americans. These circumstances are common to anyone who grew up in the ghetto.
I grew up in Kalihi, where are multiple public housing complexes, all built to serve low-income families. I grew up in one of the smaller, lesser-known public housing complexes Lanakila (officially called Puahala Homes, but come on...... only bureaucrats call it that).
If you grow up in such communities, guaranteed you will be going to elementary school with kids who end up joining gangs and sentenced to prison.
To the people who didn't grow up in the inner city, they see "all gang members are a menace". To those of us who grew up in the inner city, we remember them as classmates who made us laugh back at elementary school. We remember them as kids we walked with on the way home from school. We remember them from before they started the life of drugs, alcohol, gang rivalries and prison sentences.
This is what Richard Sherman was referring to when he mentioned how hard it is for NFL players (and NBA players too) to distance themselves from childhood friends who are in a gang.
Now, as time goes by, you do get distanced from former classmates.
But if my elementary classmates who became gang-affiliated sees me in public, I'll be like "what's up homie, I haven't seen you in a long time". I'm not greeting them as "gang member", I'm greeting them as former classmates from elementary school, or former residents of our childhood community!
Now obviously, if they want to invite to "go drinking", "smoke some weed" or some other illegal activity, I'll just tell them "no thanks", and remind them that I got real-life adult responsibilities I have to take care of.
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Now, back to the article I mentioned earlier
I don’t know if Sherman sees it or not—my hunch is that he does—but in a few sentences, he’s put his finger on the pulse of something overlooked in our discussions of poverty and economic mobility as they relate to black Americans: neighborhood. Sherman’s experience of being pulled back to a poor neighborhood, even as he accumulates wealth, is common among blacks.The difference for ordinary black Americans, as opposed to NFL stars, is that this has been a powerful driver of downward mobility. Just a quick comparison of black and white neighborhoods is enough to illustrate the particular challenges that face black families as they reach for middle class, or try to keep their position.The key fact is this: Even after you adjust for income and education, black Americans are more likely than any other group to live in neighborhoods with substantial pockets of poverty.
and
It’s tempting to attribute this to the income disparity between blacks and whites. Since blacks are more likely to be poor, it stands to reason that they’re more likely to live in poor neighborhoods. But the fact of large-scale neighborhood poverty holds true for higher-income black Americans as well. Middle-class blacks are far more likely than middle-class whites to live in areas with significant amounts of poverty. Among today’s cohort of middle- and upper-class blacks, about half were raised in neighborhoods of at least 20 percent poverty. Only 1 percent of today’s middle- and upper-class whites can say the same.In short, if you took two children—one white, one black—and gave them parents with similar jobs, similar educations, and similar values, the black child would be much more likely to grow up in a neighborhood with higher poverty, worse schools, and more violence.
While the article compares Americans of European and African ancestries, it goes beyond "black and white".
It mentioned about middle-income African-Americans who haven't left the ghetto even though they could afford to move out.
Some people might have a hard time understanding that. But I think I know why.
For those who never lived in the inner-city, they think that "ghettos are scary". After all, that's how it's portrayed on TV.
For those of us who grew up in the ghetto, we don't just see the ghetto as a "scary place", it's our childhood home.
We have some good childhood memories from the place, had some uncles & aunties (not always genetically-related) in the hood , know all the mom & pop stores....... so even if we don't like the drugs and violence, we see something more than that!
I remember back in middle school, when I invited a friend to visit my home in Lanakila Housing, he got creeped out when he saw the graffitti on the wall. He asked me "is this a dangerous neighborhood?"
My brother told me he had the same experience when he invited some middle school friends to our house.
(by the way, that middle school -Kawananakoa - had a mix of ghetto kids from Lanakila, as well as upper-class kids from Alewa, Nuuanu, Pacific Heights. How's that for a clash of cultures?)
But for me, Lanakila Housing wasn't some scary place to avoid.
It was where, as a kid, I spent a lot of time just bouncing a ball in the backyard, not really to practice a sport, but just to bounce a ball. It was where I enjoyed watching the rain make the backyard look like a swamp. It was where the neighbors used to greet me and my family. It was where my neighbors expressed pride when I won the elementary school's Geography Bee. It was where my grandma was also living, giving us access to oral history of Hawaii's past. It was where my mother grew up. It was where I used to sit on the backyard bench and chill. It was where I used to be inside, read books, listen to radio and just chill.
Does that sound scary to you?
Of course, the hood also had its alcoholics and drug addicts, domestic abuse cases, graffiti, gang members walking around drunk at night, and extremely loud house parties that kept neighbors awake.
But the hood was more than just that!
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Unfortunately, my parents were making too much income to stay in Lanakila Housing. My mom was working in the bank, my dad was rising in the construction industry. After all, the complex was for "low-income" people.
And yes, I did say "Unfortunately, my parents were making too much income to stay in Lanakila Housing."
To me, the hood wasn't some "scary place to avoid", it was the land of my childhood memories.
My parents had to move. Unfortunately, they wanted to "buy a house" (really: be a sucker who allowed themselves to be stuck with a mortgage) in some suburb in another side of the island.
Duck Fat!
At first, my parents moved me out there. I have never forgiven my parents for that decision!
(I would've been much much more forgiving if they just found a place to rent nearby, which wasn't that hard to find)
Fortunately, my grandma sticked around the neighborhood. She lived there for decades, it's definitely much more than a "ghetto" for her, it was home.
Fortunately for me, I was able to finish my high school career living with my grandma back in Lanakila Housing, instead of staying in a sucker suburb (trust me, I had much more offensive words to say about the suburbs than that)!
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So, it's not much mystery why some rappers and athletes still praise their childhood ghetto, even though they now make more $$$$$ than your average suburban resident.
Because to the rappers, athletes and your normal working person who grew up in the ghetto, the ghetto is more than just a scary place to avoid. It is a land of childhood memories, it is where they made wonderful memories with their friends, where they had neighbors who were like uncles and aunties, where they visited all the stores and had adventures in the park
So even though many of us grew up and got legal incomes that put us in the middle class, we can't just brush away our ghetto past. Nor do we want to!
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Also, it's not much mystery why the Somali teenager was hiding in the airplane while trying to find a way back to Somalia. To him, Somalia is more than just "land of wars and famine" as is commonly portrayed in the US media. To him, it was his childhood home. I'm sure he had fun memories with childhood friends there, some great adventures that the average suburban American person can't relate to. Plus, he still have family there. I can't blame him.
He was young, displaced and frustrated, and he wanted nothing more than to reunite with his mother in their native Africa.
The 15-year-old Somali boy had been arguing at home, and in the kind of impulsive move that teenagers make, he hopped a fence at San Jose International Airport on April 20 and clambered into a wheel well of a Hawaii-bound jetliner.
He survived the trip, and he has not spoken publicly about the ordeal.
But his desperation and frustration — borne from a life in a new country and new culture, all of it without his mother — is becoming apparent through interviews with friends, family and law enforcement agents.
The boy is "struggling adjusting to life in this country," his father, Abdulahi Yusuf, said in a statement issued Sunday through the Council on American-Islamic Relations' San Francisco Bay Area chapter.
