What America Can Learn from a Black Girl Named "Precious"
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire is one of the best films I've seen in a long time, and one of the few in mainstream theaters that dares deal with the legacy that slavery created.
Obviously, that connection isn't made in the film. But if you know your history, the thread is clear. Her life is the product of generations of oppression, bigotry, and neglect which explodes into a rage without an outlet. So it is internalized. It's a force that can turn a mother into a monster. Sadly, the monster is us.
By us, I mean systems of government that continue to fail black and brown people: our schools, courts, so-called aid agencies. As we see in this film, generational welfare turns will into complacency, self-worth into deflated souls. And it's journalists, the people who write the first draft of history, who were surprised by the poverty revealed by Katrina.
I hope people who see the film will connect those dots. It's time for atonement and to lift people in this situation with education and love. Precious's teacher, the aptly named Blu Rain, represents the difference we could make if we stop the judging and blaming and nurture those at the bottom of our society.
I wouldn't have made it out of poverty in Harlem if it hadn't been for caring adults who showed an interest in me. I can count those on one hand, but all it takes is one.
Many Americans will have a hard time understanding these connections I made. That's because they don't know archetype of Precious. For that reason, the interludes of escapism woven into the storyline are essential. The horror Precious experiences is too much to fathom, so those scenes of Precious daydreaming of being a BET music-video dancer help soften the blow for an audience that can't imagine what it's like to be beaten and berated by your own mother and raped by your father.
As anyone who tells stories knows, the way a narrative unfolds helps shape the way a society understands issues. Today, thanks to the likes of Lou Dobbs and others in the media with huge platforms legitimizing bigotry, the schema that's locked into America's mindset is that dysfunctional poor people are products of their own making.
It's an ideology that helps wipe the slate clean. So it's no one's fault that U.S. prisons are full of black and brown men from dysfunctional homes who never finished high school.
As a veteran journalist who spent 18 years working for newspapers, I am ashamed that stories of unrelenting poverty are largely ignored. In the 1980s, when I was still a student, I felt proud to be joining a profession that wrote so many exposés about life in urban ghettos. Much of that reporting came to a halt by the mid-'90s with a push on covering suburban (white) life for newspapers that were becoming increasingly segregated with zoned editions. (Advertisers wanted to target households that made $75,000 and up.)
What was inane is that newspapers, in an effort to diversify their staffs, would hire a few black and Latino reporters but then stick them in suburban bureaus. Even white reporters didn't want to write about zoning variances of upper middle class people. Meanwhile, the plight of poor people in cities (we're talking black and brown people here) wasn't adequately being covered.
In 2009, as traditional media is crumbling, that is where we remain, even as the white middle class is slowly sliding into poverty.
With the exception of voices such as Eugene Robinson and Wil Haygood of the Washington Post, Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald, and David Gonzalez of the New York Times, to name a few, there are too few voices of black and Latino folks in the media, those best able to understand and tell these stories.
If film winds up being the medium that can bring these stories back to our frontal cortexes, I welcome it. We need to hear more from the voices of people like Sapphire.
Cindy Rodriguez teaches at New York University and Hunter College and is the author of the forthcoming Pendeja No Más: A Latina's Guide to Liberation.
D. Brad Wright: Po' White South: Another Look At The Uninsured
The po' white south makes up most of the uninsured. Chew on that for a while. Then ask yourself where the strongest opposition to health reform comes from (hint: it's red states).
Les Leopold: To Create Jobs on Main Street, We Need to Kill Jobs on Wall Street
The Billionaire Bailout Society is not a shared society. We're not in it together. What's good for Wall Street is not good for the rest of us...they even get their swine flu shots before we do.
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Great, thoughtful article, I look forward to this movie very much.
I also wonder what is the extent of the role that religion plays in keeping not only blacks but many impoverished people poor.
Throughout my travels and life, I've been to several churches in impoverished in various areas with various ethnicities represented. And I usually heard the same message from the pastors. The only way to lift yourself out of poverty is by believing in Jesus Christ and giving money to the church. When you give money to the church, God will see that and he will make sure YOU get money down the road as a reward. I heard them say that people who aren't religious fail and live wretched lives, and ONLY through the power of Christ will you ever be happy and successful.
I grew up upper middle class and Christian, so my church lectures as a kid were about giving to the poor, not escaping poverty. When it came to success, I was always told I had to work hard and study. And that's what I did. And I became successful even after leaving the church.
I have no problem with faith, and faith can be a great comfort to people. But praying alone isn't going to get you out of poverty, and I find it irresponsible that some community leaders tell people otherwise.
It's good to hear meaningful discourse on this issue here. Usually you hear people say ignorant statements for the sake of dissension rather than trying to actually see where someone's coming from with their opinion.
i've not seen "precious", but as someone who spent years being abused in my "white" dysfunctional family i would suggest that you've limited your concept of "slavery" to the obvious. it is soul crushing to be "owned", to be a second class citizen, to have no rights, no voice, no matter what color or sex or age one is.
much is being made of soldiers coming back from iraq and afghanistan with "post traumatic stress disorder" yet children who are abused suffer from it daily, and it is ignored.
the human experience is not defined by group.
WE HAVE TO STOP HURTING EACH OTHER.
I think you miss the point she was getting at, Jim Crow was just as destructive as Slavery, and is still going on.......... the legacy with the keyword being legacy of slavery is what she was getting at.
Is there a legacy of women's sufferage, well I think the answer is obvious. Just look at what happened in the congressional race in NY23......... a woman was forced out of the race by whom........... a white...????
What color was the person who put the anti abortion amendment in the health care bill, and was he a male or female
UnknownSoldier
i may've missed ms. rodriguez's point...
yet, ultimately, ABUSE IS ABUSE.
black/white, male/ female, gay/straight...adult/child...
abuse is abuse.
I think that you need to study more of Bill Cosby's work and speeches. He was NOT this harsh.
Coming from the "Bill Cosby school of thought", having grown up around, seen them around, and don't want them around, people like" Precious". Same folks that beat down the potential of others,disrupt the classroom, beat up the teachers,beat up fellow students, say they're "acting white" when an attempt is made by others to learn. Same fools running around wearing "snitches get stitches" T shirts while whole neighborhoods are terrorized by ignorant thugs and nobody saw anything, like the "Derion" child in Chigago who was beaten to death FOR NOTHING! and i did not see one 'white person" in view, just "us". Maybe i'm just old and bitter but this movie just seems to be another one that attempts to justify or explain away dysfunction and relieves the characters of any self responsibility because it's "always" the fault of white people because "we" have a "slave mentality" and it is NEVER our fault because like slaves we don't own ourselves.
I appreciate and agree with most of what you've posted. However, some of the dysfunction you see in schools is solely the responsibility of dysfunctional parents compounded by the benign neglect and incompetence of urban so-called educational professionals. When a kid turns 18, that kid is responsible for what happens to him or her.
MartyB
Your post is just ignorant, you do not come from the Bill Cosby school of thought. Bill talked about tough love, you spew joyfulHate.
An unfortunate but also real explanation for what is happening in far too many minority neighborhoods.
I remember a highly racist "cartoon" in a magazine showing a bunch of stereotypical white racists, white hoods, nooses,etc. standing on a street corner in a black neighborhood and telling the local cop they ain't there to cause any trouble they just wanted to watch as the worst enemy the AA community had was themselves. Then showing in the background the pimping, drug dealing, gangland killings, etc.
Racist but with a grain of truth to it.
It ultimately reaches a point where everyone has to take responsibility for their own actions.
Martye is right.
You make a good point but buried in your point is a failure to admit that certain groups are still suffering the after-effects of slavery and others are still enjoying the privileges of belonging to the enslaving race. You can't just say let bygones be bygones when some people are still living with unfairness and discrimination every day of their lives while others enjoy the happy cluelessness of privilege as a birthright. I agree that hatred and holding on to the animosities of the past is detrimental to a positive future but it all boils down to power - who still has too much and who still has too little. There needs to be some redressing of power balances nationally in developed countries as well as globally and that is usually the sticking point. It isn't easy to give up power and privilege (see Wall St. as a perfect example) and it isn't easy to live with persistent disadvantaged either.
While I do believe we should learn from history, I don't see how we will look at each other as equals until we stop putting the blame on people living in the present for the sins of those who are long gone.
History shows us that slavery is not unique to any one race or country. Google the massacre in Drogheda, Ireland in 1649. As many as 12,000 white Irish Catholics were sold into slavery by Oliver Cromwell, who considered himself to be doing God's work. That is only one example of many.
Slavery, religious fanaticism, racism, sexism, etc. have existed for as long as human beings have existed. Pain and suffering, humiliation, discrimination, poverty and cruelty exist in all cultures, classes, races and religions. I doubt there is an American who does not know about the history of slavery in America, but by the same token, no one alive in America today actually owns slaves nor are slaves. Blaming sins of the past on people who had nothing to do with them is unfair and unjust, and only serves to bring about more mistrust and hate. If we want to stop inequality and discrimination, perhaps we should look into our own hearts and motives first.
The old "slavery happens everywhere" meme. Your comment shows your lack of understanding history, and specifically african history.
The African Slave Trade WAS unique and 30-50 million african slaves where transported all over the world, half of which died to due to sickness, being beaten, or thrown over the ship because the ship was to heavy during the transporting of the slaves. It wasn't just 'regional slavery'. The WORLD benefited from ~200 years of free labor by a people who were torn from there land.
And since you brought up a european country. Most people of European descent that are here in a american can almost trace their family tree back to their origin country. Most african americans can't trace their family tree beyond the 1700s. My uncle is trying to piece our family tree together and he has comment on several occasions that it is like history, for our family, started in the mid 1700's. And for those who can go beyond the 1700s it is because the plantation owner kept meticulous records.
For us its very hard to trace pre 1850, but not impossible.
The Irish would still under the thumb of the British if it wasn't for the end of slavery in the U.S. where do you think the Irish went to escape English Oppresion?????
Now ask yourself where did black Americans go to escape American Oppression???? I can tell you it sure wasn't Ireland.
Look up the Northern Migration from the South to the North, then get back to us
"Meanwhile, the plight of poor people in cities (we're talking black and brown people here) wasn't adequately being covered." Yes, I bet a newpaper could increase circulation with in depth stories about inner city violence, gangs, the breakdown of the family, the conformity of rejecting education, and so forth. Urban people deal with these conflicts every day and would much rather read about such realities than about zoning variances.
I don't think she's talking about adding coverage on gangs and violence, etc. into newspapers and other media. We get plenty of that. The problem is, that's all we get. So we get a handy, distorted image of inner city life and the black and brown people who are living it. Meanwhile, we cover the much more responsible activities of white people in the 'burbs - zoning board meetings, etc. Guess what? There are zoning board meetings about ghetto areas, too. There are families in poor neighborhoods struggling to prevent absentee landlords from messing with their neighborhood, men and women going to city hall to ask for improved services. People taking responsible action to improve life in their neighborhood. But it isn't covered. So, as far as anyone living in the suburbs is concerned, nothing happens downtown but drive-by shootings and murdering of ex-girlfriends.
Yes, you are probably very right! An effort should be made to focus on the silent majority who gets up and goes to work and takes care of their families. We do not hear from them nearly enough!
Ms. Rodriguez, thank you for this column. You speak the truth. I saw the trailer to the Precious film and immediately knew what the root cause of the issues were. This doesn't get recognition because no one wants to admit this sad, dispicibale, truth about the history and present state of the United States of America; my country, which in spite of it's faults, I do indeed love.
Ms. Rodriguez,
Is there a way we can email you? I am Latina and want to tell you my story.
How does the Welfare State, begun under Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, figure into this picture?
Seems much more relevant, it was 40 years ago, slavery much longer.
Paul Johnson, distinguished economist, has several books and studies on the devastation wrought by the Welfare State on the underclass.
If it weren't for some of LBJ's Great Society programs, my parents would be uneducated dirt poor sharecroppers like their parents and their parent's parents. Some whites wouldn't mind that.
Happy for your parents some good came of the trillions spent.
But I still attribute the terrible decline of cities and keeping the poor folk on the dole to money thrown around under misguided policies (welfare, subsidized housing, big expansion of do-nothing government jobs, etc.).
Good blog post
Unfortunately, schools in Los Angeles are going to get worse due to funding issues and a lack of community involvement. Money is being pored into local districts and we are being squeezed at the school sites. We just recieved memos that there will be no more funds for instructional supplies and filed trips will be severely limited. Teachers are a big part of students lives, but we can only do so much. The black churches need to step it up and so do black entertainers. It is great what Magic Johnson has done but he needs to do more directly with schools.
The "standards" movement is killing education for kids who needed experiential education. In addition, I had to stop instruction for a "random search" of my students the other day, something my parents never would have tolerated and we were working class. Until there is a huge outcry from the community and the school sites, nothing will change. when you do try to challenge the system, even a little bit, you are really risking it. When I questioned the searches, I was bullied by a school police officer who advised me he was an expert in civil liberties because he had "been through the police academy" and warned me I better not be telling my students "wrong things" Maybe like they don't have to submit to searches? Wrong things like that? it is getting really scary in education.
What that school police officer was doing was intimidating an already intimidated group. And what's worse is that they are students who probably don't feel like they have a voice first because they're "minorities," and second, because they're under age.
I think the reason America's underclass isn't given more newstime is because there is little good news to report. Go and read Moynihan's 1964 report on blacks and you'll conclude 45 years later we ended Jim Crow but are black Americans better off? As for the money expended in the war on poverty did it help or hurt? The authors of Freakonomics blame the crack epidemic for erasing most of the gains made in the black community, but I wonder if the exodus of manufacturing jobs caused crime to explode, despair to increase, and people to turn to crack to escape from it all?
The current economic crisis may present an opportunity to shine the light on America's underclass.
Great post. My parents suffered the worst humiliations of Jim Crow in Mississippi. I grew up in during the 60's riots in Detroit and have experienced racial discrimination in all it's variant forms. I will never forget.
What is helpful to you about never forgetting? Does not forgetting help you improve your life in the present? How? Millions of blacks, like the Obamas, have now risen completely above the horrors of discrimination to use the freedom that exists in America to work to attain great skills and great rewards in our society. Why don't others do the same? ALL American blacks are descended from slaves, and all have grown up in a society scarred with racism. Why have some blacks nevertheless been very highly successful in every single field in American life, while others are hopeless drug addicts, teen-aged mothers, or lifers in prison by the age of 20? To explain away failure as nothing but victimization by discrimination is to live in a dream world. If millions of blacks have succeeded in America, then, on the face of it, black success is not only possible in this country, it is now very widespread. It's personally destructive for individual blacks to let themselves off the hook by pretending that they were simply doomed to misery by American racism. If ALL blacks weren't automatically doomed, NONE were.
Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.
There are several stories in this comment section describing excellent black parents, working hard to ensure their children could succeed. Weren't these parents descended from slaves too? Black or white, regardless of your circumstances, it is your CHOICE whether or not you abuse your child. To say that blacks are less able to be good parents, or to excuse them for abusing their children is just vile racism, in my opinion.
if a child isn't raised to know better, or exposed to an alternative example...how do they know better than to do any differently than their parents before them.
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