Feel Good Movies
Of course it is irrational and fantasy, but I am activated emotionally watching a feel good movie about teachers and coaches who succeed with inner city kids. I taught for decades at a University where the majority of students came from inner city high schools. Naturally I didn't come in contact with the worst and most hopeless of inner city young people. The worst of these kids dropped out of school long ago. So I got the best of the worst, so to speak, and had a front row seat as to their abilities, their attitudes, their priorities, their personalities, and especially the obstacles they faced to better themselves.
Most all of these students were decent, personable, cooperative, energetic, honest, hard working, and deserving of success. The percentage of these students WHO EVER REACH their potential is small----quite small. On the other hand most will at least escape the urban ghetto and have a better life. It rarely ends up the degree of success story of those young people from affluent families who have had the good fortune to have so much more going for them in life. The feel good movies in this area are unrealistic. In these movies good intentions win out and the kids succeed. The character of these kids in the movies is accurate enough and I feel the same empathy for these kids as the ones I taught. But the ones I taught rarely go as far in life as they deserved and of which they were capable. Each case is different, but in essence there are just too many cards against them, too many senseless, unfair, prejudicial forces for them to wade through. Affirmative action was in theory going to put these kids on a more level playing field, but it never did to any great extent. There are two reasons affirmative action failed them. First, for most of them the quality of the schools they attended as youths didn't change. The amount of money spent to educate them compared to more affluent youths stayed the same. Second, affirmative action mostly helped those minorities who didn't need help----the middle class minorities. They are the ones who got shoved ahead, promoted early, etc. For urban ghetto youths nothing much changed.
The job of a Professor in a University is to teach subject matter but the challenge with these students from urban ghettoes goes way beyond that. I have taught in a rural high school (briefly), in a large suburban prestigious University, and in an Urban State University. In a prestigious university a Professor can mumble his/her way through lectures and the students will just learn from the text. With their educational background, and the time available for study---they will do well regardless. In an urban university these students come from academically pathetic high schools, often have unstable home lives, often are working full time jobs, have all sorts of responsibilities to siblings, a parent, a grandparent, etc, and have little idea how to study effectively. Compared to more affluent students these students are computer illiterate. It is risky to generalize here but, for the most part, these students have impressive honesty, cooperativeness, trustworthiness, and are very appreciative of any help with their problems. These students can detect right away which Professors are really on their side and which ones consider them hopelessly deficient in the social and academic skills needed to succeed. Most of these students are genuinely trying to better themselves and have more SELF DRIVE than most affluent students. Most affluent students have little idea of what it really means to have your back up against the wall in so many ways so much of the time.
The reality is that one can help many of these urban students with some situational problems in their lives BUT, and this is a big BUT, the problems are so many, and so relentless with no pause over time that at some point they settle for little. It becomes a case of something is better than nothing and certainly better than the life situation of their youth. It is unfair to say they give up. It is more fair to say they just get burned out from the struggles. Of course if they have natural born athletic talent an army of mentors will descend from all directions and help them with every life problem conceivable. They become, in essence, a natural resource for which others have a use. These athletically blessed ones are not success stories in which these athletes pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps.
In a few cases one encounters a student from the worst of urban situations who is a self made achiever. They are not particularly likable, they do things their way, and they use you to get ahead, and if you get in the way, they will run right through you. They are extremely confident, independent, oblivious to others, mostly invisible unless you are the hurdle which needs to be run over or through. These 'balls of fire' are not close to anyone except maybe a parent or grandparent, are self centered, have tunnel vision, and pretty much assume others are enemies and not to be trusted. They manage to succeed but most 'others' are not proud of them or admirers of their success because none of us who are the 'others' play much of a part in their success. Let's face it, most of us like to feel part of someone's success, at least enjoy their personality traits, and observe them show humility and gratitude for those affluent who "saved them". Success at most anything doesn't really stand by itself. Others want that person's success to come via a certain pathway, and with a sympathetic personality with which we can relate.
Payton Manning is good at what he does and radiates lovability, likability, humility, modesty---the whole nine yards. It doesn't do much good to wonder 'who is the real Payton Manning' because Payton Manning is a highly cultivated product, molded into what he now is by a small army of advisors and protectors his entire life. We all like Payton Manning. What is there to dislike? Maybe a bit boring and contrived.
At the other extreme is a Terrell Owens. He didn't even start out with natural athletic talent. No one paid much attention to Terrell Owens until very late in college and mostly not until he got into the Pros, the 89th pick in the third round of the draft. I like him because he is the perfect example of the kind of urban kid I mentioned in the paragraph before the last paragraph. Once you are in a position to observe how difficult it is to meet the needs of most urban young people, and how those who depend on others to have their potential fulfilled go only so far, you finally appreciate the few who do it on their own, 'the little engines who could'. Like who, with maybe the exception of Jerry Rice, can say they made Terrell Owens successful? Most of the traits so many dislike about Terrell are the very traits which made him successful. When you have watched so many urban young people, really likable people, fall short of their potential, you then, and maybe only then, admire Terrell Owens. It is not like he is not a good citizen, or dishonest, or bad mouths others (not even those who make a career of bad mouthing him), or interferes with anyone else's success. For the most part others don't exist in his world, let alone be bothered by him. He is pleasant enough, soft spoken most of the time, self promoting, and generous to the less fortunate. Of course he is self focused which most people understandably convert to selfishness. He trains alone with his own program, he thinks alone off by himself, he focuses solely on his own performance, he celebrates by himself, and he loves attention on his terms. Ironically, those who are tired of welfare handouts, affirmative action, pampered athletes in high school and college who are given an army of guidance, gifts, favors, bail outs for all kinds of bad (even criminal) behavior, and a steady access to willing sex partners---these people should be huge fans of a Terrell Owens. People in high school or college with Terrell Owens hardly remember who he was. But he had a firm set of ethical values and goals and enough creativity to plot out his own successful training program. He just listened and trained on his own with his grandmother's admonition ever present that "no one is ever going to give you anything Terrell, you must be better than others and take what you earn and never let anyone use you, or underpay you, or stand in your way. You are special, Terrell" (Paraphrased). For Terrell to exceed it had to be him vs the world.
I wouldn't want to be in a world surrounded by Terrell Owens clones. Few of us, with equal limited natural ability, would ever be able to come near his kind of personal focus. Terrell Owens achieved his objectives as a professional football player but it came at a huge social image cost. He is definitely socially challenged. His world to date is a truly unique solitary bubble outside his Grandmother and mother and brother. In his profession retirement comes at an early age. He doesn't lack for admirers, mostly former teammates and coaches, those close enough to see up front just how focused and self made he really is. The question now is whether, with sports over, he can finally enlarge his world enough to include others in more than a superficial way. Perhaps he is wealthy enough he doesn't have to leave his bubble. How much does the attention really matter? The soap opera isn't over.
I like feel good movies about people who succeed under difficult environments. But I also know a lot of it is fantasy, not all that realistic. It is the Terrell Owens type who get to the top with untapped abilities and crushing environmental obstacles. Most of these self made stories are not star athletes (few of these stars come up on their own like Terrell Owens) and so we don't really know much about them. They are where they are because they are good at what they do, they are not company or peer favorites, they live in their own world, and they don't trust others outside that world. But I have come to feel: "Good for them". I admire them, not adore them. These kind of successful people are not adorable: just unique and amazing. You respect them, not adore them. They did it their way----but legitimately----on their own, and for those youths in urban or rural ghettoes a Terrell Owens is frankly the best kind of role model, and the T.O. way the only way most of them will ever excel at anything. If nice guys finish last has any real meaning, it certainly does for these ghetto youths. When others are amazed at how much Terrell Owens paraphernalia is sold, they only need take a trip to the ghettoes across our land to find the answer. When these youths sit frustrated and dejected at all the obstacles in their environment, a Terrell Owens gives them hope---he got ahead the old fashioned way, he earned it. When most of us say that, we are mostly full of shit, but Terrell really did earn it all by himself, except for his grandmother.
