They tell me of a home.......

"Home is where one starts from."
-T.S. Elliott
The title of this post was taken from the title of a book that my mother read not to long ago. It was based on a town very similar to the one from which most of my maternal relatives hail. It tells of the story of a man who leaves his life of manual labor and an unloving family in "Swamp Creek", AR for the world of academia. He comes home to find that everything has changed and that he has become an outsider in his own "home". I'm not sure how relevant this will be to my post, but I felt that it was an interesting title.
Over the past couple weeks, I have been inundated with examples of my hometown on television that were created by people who may or may not have ever stepped foot in the state. I am amazed to see the way in which my hometown is portrayed. It's broken down and placed into the walls of a high school known for being the first integrated public school in the state. While I recognize and appreciate the huge sacrifices that were made by these brave young men and women, I'm kind of over the children at the school continually using its racist history as an excuse not to achieve. By the same token, I can't really deal with people who are striving to achieve using their success to shun those who aren't prepared to take that step.
Let me take it a step further and remind these people that if you look beyond skin color, people are different underneath as well. Not every child of African-American descent, that's born in a nice neigborhood will be a scholar, and at the same time not every one born in the projects will be illiterate. I watched as a student continually spoke to the idea that most black students that attempted an AP course would fail, but it's all about the trying. I feel that the documentary didn't delve into the life of an average African American at that school, it chose several extreme cases.
It basically served up 3 types of Black kids:
A) The Achiever (I hate the term over-achiever as we should all strive to achieve) who was raised around whites and feels alienated from the black population
B) The kid from the wrong side of the tracks who is really trying to leave their less than stellar financial upbringing in the past
C) The sob story of the teenage parent (to pull at our heartstrings)
From this "myriad" of students we were supposed to derive the true state of the African American student in Little Rock.
I happen to be related to 3 National Achievement Scholars who all served as student council president at this very same high school. I feel that this is also a story that warrents telling. Each of them attended HBCU's and gained degrees. I feel that we have enough examples of the kid from the wrong side of the tracks that made good, and of the silver spooners who maintained their social standing. What about the kids whos parents are educators? What about the kids who live in middle class black neighborhoods (those do exist)? What about the kids in those AP classes who don't plan on just trying (they plan on besting their majority counterparts)? Why is this story generally ignored? I guess it doesn't make for good television.
As a native of Little Rock, I'm often sickened by what I see on television. I am almost embarrassed to watch the mockery that is made of my beloved hometown. I guess what sickens me most is the fact that I honestly don't feel like I've done enough personally to change it. I'm continually making plans to move back, but always have one caveat (that the money is right). The truth is I left AR with alot of my parents hopes and dreams in August of 2003 and don't feel that I have the right to return until, I've done all that I can to realize my potential and am a credit to them both. The truth is that I do dream of the day that I make my glorious return, the day when M.E.R.I.T. is up and running, the day that we are truly effecting change. Until such a time, I'll have to continue my love/hate relationship through documentaries and theatrical productions based on that dark time in 1957 and hope that some one gets the story right so that I can stand up and applaud. Applaud with thunderous excitement and proclaim that YES, I AM FROM LITTLE ROCK. Until that time, I continue to work to make my way in this world so that AR can have another son making positive change that it can be proud of................

The journey is my home.

your thoughts E?