Rising Alone: How Detroit Students Can Overcome
By Sharlonda Buckman, CEO, Detroit Parent Network
"And still I rise"-- Maya Angelou's message comes to mind during a time when human determination triumphs in the face of adversity. I think of her poem a lot when I think about kids graduating in Michigan this year.
I know that despite the sharp lack of equity in education and opportunity for youth living in Michigan's most at risk-communities, many of our children still rise! They make it out of the ghetto and into the throes of a global reality. We celebrate those who "make it out", who attend and graduate from college and go on to careers.
But when these young people of promise move forward to lead productive lives, usually away from where they came up, they carry the guilt and wear the label of "sell-out." But there just wasn't enough opportunity for all here in Michigan. Despite rising above often tragic circumstances, those we consider having made it are often cast out from a world that will tolerate but never accept them and from their community that will be proud of them but label them a sellout.
Detroit has many who rise from poverty and attend college. Just like Robert Peace who rose from poverty in Newark, New Jersey to attend Yale University and graduate with a degree with molecular biology. Young Mr. Peace never fully assimilated into his collegiate and professional environment. Upon graduation, he drifted into a career of marijuana growing and distribution and was later killed in a hail of gunfire by a rival drug gang. Beloved by high school and college classmates of all ethnicities and backgrounds, Mr. Peace never felt as if he fit in -- he attempted to straddle two incompatible worlds – until his tragic death in 2011.
And there is Corey Lamont Walker, who was raised in the projects of Philadelphia and graduated from Harvard to establish a career in pharmaceutical sales and later disengaged from his professional pathway. Just last week, he was arrested for trafficking marijuana after police found 200 to 300 pounds of marijuana and a deadly weapon. These were young men of promise.
When we hear about what happened to Robert Peace, we think about how tragic his life was. We would like to believe they had it all and they threw it away. That they received opportunities unlike their sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers, and their friends and cousins, who underachieved in school, dropped out and faced a lifetime of constrained options. These were young men of promise.
We fail to realize that first generation college students – those who rise from poverty – are many times more likely to struggle in college than their middle class peers; a mere 11% graduate in 6 years and those who do face barriers to sustained employment. We fail to realize that we cannot merely pluck one child out of poverty to level meet basic needs; and politicians who still subscribe to the American Dream of equal opportunity.
How can we prevent future tragedies? Why didn't anyone see this coming? Well, why didn't we? This is what poverty "unsolved" looks like. Even the most talented and well nurtured youth sometimes don't make it out. The naked truth is simple. This is how the cutting of human service and mental health supports manifests itself in the community. This is a consequence of failing and under-resourced schools. We will not solve these problems until we build pathways out of poverty for the exceptional and the unexceptional student. We will not really reform our communities unless we work together to lift families out of misery and dysfunction and accept the truth that their opportunity is not by any means equal. This is the ugly truth of our unwillingness to STOP being politically correct and upstanding and paying our taxes and closing our eyes and simply hoping for the best for the less fortunate. And NO your hands aren't clean! As long as we choose to turn a blind eye, and feel bad but not act, judge but fail to advocate, say I'm too tired versus volunteer to help someone else; these tragedies are what we can expect to become the norm. We know the answers, we have the resources, we are drawn to the tantalizing stories yet still we don't give two shakes of a rattlesnake's tail about the millions of children we leave behind.
