Often times I use the word politics not in reference to a governing body but as a reference to a way things are ran and decided without going by a governing set of rules. This happens all the time in today’s world where people make decisions based on race or social class. For example someone might not attend a particular church because its clergy is mostly of a different race or social class. When I look at today’s society I can see and feel a set of governing rules on how where one is suppose to live, go to church, shop, send their kids to school, etc. And these decisions are based entirely on one’s social class. This is definitely visible at my service placement at the Multicultural Family Center. The vast majority of the kids are African American, come from homes with a low income, and live in the Washington neighborhood. There are no wealthy white kids there because the politics of society say that a wealthy white child cannot go to a free afterschool daycare. Why not? How come some parents don’t send their kids to the center and use the money they are saving by not sending them to a daycare to donate to the center? That money could be used by the center to improve the quality of daycare for your child and all the other children there. It is because the politics of society say that this is wrong; that this should not happen. Society has drawn lines between social classes and races and the politics and rules of these lines make it hard to cross them. I even asked myself the question. “Would I send my kids to the center as an after school daycare?” Quite frankly, I don’t know. By what I believe and what I think is right I would say yes. But for some reason society has such a huge impact on my decision that I just don’t know if I could, and I have no good arguments for this. I feel like this is an issue where I am in the middle of the racist spectrum which I talked about last week. I realize what is there and what is happening but I’m just not stepping up to the plate to do anything about it. I think I will have to spend more time at the center in order to answer this question as well.
I think Ellison is trying to tell us that politics in communities is what divides us. That is what divides our schools, organizations, cities into different social and racial classes. There are walls and barriers between us and if we want to tear them down we must get rid of society politics. There will always be this barriers as long as there are unwritten rules of ‘proper’ conduct between social classes. Ellison shows this in Invisible Man by how the character could not stay at the men’s house any longer for certain reasons. Though I thought it was very unclear to the reader what those reasons were one can still tell that that he was making a point on how divisions between societies are existent.
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I liked what you have to say Dave. And I don’t think I have thought about the day care and where families send kids as an income based thing so that put some nice perspective on some things going on in the Washington neighborhood. Interestingly enough, at the Lantern center I feel like we get a wide range of individuals with different incomes and in different situations. You did a good job on focusing on the larger picture especially because I failed to do it quite the same way. Something interesting you also reminded me of is how often these politics change. I know maybe a century or less ago, the Irish had a hard time in the US and now different ethnic groups altogether struggle and new prejudices accompany different ethnicity groups. I think you had a point with tearing the walls down, but its sad at the same time knowing what other people say or others’ perspectives. Nice blog though, it made me think about things a little differently.
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