Rest in Peace

The Single 'Greatest' Factor

A couple of months ago, I wrote a blog post entitled, Prison Industrial Complex . Here is a follow up to the original post that considers a different facet of this issue that is plaguing America.

While scrolling through my Twitter feed, I came upon this promoted tweet by Dr. Boyce Watkins, a Professor from Syracuse University and social commentator that made me stop and think. The Prison Industrial Complex has most commonly been considered for its economic and social impacts, however the issue of the disruption of family life that Watkins brings up really changes the playing field.

Factors may be numerous, far and wide, but for Watkins to call something 'the single greatest factor' of the destruction of the black family [structure] over the last four decades is powerful. This statement definitely has the evidence to back it up: there are more African American men in prison today than there were enslaved in 1850. All of these men are now locked up away from their families. Now, one can assume that these men are a danger to society, because they are in prison for a reason, however I beg to differ. The numbers of petty crime offenses such as illegal substance possession and shoplifting incidents that have resulted in jail sentences is egregious (Federal Bureau of Prisons website). Murder crimes and the like are worthy of at least jail time, but to imprison someone for a petty crime (especially one that is most common among African Americans) could be classified as downright racist. These men deserve to be back home with their families. I know this is a slightly naive approach to this issue, but I believe there has got to be a better solution than locking petty crime 'criminals' up for undefined periods of time. What do you think?

Shift in Emphasis and Priorities

As the end of the school year approaches Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has announced that he plans to shut down 54 CPS schools due to the lacking quality in education (as measured by public standardized testing results) and the depleted amount of funding for the schools' budgets. Unfortunately, news of potential CPS school closings and 'turnaround schools' is nothing new for Chicagoans. However, just this week Mayor Emanuel announced what he planned to do with the $55 million in tax money saved from the school's closings: build a hotel and a basketball arena on the near-south side for a private university.

Mayor Emanuel at the Proposed Site
via the Chicago Reader

This private university, DePaul, is a Catholic institution with tuition costing more than $30,000 a year for undergraduates: a long shot for the average Chicagoan. Mayor Emanuel plans to purchase land at the intersection of Cermak and Prairie through a program called TIF--Tax Increment Financing-- which according to the City of Chicago's website is a "special funding tool used to promote public and private investment across the city" by focusing on infrastructure and "putting vacant properties back to productive use, usually in conjunction with private development projects". Clearly, this is used by Chicago politicals because it is 'special' (not just your ordinary magic money making machine) and gives them the power to intervene in projects that look the most advantageous and profitable on the surface.

The construction of the DePaul complex is one example of turning vacant property into a place for productive use. According to Ben Joravsky of the Chicago Reader, the TIF program actually "lets the mayor take property tax dollars from the schools, parks, and county in order to invest the money in projects that he hopes will someday generate even more property tax dollars" despite the real truth that this land is publicly held and exempt from taxes (Rahm's latest plan: Close the schools, build an arena). Although this article had the biased tone from an outraged Chicagoan, I think Joravsky is correct in his take on the Mayor being able to 'take property tax dollars' at his choosing from projects that would seem to be more beneficial than a private sports arena  for a team that unlike a public park, most residents do not have access to.

This brings up the point, as Joravsky puts it, "Of course, as broke as we are, there's still $55 million lying around to buy up some land and hand it over to private entities that don't need it". How can this be representative of the larger theme of the increasing gap between the rich and poor? The private rich corporations are getting monetary perks and loopholes while the poor residents get their public schools and parks taken away. To what extent has politics become a means of achieving favorable conditions for investors, lobbyists and privately-owned companies? How does this demonstrate a shift in the priorities of a city with educational needs to a place with corporate interests?

Token Cities

 

It is fairly common knowledge that in order to garner a larger audience, network television shows expand the diversity of their cast to feature characters of different races and abilities. These 'tokens' can also be in other form: uncommon cities. Some American cities can be considered 'tokens' as well.

Today, the majority of television shows take place in either New York City or Los Angeles. According to Paul Audley, the president of FilmL.A the two cities "are concerned about the competition” (Bilefsky, NY Times). Despite the fact that the two cities are feeling the need to outdo each other to compete for revenue, this is only the case there. The real truth is that there are almost no tv shows set anywhere else in the country.

The FOX network drama-musical-comedy, Glee, can be considered an example of this. Not only does the cast feature high school students of multiple races including one who is disabled in a wheelchair, it also takes place in Lima, Ohio: a 'token' in more ways than one. On the surface, the show is may not seem like the glamorous, urban locations of New York City and Los Angeles like most other shows, but it is actually filmed at Paramount Studios in Hollywood, California. I guess this show is more of an anomaly among network television today on the surface, but really just the same as all the others deep down.

What do you think this says about our society's affinity for urbanization? How is that what is shown on tv is translated to the public? How must foreigners view America by only seeing such a small sampling of American cities and people?

Chicago and the Great Gatsby

Fitzgerald and King

In the wake of the premiere of the new, star-studded 'Gatsby' film based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'roaring twenties' novel, critics re-earthing the facts of the author's private life and how it parallels to the plot of the story.

The themes of 'Gatsby': wealth, arrogance, ostentatious egoism and 'unsustainable greed and a lack of morality' were clearly close to Fitzgerald's heart as he wrote an entire novel satirizing them. In this week's Chicago Tribune, Christopher Borrelli examines Fitzgerald's life as a young adult by way of his ledger in an article entitled, 'Real Daisy Bloomed on Chicago's North Shore'. From brief entries such as:

January 1915: 'Met Ginerva'

June 1915: 'Nobody home and midnight frolic with Ginerva'  

and finally,

June 1917: 'Ginerva engaged?'

These entries describe the two-year period of courting the once 19-year old Fitzgerald and then 16-year old Ginerva King experienced. According to Borrelli, King was a "Lake Forest debutante who spurned Fitzgerald, a poor college student at the time, and married into a wealthy Chicago family". This almost completely echoes the story of the fictitious Daisy Buchanan, the woman that the rags to riches Jay Gatsby fell for young. Like Ginerva, Daisy married Tom Buchanan, a wealthy, close-minded polo-playing man. Could it be that Fitzgerald first admired and aspired to the rich, but found himself jilted and upset when he proved not good enough to live among them?

I wonder why after all of these years and multiple film adaptations, the American public is still fascinated with this unlikely and sad love story. How it is that public admires Gatsby's attempt to disprove the nostalgia that Fitzgerald received himself from a Lake Forester, "Poor boys shouldn't think of marrying rich girls" (Correlli)? How does this make Gatsby out as a hero or just a lovesick idealist? Why does this of defying the odds play so well in American culture even to this day?

No Rich Child Left Behind

via the Los Angeles County
Office of Education

While the idea of standardized testing and the gap between the rich and poor may not seem to have any connection besides the fact that they are both rising, they do correlate in an uncanny way: they can be used to assess the widespread effect of one another in America.

It is fairly common knowledge that kids from a higher income background tend to have higher GPAs and perform better on standardized tests than kids from lower income households. However, it is lesser known that there is actually a more substantial discrepancy of educational success between social classes than between that of different races. According to Professor Sean F. Reardon of Stanford University in an article for The New York Times entitled 'No Rich Child Left Behind', "If we look at the test scores of white students only, we find the same growing gap between high- and low-income children as we see in the population as a whole". Therefore, the American public's test scores in general are fluctuating at the 'same growing gap', regardless of race.

I think the use of standardized testing in testing the rate of the increase in the gap between the rich and poor is a unique idea. Why do you think standardized testing can be applied to assess different socioeconomic thresholds? To learn more about the disparities of education for rich students versus poor, you should check out my classmate, Lily Stein's, blog.

Higher Institutions Under Fire

One of the most stressful things about the end of high school for many American teenagers is the college admission process. In the application process, students must provide a transcript of their GPA, extracurricular activities and for most, standardized test results. However selective a college or university may be, they typically offer admission to those students who fit their academic and student profile of caliber.

A student body profile often provides a glance to the public of what the school is like and how rigorous the curricular is etc. Naturally, the more competitive the college looks, the 'better' is would seem.

In efforts to get ahead and establish a 'good' reputation, many higher institutions have altered the data for the public eye. In a recent article for the Washington Post, Nick Andersen examines how some colleges have misreported data in efforts to skewed rankings (such as those seen in the U.S. News and World Report). According to the article, Bucknell University in Pennsylvania announced that for several years it had reported inflated SAT scores for incoming students and others submitted incorrect test scores or overstated the high school rankings of their incoming freshmen. Andersen argues that these schools have misreported data in efforts to "angle for prestige to stand out in a crowded market [of colleges]". I think the use of the word 'prestige' is key; colleges feel that in order to convince their peers or potential donors for their continued support, they must stretch the truth.

To what extent do you think the altering of test scores affects a university's rankings? I wonder if there should be legislation enacted to deter public higher institutions from inflating class ranks or other aspects of their student body profile in the future.