Gang Leader for a day

So far I have only read part of this new story we have. Yet I find the majority of the story so far to be repetitive. Ever since we were in school our teachers have been teaching us about black history as well as the social divide between whites and blacks. Then as always we read a short story always involving some character who is courageous and goes out to venture the other side of the social ladder what is now come to be called the ghetto. Following this short story is a class discusion on what we think the story means and how we could improve the situation in real life. Yet from what I see I notice no effort once our class discussion is over to try to change the current situation. Even though we spent about a half hour discussing and making fake promises to our teachers how we would try to change the situation. It is no doubt that the divide between whites and blacks even today still stands as a major problem. But if I started to go into that debate it would be another lecture of one we've all heard before. However, lets open up our eyes to the bigger problem.

The way we think is that life goes on as it should be, we figure in our minds that the lower classmen must have done something to deserve their poverty and the upperclassmen overall work hard to achieve their great sucsesses. How does that type of thinking occur? It starts with overall judgement of others. For example, if a person continuously fails their classes we see them not having a very sucsessful career. Or if a person tells thier peers that they are not going to college after highschool they recieve wierd and dissaproving looks. Yet the reality is that some people are born into the unsucessful lifestyles, and they are raised and brought up in a way that we would never even think to come close to being appropriate.

My freind in upstate New York lives in a very small town with a population of 200. In the middle of the woods in other words. I just had a conversation with her and the discussion of gays came up. She failed to see where calling people gay was morally wrong. Yet when I thought about it, I realized that she is so disconnected with the outside world that she doesnt know any better. She thinks that this is the only way to go about life. Same goes for the lowerclassmen. Their surroundings prevent them from exploration of the outside world, and they think killing and drug dealing is acceptable. Which is what draws the more privlaged back, leaning us towards the direction of staying away from them. Thus creating this big social gap between the two.