There is something about going to school in DC at one of the most expensive universities in the nation that makes me feel extremely guilty when I pass homeless people on the street. Maybe it’s because I feel like I was given opportunities that they were denied, or that the only reason I am where I am is because my parents had the money to pay.
I often wonder that If you were to take away my name, my identity, and my past educational history, would I be able to survive and succeed? If I had no family, no money, and no education, would I still be able to fight my way to the top, or would I be another weatherbeaten face, begging for change on a street corner. Well, these feelings of guilt and desire to understand just why some people can’t fight their way out of society’s underclass led me to read this book and after having reached the last page, I am happy to say I understand it MUCH better and have a greater appreciation for the way my parents raised me.
In the beginning of the year, I ordered this book off the reading list for my criminology course . I ended up dropping the course, but I never sold the book back to the bookstore. It looked kinda interesting and I figured I could sell it back when I was done reading it anyway.
Basically, the premise of the book is that a washington post reporter followed this woman, Rosa Lee, around for four years to better understand her lifestyle and how her past decisions influenced who she is today. She leads an extremely drug-ridden and poverty-stricken life, as do a lot of african americans who live in bad sections of washington dc. By showing us her world, I think that Leon Dash hopes we can better appreciate our own lifestyle and better understand why there is generational poverty in our nation’s capital.
Well, usually I have a lot to say, but right now, I don’t have much more to say about this book. It did give me a lot of perspective…
It makes me think… the hardest thing for Rosa lee would be to hold down a decent job and not spend her money on drugs. Instead, she never changed her lifestyle and kept stealing and dealing and using. She never really left that groove of drug use and violence.
I feel like I’m stuck in this middle class groove… going to college, applying for a job, soon getting a house and children and a wife and contributing to my 401k. BLAH! It would be so easy for me to do nothing and one day have a 100,000 dollar income and be 50. Hell, my life would be reasonably comfortable and I’d have a job and everything. I feel like if I did nothing, that outcome is extremely possible given my mental faculties and education level. But deep down inside, I fear that outcome a lot. It’s so…. boring. It’s what my dad is now… but I want to be more than that.
I don’t want to be old, comfortable, with a house with a mortgage that I’ve almost paid off, a miserly stock portfolio, and some retirement income. I don’t want to have to rely on medicare when I get old and social security. I watch my parents late at night… all they do is sit there and watch tv in their suburban town where everything closes at 6pm. I mean, hell, they are happy, which is good, but I feel like I’d just want to kill myself if that’s all I turned out to be.
I think the hardest thing for me would be to take that leap and make the decision and take action and escape from this upper middle class groove. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very thankful for the way I was brought up, but I want more… I want to play in the big leagues.
It’s like felix dennis says…. “What are you willing to sacrifice to achieve it? How great is the sacrifice in reality, as opposed to your nightmarish fears at 3 o’clock in the morning?”
I guess I have to decide if I am going to keep on the same path and not deviate, like Rosa Lee, or make a break for it, and throw my heart and soul into the goal of building a business.
The Thought Hole 