Urban Issues and Actions

When I went to Chandler Middle School in Highland Park, Richmond, Virginia last Friday to volunteer I arrived to find the school in a tense moment.  On Thursday, September 26, 2008 an article came out in the Richmond Times Dispatch that foretold the failure of only two
Richmond city schools, out of 48, in the accreditation process.  Chandler Middle School was one of these schools explicitly.  The article provided three reasons for this failure including “a lack of stability in on-site leadership, continuing difficulty in recruiting teachers…and a dearth of parental involvement.”  As a follow up to this article the paper published another piece on the subsequent day that actually listed the results of each school in every subject on the state standardized tests and what their status was in terms of accreditation.  While this second article was designed to praise the city because of its success in having 42 out of 48 schools pass the statewide tests, it also highlighted discrepancies in many of the city’s schools and cast a very negative light on those schools that were failing.             

The response to these articles at Chandler, however, was remarkable.  The students were all very distressed that their school had been named as a failure and several of them had actually written letters to the newspaper’s editor presenting the positive features of their school and the constructive changes that have been made to the school in the past year.  Everyone was very optimistic and, at one point, the principal, Mr. Derek Mason, came into the classroom, looked over Chandler’s scores in the newspaper, and said, “If we can get this close [to passing the state standardized testing] with people who don’t want to be here, think how great we can do now that we have people who really do want to be here.”  He was saying that with all the recent changes to bring in teachers who truly wanted to help and to create a student body that actually wanted to learn, it was impossible not to improve.  His demonstration of faith and pride in his school was the common reaction for students, faculty members, and administrators alike.  And all of this from the supposed unstable “on-site leadership!” 

I was impressed with how determined everyone was to prove the newspaper wrong and bring their school up to its full potential.  Students actually seemed excited for the tests because they wanted to do their part in showing the city just what their school really can do.  Instead of letting the articles bring them down, it made the school stronger and more unified because it gave them a purpose and a sense of pride in their school.  This pride was then translated into a desire to show everyone else that they were wrong- Chandler Middle School was not, and is not, a failure, and it is a thriving and energizing communal environment.

However, aside from my surprise at the positivity generated in response to these potentially demoralizing articles, I was interested in the notion of accreditation and how this title can make or break a school.  Educational accreditation is actually not run by the federal government but, instead, is decided on by private accreditation organizations that can be either regional or national.  The intent of accreditation was to serve as a “peer review” system and was designed to see if standards were being met at schools.  While unaccredited schools can exist, enroll and teach students, and even grant degrees, these degrees may not be used when applying for financial aid, civil service, or other employment, and, thus, a student coming from an unaccredited school is at a severe disadvantage.  In addition, accreditation has come to signify that a school is of superior quality and provides a better education than one that is unaccredited. 

Thus, one can see why Chandler and Boushall Middle School (the other Richmond city school fated to fail its accreditation process) would be upset over the loss of their accreditation.  Currently, they are both accredited with warning which simply means that if they do not pass their state standardized tests this year they face losing their accreditation.  This could then result in major shifts in the administration of the school.  In the article “Richmond Officials Discuss Middle Schools” there is even a suggestion that Chandler adopt single-gender classes as a means to improve scores because “the concept has been used as nearby Henderson Middle School, which has met state standards for the past five years while serving a student population similar in economic and demographic makeup to Chandler’s.”  Is this the answer to Chandler’s problems?  Will only a complete and total renovation of the school and how it is run “turn it around”, so to speak?  I would have to say no- if only because of the determination and drive I have witnessed first hand in everyone who works at that school.  The students, teachers, and administrators at Chandler are working harder than every to prove to the city that they are not failures and that they can do this on their own.  It might be hard to grasp the determination and spirit of the school coming in as an employee of the state or as a private accreditation organization, however, as a volunteer I have seen all that Chandler is capable of and I believe that Chandler can succeed.    

Hello, everyone!  The new movie The Express is a movie about the first African American college football player to win the Heisman trophy.  This football legend and African American history maker is named Ernie Davis.  Ernie Davis was born in New Salem, Pennsylvania.  Davis was an All-American running back coming out of high school and during a time where black football players weren’t highly recruited by many schools, Mr. Davis stood out among the crowd as someone truly gifted and as someone who deserved the opportunity to showcase his talents on the collegiate level resulting in the opening of doors for many black athletes (especially football players).  The Express is a drama about Ernie Davis’s collegiate football career and the challenges that he faced on his way to winning the Heisman trophy and those who helped guide him along the way.  Please express any thoughts on the movie, or black athletes in general, or someone of Ernie’s status who’s accomplished great things such as what Mr. Davis has done as far as athletics go.  We can all continue to be enlightened on how minorities, though oppressed in these times, have been able to fight through the ridicule and achieve greatness and unlock the doors that have so long been shut to minorities, in particular African Americans!

I was browsing through the Richmond Times Dispatch and came across an article titled: Ballpark Out of Place at Site of Slave Trade. Those in my class will remember the Richmond City Bus Tour we took last Sunday and the first time we got off the bus to look at the site of one of the most infamous slave jails in our nation’s history. The site is also an ongoing archaeological dig that promises to hold hundreds of insights into the past.

Now people are talking about building a new baseball stadium on the site.

My outrage doesn’t even need to be expressed. I won’t even waste time describing the obvious wrongs in this endeavor. Instead, I’ll point to what happened in the 1940’s, when cities dropped the priority of public housing and promoted businesses and financial institutions in the downtown areas. Ok, that was one thing. Destroying public housing and building banks in their stead was pretty questionable, although perhaps necessitated by the city’s eroding tax base.

But building baseball parks over historical sites in the year 2008? Do we hope that, by building a baseball stadium over the site of atrocities, people will simply forget about what happened? Would the site be given more attention if it were a reminder of something positive in our history, such as General Robert E. Lee’s statue? Or can we put the baseball stadium over that? I find the notion that the developers would even be considering this site as offensive.

Lastly, click on the link to the article and read a few of the reader’s opinions. Are you amazed that a lot of readers express their support for the stadium?

As I watched the slasher film Candyman in preparation for a lecture  an American Studies Professor from the University of Virginia, Erik Lott would deliver on the “Spirit of the Ghetto: Cinema Space and Specters of Race”, I never thought that the film would have anything to do with our Urban Crisis class. However, in the first five minutes of the film I was surprised with a detailed in-depth conversation on Chicago’s public housing woes and the formation of projects and ghettos in Chicago. While I never thought to turn towards a 90s horror movie to look for evidence of the ever-impending urban crisis in American culture, there it was, presented with no shame or remorse. Highlighting how very real a concern and issue public housing has been and currently is in urban America.

As we learned in class about high-rise projects infamous in cities like Chicago and St. Louis, Candyman retells the story of what CBS calls the most “infamous public housing project”; Cabrini Green. The protagonist in Candyman goes on to tell how the location of the project was moved, as it was too close to an affluent area, so instead what was really supposed to be a housing project was actually converted into expensive condominiums. Cabrini Green was moved to the other side of the L train, where a physical barrier quartered off the project, or the ghetto, to ease the minds of the upper-middle class Chicago residents who were concerned about the proximity of the project.

Unfortunately the story of the Cabrini Green housing project is one that resonated with complete truth and authenticity as we have encountered the story time and time again in our readings. It was not surprising in the movie when they talk about the fear of driving past the project due to violence, drug use, and other common (mis)perceptions that were held about housing projects. Although the serial killings in Cabrini Green in the Candyman movie were fabricated, Cabrini Green was home to a lot of violence, and a lot of crime, which as we have learned seems to have been the trend for high rise public housing projects.

The Candyman film sparked an interest in me to do some further research in to what was the current state of Cabrini Green. With the Hope VI program being implemented in 1992, the same year the film was released, I wondered whether Cabrini Green would be one of those targeted projects that would get revamped due to this large increase in public housing funding. CBS provided the answer for me. It turns out that in 2003 it was announced that Cabrini Green would be razed and replaced by a mixed-income, ‘more healthy’ community. While this mixed income community would supposedly be better for Chicago, a documentary entitled Voices of Cabrini tells the stories of some of their residents and how they lost their community, and in the process lost the resiliency to fight for their community.  Cabrini Green shares a story similar to a lot of the projects that have been cited for redevelopment, or razed altogether. Although they often are dilapidated, have high crime rates, and are overcrowded, for a large number of people Cabrini Green was called home.

Recently in class we have been discussing the history of public housing and how it has come to be what it is today.  Learning from Detroit, St. Louis, and San Francisco, we have seen how the design and location of a public housing project can make the complete difference between successful and ineffective and how failed policy has forces thousands of low-income families from their homes.  Unfortunately, the city of Richmond is no different in terms of public housing failures.  Looking at the state of public housing in Richmond, we can see the lasting effects of racism from decades past.  Last Monday I attended a community forum on public housing redevelopment at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Richmond that dealt with the state of public housing in the city, focusing specifically on Gilpin Court and Blackwell, two public housing projects that are both in need of serious attention. 

“Blackwell Ghost Haunts Gilpin Plan” was published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch soon after this community forum.  It discusses the failure of the Blackwell project and states that “of the 440 units demolished a decade ago, only 75 similarly priced units stand in their place.”  The residents of Blackwell were deceived into thinking that they would be able to return, but that has obviously not happened.  The bad experience with Blackwell residents has led the Gilpin Court residents to be proactive in their community.  Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority is planning to remake Gilpin Court into a mixed-income community. As the article states, however, only a third of those units will be allocated for public housing.  In response to this, residents of Gilpin Court have created Re-PHRAME, Residents of Public Housing in Richmond Against Mass Evictions.  Their official goals are the following: to achieve 1 for 1 replacement of any public housing unity lost; to ensure meaningful, ongoing participation by public housing residents in the planning process; to raise awareness and increase implementation of anti-poverty measures, including “Section 3.” 

Four out of the five mayoral candidates for the city of Richmond were in attendance at the community forum last week and addressed the plans for Gilpin Court.  All four agreed that, if elected, they would require one-to-one replacement of public housing units, provide the right for the residents to return to the community once it was improved, and meet within 30 days of being elected to make it happen.  It was interesting to me to see them all say “yes” so quickly to all three categories; it will be especially interesting to see if they follow through with their promises. 

From this event, I learned that the residents of these public housing projects may be outcasted by our society (just read the comments at the bottom of the article), but in no way is that a reflection of their personal motivation or desire to have a safe and attractive community.

The poverty simulation brought me more closer to poverty. Although it’s not something that I have experienced myself, it has always been close to me due to my best friend in Nepal. I have seen him and his parents struggle every single day to be able to eat a meal. I always wondered how I would feel if I were in a similar situation, and the poverty simulation provided me with the opportunity to experience it.

                Although the poverty simulation wasn’t related to my life and I was only playing a character, it made me feel bad about the situation I was in. The character I played was that of an 85 year old lady who didn’t have any children. Her husband was dead and her only source of income was social security. However, her expenses exceeded her income by about 300 dollars. Under such circumstances, I had to manage my entire household and go to different places to pay my bills. Considering the heath I was in, it was frustrating to go to the same place over and over again because I wasn’t able to pay all the money at the same time. After paying some of my bills, I was almost out of my money, and thus, had to decide on selling the items I owned. Selling the items wasn’t that easy. The guy buying the items had no sympathy for an old lady and his only intention was to make as much profit as he could from the items I was selling. That was when frustration started to creep in. I was old, helpless, and out of money. For the next week or so I wasn’t able to buy food and I still hadn’t paid the money to the bank. At that moment I was thinking, “What is the point of living? I am an old lady with no responsibility. What is there to live for?” After that I stopped caring about my own life but instead started helping people by providing free bus passes that I had leftover and looking after their babies when they went to pay off their bills. I had finally given up and had prepared myself for death.

                As I look back on my character and the way I dealt with the condition, I feel like I have made a lot of mistakes and haven’t really utilized all of the resources properly. I don’t know if it was lack of my knowledge or the pressure of not being able to pay off the bills that made me so hopeless. It didn’t even occur to me that there were many organizations that were there to help me and that all I had to do was to look for them and ask for help. However, the organizations were more or less in places where people would hardly go to. That makes me wonder if it is the government’s fault that the organizations that are there to help people haven’t been able to reach them or if it is the people themselves who do not approach them even when they are in such bad conditions.  Likewise, is death the only solution to the problem of poverty, or is there something else?

I believe that the United States has the finest medical care in the world. We have specialized doctors, state of the art equipment, and all the resources needed to keep people healthy and strong. This begs the question; why if we have all these great medical services are 17 million people uninsured, millions more a underinsured, and those who are insured are paying incredibly high prices? There must be a way to structure American health care so that it is accessible, affordable and high standards of quality.  This thought came up in mind my mind after spending several volunteer hours at the International Hospital for Children (IHC).

The International Hospital for Children (IHC) is an amazing non-profit organization.  The IHC provides health care services ranging from dental work, plastic surgery, all the way to brain surgery. As the name of the organization implies, the IHC only takes children from six developing countries; Guatemala, Honduras, the Domincan Republic, Belize, Guyana, and the Caribbean island of St. Vincent.  The organization flies them into Richmond, houses them in one of two beautiful patient-housing complexes, provides them with the needed treatment, and then flies them back home. But wait, best of all, all of the services are completely free of charge.  When I see this organization I see the exact three things that America health care desperately needs accessibility, affordability, and quality.

Earlier this week I spend some time with a little boy from St. Vincent who received eye surgery. He was an incredibly kind hearted little boy. He was shy at first, but just like all seven year olds, he was wild and playful after running around a bit and getting a little sweaty. Were it not for IHC’s involvement in providing the surgery that he needed, this young man’s future would have been drastically different.  After an afternoon of playing at the James River, I dropped him and his mother back off house where they were staying. The happiness and relief from him and his mother made me feel glad that organizations like IHC exist to take care of children. But in the back of my mind I had an unshakable feeling of sadness. This little boy made me wonder how many desperate children and families in America are out there? How many little boys just like this one don’t have the same services as IHC to rely on and save them? There are certainly organizations such as Cross Over Ministry who offer some relief to Americans without health insurance, but what can be done on a larger scale?

The success of the IHC is fueled by charity alone. For example, donations from businesses and philanthropists pay for the medicine used for the patients, the housing complexes that room the patients are all donated by large businesses, and most importantly the doctors that provide the services work for either very low prices or for charity.  With increased costs for medical school loans and the increasing burden on public hospital doctors, “charity” is a very difficult concept to grab for most American doctors. It is impossible to base the American system of charity alone; something more systematic must be initiated.

I do still believe that the United States has the finest medical care in the world. However, I also believe that it is one of the most unjust and unfair in the world as well.

In class yesterday we were discussing public housing and we mentioned the question of whether or not public housing should be mixed income. I have taken some time to ponder this question and I have decided I think it is best that public housing be mixed income. I am currently taking a Sociology 101 course and some of what we are currently discussing about poverty relates to our discussions about public housing. In Sociology 101 we are reading a book called Ain’t No Makin It by Jay MacLeod. The book is a 1980’s case study of two very different groups of teenagers living in Clarendon Heights housing project. The first group, the Hallway Hangers, is a mostly white group of teenagers that have no motivation to study or learn resulting in lots of alcohol and drug use and most of them not graduating from high school. The second group, the Brothers, is a group of mostly black teenagers that are academically focused and eager to live good lives and escape the projects. The book interviews members from both groups and discusses many aspects of their lives and attitudes.

When comparing their attitudes and aspirations it is interesting to notice that the Hallway Hangers have not seen success. The teenagers in this group have parents that have not succeeded in the work force and have not been able to take proper care of their family, and they have older siblings that have attempted to get jobs and have failed. Therefore, these teenagers only see failure and believe that the structure of society is against them, so it is not worth their effort to work hard in school because they feel they can go nowhere. On the other hand, the Brothers also have parents who have not necessarily succeeded, but most likely do to their lack of civil rights. The Brother’s also have seen some success of their ambitious older siblings and feel that with civil rights and the American Dream they will be able to go far just with hard work and determination.

Based on this information alone, I think that mixed income housing would benefit low income families. It will give low income families motivation, optimism, and strength to fight for what they want in life. Also, it will allow the children of these families to dream big and believe that anything is possible. If the Hallway Hangers had been surrounded by successful people in life maybe they would have strived for more and worked harder in school like the Brothers did. However, all they saw were failures so they doomed themselves to remaining where they did not want to end up.

There are many factors that lead to the development of ethnic enclaves in urban cities in America. Many of the factors, such as redlining, and other discrimination, unfairly prevented non-whites, especially blacks, from leaving their isolated areas. However, I suspect that it was not only externally imposed factors that created the enclaves. I especially began to think about this when watching George King’s Goin’ to Chicago. The African Americans who were migrating to Chicago were coming from small, rural towns in the South. The southern communities were likely close-knit and familiar—the type of place where everyone knows everyone’s name. When moving from a rural town to a big city, it seems likely that there would be a tendency for the migrants to stay in a small contained community. I recall a woman in the film watching clips of a party, naming all of her friends. Although in a large city, she was part of a close community where she knew many people. Blacks at the time were facing a lot of unfair discrimination, even in the North. By sticking together in their new places of residence, they provided each other with comfort and familiarity.

On the other hand, had local white Chicago residents been more hospitable and willing to accommodate African American migrants from the South, support in the community could have come from anywhere. There is no question that legislation and discrimination left many blacks without much choice as to where they lived. Those who did try to move into white neighborhoods or integrate into the society were unappreciated by whites. I do suspect, however, that even if the blacks migrating from the South had been treated fairly and been allowed opportunities to live wherever they chose, many would choose to live together in a tight community similar to one from their rural hometown.

I was on CNN.com today and found this really interesting article that I’d like to share with all of you. It raised a really big question that people have been contemplating for years; whether school is the key to a better life….

For the kids at Jefferson High School in Los Angeles, CA, they say absolutely not. This news article primarily focused on a 13-year old who has NO incentive to go to school whatsoever. To her, school is simply “boring”. She continues to say that “school doesn’t give you money. You have to go … drop out to go work and get money to support your family.” Many of the kids attending Jefferson High School have the exact same mindset. It is said that 58% of students, nearly six out of 10 students, drop out. Obviously, that is insanely high and the worst part is that no one can make them stay.

The article further explores the reasons as to why these kids (who are barely young adults yet) want to drop out. One of the main reasons is the amount of violence around the school area. Jefferson High School had to be on lock-down on various occasions due to shootings that are only a few blocks away. These kids then are simply too scared to walk through these neighborhoods to get to school. In addition, the area consists of mainly immigrants from Mexico and Central America. As a result, some of the kids attending school can barely speak English. Most of the kids do not understand what is taught in class since the school does not provide any ESL programs. They then don’t learn anything and just leave.

The school did try to increase the security system, but is that enough? Not only that, the school also hired ‘drop-out advisors’ who go around to kids’ homes to convince them to come to class. Is that really going to help? Some of these kids were born without parents to give them an example or some were born with parents who never went to school. There is then pressure on these kids to help their parents find money to support the entire family, no matter what age they are.

To us, school is something we do so we can “succeed” in life, have a good paying job, have a “bright” future ahead. These kids could care less about that. To these kids though, school is merely a waste of time. The time wasted on school is the time they could be out getting money. Any job that gives them some cash is enough.

What do you guys feel about this? School may help our futures, but can school help these kids?