It's not just about the American Dream

My heart is breaking.  It is turning over and twisting and infuriated with the ignorance, insensitivity, and patronizing attitude that exists. 

I read a paper that is written by a university staff worker. It talks about our university programs that reach out to the community, intentionally giving students an opportunity at higher education.  They are good programs.

But these papers...they are steeped in assumptions, prejudice, and the idea that if we can get everyone through our experience, we will make the world a better place. That's why we are doing our part.

You arrogant, blind man.  

I have lived in this city but five years, so I cannot speak as one who has loved this region for years. I recognize families who have seen better days, but I also see the gems they still treasure. I experience the familial feel in restaurants where I see so many greet each other and I assume they have known each other for years. I am slowly exploring the organizations who pour their energy into the rougher areas of Stockton, who aren't afraid to get to know them. They eat downtown to support that area so that the city doesn't keep trying to expand north to get away from the population that is at times messy.

But you, you paint a picture of such disparity. You write as if the area is inherently on a downward spiral and it always has been, were it not for the saving grace of Higher Education. You write of the crimes and academic gaps and economic dismay and ethnic minorities as if that is all this county is. In such generalities and in your offensive descriptions, you assume that those you are reaching must be immigrants and blue collar workers, uneducated and disadvantaged.  But surely if we put them through college and give them a stab at the American Dream, that will be enough.

No, we cannot neglect the reality of Stockton.  The statistics themselves are at times overwhelming, and driving by the run-down streets is far less than encouraging. But to write as you do is insensitive and offensive. 

This is but a fraction of my feelings as I read these papers this morning.  There is more to be furious about: higher education as a magical key to solve everything, the if you try hard enough you can mentality, and horrible ways to categorize people and to explain what we're doing to change the world.  

It is an interesting place to study biblical justice in one area of my life, turn around, and see a case example in another. I remind myself that I am not that much better, that I too have much to learn, that time and time again it is my turn to strip my eyes and attempt to adjust my lens away from my own viewpoint. Still, I lost an hour of productivity at work trying to grasp what sort of arrogant, ethnocentric, upper class employee could write something so ignorant.