i found this book to be much easier to read then the Fussel book. it was interesting to hear about all the success stories that these straddlers lived through, and also the pain that came with this success. many of these people that Lubrano interviewed had shattered relationships with their family for years, and with some of them for life. i'm reminded about Maria who had a father who told the relatives that his daughters would be going to college when they where younger, but when she was old enough to head out and her parents found out that she was going, her family took it as betrayal to the family. her mother exploded at her saying "what did you do?" like she just helped commit murder or something. she told Lubrano that she was only accepted again slightly when she was 54 years old and she moved back close to the family teaching at some local school. another story was dot's, the young black girl aspiring to become something better then herself, she had a talent in her writing and even had a voice to charm the record companies to make a deal with her. though her mother would have nothing of it, thinking that since she was a black girl that she shouldn't get her dreams up high enough just so they can be knocked down. finally when she was working on her masters and was asked to write i auto biography, and after talking to her mother about this, she prayed over her heavy heart. finally her mother had apologized for all the trouble that she had cast upon her daughter many years ago. with growing up in families that value nothing on education and everything on the work ethic to get you by in life, it's very hard for young aspiring individuals to break out of this "black hole" environment, as lubrano describes it, and become that shining star that they wish to become.
Lubrano also talks about W.E.B. DeBois' notion of the Double Conscious. This idea focuses mainly on the African American culture and their struggle to either assimilate into the white American culture, or keep their African heritage. in a sense they are both, much in the way that lubrano describes the stragglers, struggling between two cultures but not fully immersed into one. i thought that bringing this idea up was a good correlation between the sense of being both working-class, but then also having your foot into the middle-class. not sure of where you fit in, and leaving some ideologies behind in order to fit into the new world.
another thing that stood out in my mind was the story of Michael who was a devote christian, and came from a very traditional christian family. as a boy he was a leader in the church giving passionate speeches and sermons, and his family and community were very proud of him. well he started to follow a girlfriend to her college classes, sometimes the main reason why guys get up and actually do something (one reason why i got into choir way back in the day), and he enjoyed the classes so much he started to take them himself. he started to take many philosophical classes and classes on evolution. he noticed that he was starting to open up his beliefs and started to question his religious ones, posing philosophical questions to the sunday school children about life. almost Kantian questions asking about the abstract of reality. the parents went crazy and started regarding him as an outcast. one day his mother came to his church on campus while he was working on his graduate degree. this was a nondenominational church with a full contemporary service, and when his mother heard the guitar music playing in the church she broke down. eventually she blamed his girlfriend for leading him into an educated life and away from god. to wrap it up, he is now agnostic (good choice in my opinion) and when he got married to his fiancee they decided to have a judge marry them instead of a priest. which you can only imagine how his family reacted to that.
just a few things to think about:
~ how do you think the Double Conscious affects the relationships that the straddlers have to deal with as they progress up in the world.
~do you think the more scientific knowledge you obtain, the more you are driven away from religion (or at least the mainstream religions. Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc.)
~do you think that the "Black Hole" families are afraid to lose their long standing traditions, or do you think it is more of a fear that they will feel inferior to their children.
also if i can find the article, i'm going to post a link to W.E.B DeBois' Double Conscious article so you can check that out if you'd like. i'm finding articles about his article, but not his article. so i e-mailed a previous prof. to see if he'll e-mail me a link.
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these are two links to some of the double conscious articles
I do think that sometimes knowledge decreases the chances that you will follow a religion, but not always. I know of a lot of college graduates, young and old who practice religion. I also think that the black hole families are truly afraid of feeling inferior to their children. I think you hit the nail right on the head with that one! Those were the stories that I understood the least about, and they really made me appreciate what I had.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that this book was much easier to read than Fussel. I really enjoyed it. I also understood when you said that the book shared the success of the straddlers while also revealing really painful moments of their road to success.
I really had a problem with the Black Hole family concept. My father grew up as one of nine children in a four-bedroom house in Hamilton, OH. He fought his way through youth and adolescence, and some of his fondest memories were running people over on a football field when he was in high school. He was the only one of the children to go to college, and the only one who ever made more than $35,000 in a single year. His temper has cost him a job or two, but he's always managed to find work -- even at 53, when he took a third-shift job loading plains for DHL; or at 57 (earlier this year, actually), when he tried to learn to sell cars; or at 46, when he worked two jobs to the tune of 70 hours a week to pay for one kid heading to private high school and two working their way through college. He did this because he wanted his children to be more successful than he was, and I've carried that idea with me throughout my life. If my children don't do better than I do, aren't smarter than I am, then I'm a miserable failure as both a parent and a person. My dad's story ran through my head every time this "Black Hole Family" concept jumped up.
ReplyDeleteOkay, enough preaching. I thought this passage was extremely relatable, though, from Lubrano's chapter on office politcs:
"Regardless, if you come from the working class, you haven't got a clue how to conduct yourself when you first land in an office. You're lost if you can't navigate the landscape - if you follow blue--collar mores and speak your mind, directly challenging authority. Without tact and subtlety, without the ability to practice politics amongst the cubicles, an executive with a blue--collar background will not rise. And it's a drag watching others get promoted over you."
I actually got fired from a job because I left feedback on a website that wasn't veiled in polite language. I told them I hated their website and that it was downright unusable, then made some suggestions to fix the problems (no, really). When they responded, they told me my problems must be isolated, because no one else had reported any problems (which is insane -- everyone in that office constantly bitched about this website). They also cc'd the President of the firm and the CFO. Needless to say, my unflattering language got me axed the very same day, after lunch. I suppose I have my father to thank for that one.
On another blog post, I commented that I thought that lower class people were becoming the new subclass in American culture. I think several things in this book, not to mention Phylip's DuBois connection, go toward proving that point. There is a middle class that looks down on the lower class because it's still acceptable -- lower class people are both black and white, female and male, old and young -- it insulates them against accusations of racism, sexism, ageism, etc. In an age of convenience, the lower class is the new subclass, the part of society that everyone will come to blame their woes on. Look at the healthcare debacle and the debate over whether everyone deserves care or not.
It really amazes me that parents can be so angry/upset of their children going to college.This really aggravates me because I think going to college is only a better way to further your education and also to get a degree in something you enjoy. I would think parents would be 100% supportive of furthering education. I liked how Lubrano did interviews on attending college. I felt that I could really relate.
ReplyDeleteI think people who are considered in the "black hole" are afraid to lose their long lasting traditions. It makes me sad that they would keep their children from achieving their dreams just to stay apart of the "black hole." Let their children be something with their life. They should support there childrens' decisions. The hole "black hole" thing aggravates me as well!!!!!
I agree with you right from the start. This book certainly was a lot easier to read than Fussell's book. The book was more interesting and hard to put down, because I wanted to see what was coming next. When it comes to Maria, this story shocked me just as it did you. I can't believe her family was so rude and unsupportive towards her. I would have thought her family would have been supportive and not have put her down. Going to college is a privilege, and shouldn’t be thought of as a betrayal to her family. She became successful and ended up teaching near a local school to be close to her family.
ReplyDeleteWhen you talked about Michael I think that he converting his religious beliefs and eventually being agnostic would be very hard for his family because they raised him in the eyes of the church and to follow God. I think you can practice any religion that you choose, but I do understand why the mom would have broke down and been upset. His mom shouldn’t have blamed the girlfriend and assumed she converted him.
When you talk about the "black hole" I think it is hard for the parents of children to break free of that. Every parent should strive for their children to accomplish their dreams and let them become successful in life.
I'm glad you provided us with further topics to think about. I believe that these “black hole” families are both afraid to loose traditions and feel inferior to their children.
ReplyDeleteAs a person gets older we establish our own views on what is important. It is in the best interest to keep traditions from the family but lets face it- times are changing and more and more individuals are conforming to traditional ways that fit into society.They feel differently towards family traditions.I believe any parent is going to feel inferior to their child if they are more successful than them. their children may not continue the traditions of the family so that tells them that their tradition means nothing to their child.
Knowing more scientific knowledge may not nessecceraly drive you away from a religion. I believe people are driven away from their religion for personal reasons. Some of these may be experiencing a different religion, friends, starting a family,daily-life(time), and the individual importance.
It sounds like most of us did not come from "black-hole families." My father adopted me when he married my mother. Both of my parents were not college-educated. My father was fairly hard on me. If I was even just a couple of minutes late, I'd be told to drop to the floor to do push-ups (the whole working-class home run like the military described on p. 56 hit home for me, no pun intended!). I feel like my father adopted an authoritarian parenting style because of his working-class roots, but also because he felt added pressure that I didn't turn out like my drunken biological father.
ReplyDeleteHe's been much more lenient on my two younger sisters, who are 8 and 12 years younger than me. Lubrano's book made me think hard about why this is the case. In part, I feel like my parents fancy themselves more securely middle class. My sisters are just expected to go to college. But in a weird paradoxical sort of way, I think they may unconsciously hold traditional blue-collar values about women. Not that they don't want my sisters to go to college and become successes. More like they wouldn't mind if they stick around the neighborhood, stay close to the family, not change so much, etc. The middle sister has finished college and she still lives with my parents. Where I am a Straddler par excellence, my parents continue to wield a considerable amount of influence on her (the other sister is still in high school).
I wish Lubrano would have talked about black-hole neighborhoods, and not just families. I think entire communities exert pressure on children from a very young age to be this and not that and not to get above their raising. Anthony Walton has talked about "black folkways" as an impediment to African Americans pursuing high-tech fields like computer programming. Certain life options just can't be found on the radar of some neighborhoods. I think it's unrealistic to expect everyone from a black-hole neighborhood to have a great parent or have Straddler aspirations (let alone even know that those aspirations might be). In order for the majority of individuals to change, their neighborhoods need to first.
I, too, found the W.E.B. DuBois reference on p. 194 intriguing. Alex's and Phylip's posts got me thinking about FIght Club, which is a book/film about someone who is two people. As Edward Norton's character becomes more and more alienated in the white-collar world of middle class life, he splits his personality and creates Tyler, a working-class hero alter ego played by Brad Pitt. Read in light of Lubrano's book, Fight Club is about a man living in a limbo state of "double consciousness." I might write that paper!
I am going to focus on one specific question you posed. "do you think the more scientific knowledge you obtain, the more you are driven away from religion (or at least the mainstream religions. Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc.)".
ReplyDeleteI can say personally that science had the opposite effect on me. I have an extensive background in biology, aquatic sciences and ecology. All of these praise Darwin without question. But I will get back to that.
Several years ago I was sitting in a biology class (150 I think) and learning about the inner-workings of the eukaryotic cell. Being a huge science buff, I hobby as an amateur atronomist. In that moment, at my desk, in class I felt as though a ton truck hit me. It was as though I had finally made the connection. For me, Darwinism could not explain genetics and cell biology. I could not find adequate evidence to support Darwin's ideas and to me everything pointed at intelligent design. I cant comprehend the statistics involved in creating life in the way that some scientists view it. I've spent many years finding other scientists that have found this out on their own and there are many. Some dont even believe in God, but know that Darwinian theory does not adequately explain life. But because science has become the new "religion" of the day, people simply trust science to tell them what is real. They dont want to figure it out on their own. Its easier to trust someone that was given a degree to study science. But like any other profession, there are flaws. Like all other science, questions need to be asked and they aren't being asked. Religion DOES NOT make you stupid, nor does it make you lower class. All of that is fabricated by people who want to believe they are responsible for their own destiny and are often not informed enough to know better. So, an individual's experience is just that....individualistic. How far do you want to go and how much do you want to know? Straddling could also be used to describe this problem....scientists that question Darwinism versus those that really just want it to fit. (keep in mind that Darwin's theory came about before the discovery of genes, methylation, gene expression and recombination). Check out the following if you are interested....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zh35qLYM424
Phylip, your discussion about Michael’s story allowed me to discuss something I continuously thought about throughout this book. When Alex brought up his quote “I am two people” made me think of this as well. Is the social class we eventually become a part of due to our upbringing, our life experiences, our beliefs and our education or is it ultimately shaped by the significant other we choose to spend the rest of our life with? On Easter, I visited both sides of my boyfriends’ family with him. Our relationship is new, so this was my first time meeting any of them. He tried to describe everyone to me before hand but he comes from a large family (all together I met about 80 people that day). So after reading this book and thinking about the other topics we have discussed in this class I began thinking how big of an impact marriage has on our social destination. Although I’m sure more times than not individuals from the same or similar social classes get married, what about those couples that aren’t from the same class?
ReplyDeleteI have a friend who comes from a very wealthy family. She hasn’t worked a day in her life, was given a car at 16, had her entire college paid for her…you get the point! She has found herself in love with and has been dating a guy for over two years now that her parents ABSOLUTELY DESPISE. To the point where they do not allow him in their home and are threatening to kick her out and cut all financial ties. All because he is not “the type of guy they pictured their ‘perfect’ daughter marrying”. They always say they didn’t raise her and bless her with things the way they did for her to marry “someone like him”. And I bet you probably could have guessed it, but his family is very loving and accepting of her. They spend most holidays with his family because they are welcome, which just makes things harder for her at home. I have been going through this fight with her since they have been together and have seen what it has done to her. It has torn her down physically and emotionally and is basically slowly tearing her away from her parents. Sorry if that may have been a little off subject but it’s a great example of social classes mixing and it absolutely disgusts me that they act the way they do.
Last, I do think that “black hole” families do what they do because they are afraid of losing their long standing traditions. Almost that if they conform to the American way of education that “our culture” will strip them of what they think is most important in life (Michael’s story is a perfect example). I also believe that some cases it might be because they don’t want to feel inferior to their children but I think that most cases it’s just because of their lack of knowledge or concern of the importance of a college degree here in the United States.
W.E.B. DeBois' notion of the Double Conscious, is a issue that is discussed all the time in the African American community. It's assimilation verses maintaining your roots and how to do both being black in America. Lubrano is right it is a "struggle between two cultural but not fully immersed into one". Once you figure it all out and get the hang of living the lifestyle of being caught in the middle, you come to find that a small circle of friends become more like your family than your actual family. Remember the testimonies of the upper middle class black families on People Like Us. They explained the pressures of labeled them "trying to be white" or "bourgeoisie" by other members of their race and the pressures of not fully being excepted by whites. All because they want a better lifestyle for themselves.
ReplyDeleteScientific knowledge does not drive me away from my relationship with Jesus. Actually it drives me closer. Only God can hang the stars and the moon so wonderfully as he does. It is only by his mercies that we are not consumed.
"I, too, found the W.E.B. DuBois reference on p. 194 intriguing. Alex's and Phylip's posts got me thinking about Fight Club, which is a book/film about someone who is two people. As Edward Norton's character becomes more and more alienated in the white-collar world of middle class life, he splits his personality and creates Tyler, a working-class hero alter ego played by Brad Pitt. Read in light of Lubrano's book, Fight Club is about a man living in a limbo state of "double consciousness." I might write that paper!"
ReplyDeleteYou know, I really don't want to seem like I'm schmoozing, but I just re-watched Fight Club a few days ago, and was thinking about the character that's yanked out of the white collar guy, who once thought he would be able to feel complete with enough IKEA purchases. Tyler Durden's speech about being the "middle-children of history" has got me really wondering about class and what it can do, relatively and objectively speaking, to someone's mind. Durden is a man created from fear, anxiety, loneliness and that despairing feeling one gets when they suspect they might actually be just another guy.
This line of thinking got me wondering about a lingering paranoia I have concerning the upcoming elections in 2010 and 2012. With the sometimes frightening levels of anger on either side of the political divide in America, I wonder whether things might froth over in what I see as an inevitable backlash against President Obama's progressive policies by his no-doubt conservative replacements.
This next part gets kind of rambling, so bear with me:
In 2010, I predict, as do many, a large victory for the Republicans, who will continue to cry foul for the next two years, until it's time to make Obama a one-termer. Then, the Republicans will probably have a very strong hold on the government with a majority in two houses and the President in power. They will then probably go about trying to repeal some of Obama's policies to keep their base happy. This line of action will deepen the divide, and probably energize many to action.
Where does this fit in with Fight Club? The middle class as we know it is shrinking, and taking on a new name: the working class. This is the class with enough money to be educated and live with relatively few problems. We've discussed, by way of a post on Alex's submission, the concepts of job, career and calling -- a lot of people (like Edward Norton's character) took the job for the money, and started buying stuff. Yet one of the most overused cliches of all time is also one that I hear almost every day: money won't make you happy. Not truly happy.
I've often thought that Durden and Project Mayhem were an extreme response, but when I think about the extremes that have been exposed in people since the last election (if I assume that the majority on the right aren't racist -- which I really need to believe), then I'm forced to reconsider. Is the idea of Project Mayhem so outlandish, especially when people have a clearly-defined enemy (in the form of one political party or another), and a lot of free time on their hands? I don't think it is.
..Sheesh. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, I swear.
Eric I would like to assure you that most conservatives are not racist. But when the democratic party is fighting to maintain some semblance of legitimacy, mud slinging will occur. Calling us racists is just ridiculous. I find it hard to believe all the racists in the country come together to form a group of conservatives. There are crazies and racists on both sides of the fence and say that we have a monopoly on both is just an attempt to slander. I've watched this president and his cronies attack my religion, my color and belief system. I have no respect for lies. Both parties have major, major flaws. That is why I do not call myself a republican. The status quo has to change. government has to change. Spending our money on strip clubs and big government has to stop. Conservatives are finally fed up and in order to stop all this you have to expect accountability from our government and politicians. Most of them have spent their lives getting away with spending our money and living great lives, with great insurance and all sorts of benefits. They cant stand the thought of it being taken away and if they need to try to convince the public that conservatives are racist...that is what they will do, among other thing, to maintain their great lives. I intend to do my part to stop it. I hope the rest of America joins in and says no to government waste. Check out http://www.cagw.org/
ReplyDeleteOh, don't get me wrong. I don't support one party or the other. I've variously been a staunch conservative, hard-line libertarian, raging socialist and moderate democrat. But to be honest, I'm the worst kind of cynic; I think voting in a two-party system is a waste of time (especially in Kentucky) and that all politicians are interested in, on either side of the aisle, is the continuation of their own careers. If I had the money, I'd leave the country, and never look back.
ReplyDeleteSo, in an effort to avoid one of my least-favorite kinds of conversations, I'll just say this: I don't think that all conservatives are racists any more than I think all progressives are socialists.