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Inherit the Wind
Aug 9th, 2011 | 5 responses
Forty two years ago, I was preparing to teach my first classes. I had spent the summer at the University of North Carolina, studying John Dewey, Jerome Bruner, Carl Rogers and American Literature. I was one of about fifty students who were about to enter the public schools as teacher interns. We taught during the day, went to school at night, and were visited frequently by the faculty in the School of Education. It was a baptism by fire. But it was training firmly rooted in the real world.
We were white middle class kids. Some of us were southerners — from North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. But a lot of us came from outside the South. I was the only student from outside the country. And, because a number of us were not familiar with the lives of African Americans, the faculty arranged a meeting between us and the kids on campus who were part of the Outward Bound Program. They were high school students who came from backgrounds less privileged than ours.
Martin Luther King had been killed the year before and the ghettos were still alight. During the course of the meeting, the conversation turned to guns and violence. Near the end of the session, one guy, from Long Island — whose heart was in the right place, but who looked at the world with the flinty realism of a New Yorker — said, “There’s 22 million of you and 275 million of them — and they have the guns. You can’t win.”
The Outward Bound kids were not intimidated by our presence. Unlike their grandparents, they were not going to treat us with deference.One girl, who had been animated during the discussion, looked at us — as clear-eyed as the guy from Long Island. “I’d rather die standing up,” she said, “than on my knees.”
I’ve thought of her this week, as world markets have roiled and the cities of Britain have erupted in violence. During the last three years, people have been loathe to take to the streets. But, as things go from bad to worse, it would be foolish to think that those of us who live in steerage will not revolt against those of us who live on the upper decks. .It would be wise to recall that line from the Book of Proverbs, “He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind.”
Owen Gray grew up in Montreal, where he received a B. A. from Concordia University. After crossing the border and completing a Master’s degree at the University of North Carolina, he returned to Canada, married, raised a family and taught high school for 32 years. Now retired, he lives — with his wife and youngest son — on the northern shores of Lake Ontario. This post is cross posted from his blog.
5 Responses to “Inherit the Wind”
There’s no excuse for nonsensical class warfare (morally lowered).
We didn’t see much worse in the Great Depression. This isn’t economic directly, but is cultural, with added economics-related decision to create a vast welfare state. It props up and even promotes the underclass — the well-known British underclass.
There’s no need later to be dishonest as was done in 1992 in Los Angeles, and romanticize the low-lifes, calling the riots an “uprising.” (Nor did I encounter this lie about the Paris riots.)
When a kid was thrown from an overpass, had his back broken and was tasered repeatedly for not standing up when ordered, there weren’t any riots.
I’m starting to think that m-a-y-b-e there needs to be a riot every time it turns out there is something seriously wrong with the police force. Of course, looting the stores of your fellow civilians is bad, but causing some destruction and scary events to put a jolt of fear in the samey, indifferent chattering classes is a good idea.
No riots… No changes. Either the police force and its routines and atmosphere is subjected to harsh regiments and airing out at the s-m-a-l-l-e-s-t transgression or there should be more riots.
NEVER trust people in uniform. NEVER let up on them.
Class warfare is what the rich right wingers do not want. They will be wiped out and they know it.
Social justice and equitable distribution of our nations wealth, which come from ALL our people, is the only answer. Any preemption attempt otherwise, only leads to that inevitable day when the masses exert their unstoppable power yet again as history shows us, with, massive violence. I would ask the mouthy right wing to reconsider their oppression before its to late. God will bless the righteous in battle, that I do not doubt.
“equitable distribution of our nations wealth”
Defined how and imposed by whom?
The difficulty in finding the answer to those simple questions is precisely why all attempts at using government to impose it have cost so many millions of lives. Those who appoint themselves the “vanguard of the people” always wind up corrupted by the power of it and they become oppressors even worse than those they overthrew. Put another way, you can have my iPad when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
The love of violence that is coming out, both in London and in some of the comments about it, is disturbing and hypocritical for those who claim to value peace and non-violence.
“The love of violence that is coming out, both in London and in some of the comments about it, is disturbing and hypocritical for those who claim to value peace and non-violence.”
Yes, a lot of right-wingers seem to derive sexual enjoyment from the prospect of lots of young people being beaten hard by riot police.
They love them shiny boots, don’t they.