When I first read this article, so many thoughts crowded into my mind that it was difficult to compose a coherent response. Since I often take the train through one of the less nice areas of Chicago, from time to time I catch myself gazing out at the dilapidated structures and piles of trash and thinking really hard about how a neighborhood goes from being founded in enterprise and hope to 'ruination.' I offer the following observations:
1. Hopelessness perpetuates from generation to generation, being passed from parent to child. Children are born to young, uneducated parents whose finances are already stretched to the limit. Not having been properly habilitated themselves, it is common for these parents to take their frustrations out on their children in the same way their parents did. So you've got this cycle of despair and depression that perpetuates across generations.
2. Certain characteristics of the impoverished class have been adopted by mainstream media -- particularly advertising media -- as if they are significant of some culture. Baggy clothing is used as an example. It's a little known thing that the 'zoot suit' of the from the 1930s and 1940s was considered a display of wealth. It meant that you could afford to have a suit made with volumes of fabric at a time when cloth was more dear than it is today. This display of wealth is consistent with the other characteristics of 'African American culture': large gold chains, gold teeth, everything covered in diamonds. At the risk of making a pun, this is a gold mine for advertising media. Think about it, it's an aggrandized display of excess that garners attention.
3. These characteristics do not define any kind of real culture. Last time I looked, there are more impoverished caucasian Americans than there are of any other skin tone. Careful examination will reveal that the dynamic is more or less the same regardless of the false delineation of 'race.' How different are spinning rims from the giant knobby tires on a Ford F250, really?
4. Which leads me to my final observation, in that I have for a long time considered identification with any sort of false 'culture' to be a form of self-segregation. History will show that encouraging a fractured 'hoi polo' is a very effective and powerful means of sustaining the status quo.
1. Hopelessness perpetuates from generation to generation, being passed from parent to child. Children are born to young, uneducated parents whose finances are already stretched to the limit. Not having been properly habilitated themselves, it is common for these parents to take their frustrations out on their children in the same way their parents did. So you've got this cycle of despair and depression that perpetuates across generations.
2. Certain characteristics of the impoverished class have been adopted by mainstream media -- particularly advertising media -- as if they are significant of some culture. Baggy clothing is used as an example. It's a little known thing that the 'zoot suit' of the from the 1930s and 1940s was considered a display of wealth. It meant that you could afford to have a suit made with volumes of fabric at a time when cloth was more dear than it is today. This display of wealth is consistent with the other characteristics of 'African American culture': large gold chains, gold teeth, everything covered in diamonds. At the risk of making a pun, this is a gold mine for advertising media. Think about it, it's an aggrandized display of excess that garners attention.
3. These characteristics do not define any kind of real culture. Last time I looked, there are more impoverished caucasian Americans than there are of any other skin tone. Careful examination will reveal that the dynamic is more or less the same regardless of the false delineation of 'race.' How different are spinning rims from the giant knobby tires on a Ford F250, really?
4. Which leads me to my final observation, in that I have for a long time considered identification with any sort of false 'culture' to be a form of self-segregation. History will show that encouraging a fractured 'hoi polo' is a very effective and powerful means of sustaining the status quo.
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