The Haves and Have Nots

This is something I wrote Saturday, July 30. Pictures are coming soon...

Friday I leave for training in the Peace Corps. Friday I leave for training in the Peace Corps. OHH MY GOODNESS!!!!!! FRIDAY I LEAVE FOR TRAINING IN THE PEACE CORPS. Months have gone by and I still have not fully thought about what joining the Peace Corps means to me. This summer has been an intensive learning experience. I spent about a month and a half in Boston working with privileged kids and now I am in Troy, NY working with kids that literally come from the slums. The organizations I worked with had similar purposes but targeted two different audiences. The organization in Boston aimed at making students aware of the medical field so that they can fully participate in pursuing their desire to become doctors. The kids actually paid to come to the forum and had high expectations for the future. They knew they were the cream of the crop and actually they were recruited to come to the forum because of their high scores. The other organization also recruits students for their scores but they intentionally focus on mid-tier students that are not performing at their best. Their main purpose is to get student motivated to want to go to school even though society, peers, teachers, and even parents don’t believe they have what it takes to succeed in college let alone get into college. The students do not pay to come to the workshop because they can not afford the cost.

One of my colleagues at the Boston workshops asked the students to raise their hand if they were sure they were going to college. The students chuckled at her question and made the comment that “of course they were going to college because everyone goes to college”. They had no concept of people not furthering their education because they lacked resources. With this in the back of my mind I asked my students in the NY workshop to raise their hand if they were sure they were going to college. Literally one person raised their hand and after a while put it down because they were not totally confident. This shows the disparity in our society between the haves and the haves not, which translates into people of color and white people.

Each of the students I dealt with this summer (the haves and the haves nots) are equally intelligent. The brilliance of teenagers these days blows me away. Both sets of students have so much insight and potential that it breaks my heart to know that more of the have nots will not reach their potential than the haves because they lack resources. This is not to say the wealthy kids don’t have struggles that hinder their growth as people but the struggles of the kids from the slum truly outweighs the experience of the wealthy kids.

These kids come from broken homes. Some of the stories they shared with me this weekend had me in tears for hours. I still can’t get some the horror stories out of my mind. It makes me angry to see and hear about so many horrible situations that teenagers have to experience. Imagine listening to a teenage boy describe being homeless in a shelter and not have food to eat and on top of that losing his mother at a very young age. Image hearing stories about a 16 year old girl whose father stepped out of her life when she was just 5 and never meeting him even though he lives down the block from her. Lastly, think about hearing a kid share the horror of having a gun pulled on him because of gang violence. The contrast between the two groups is amazing.

I believe joining the Peace Corps will help me bring something back to my community. Although I have never lived in “ghetto” I feel that my duty in life is to help people that are from these areas. These are my people because they are people of color that do not have the same opportunities presented to them. I feel that they represent me, my culture, and my heritage. In order to help African Americans and Latinos gain leverage in this country and across the world, educated blacks like me need to start giving back.