In the documentary Hoop Dreams we briefly follow the lives of two boys from inner city chicago as they try and follow their dreams of becoming professional basketball players. As the documentary starts out it is clear that basketball is a very important aspect of both the boys lives. Both boys are offered scholarships to play at St. Josephs which is a private highschool with a very good basketball program. Along with making the hour and a half commute to the school every morning the boys need to adapt to the new academic environment which is significantly more rigorous. The boys struggle and with William Gates being significantly behind on a grade level scale there is much academic work that needs to be done along with the effort that must be put into basketball. After only a year of being at the school Arthur Agee is forced to leave midway through a semester due to his inability to pay the amount of tuition that he does not have covered by scholarship. Along with losing his place at the school Arthur’s father is suffering from drug abuse and ends up going to jail. Even though William is still at the school after finding a sponsor to help him pay for the tuition increase he injured his knee and does not perform as well after recovery. William end up suffering throughout most of his highschool career without ever fully recovering from his injury. He ends up getting a scholarship to play at a college after just barely meeting the academic requirements to play. Arthur makes a sort of comeback in the sense that his senior year goes very well and he also ends up getting to play at a college after completing his summer school requirement. Throughout the documentary of these two teenagers lives we get a glimpse into the significant amount of struggle that they faced and how they tried to overcome it. After watching this I looked further into what happened in the rest of their lives and both Arthur’s father was murdered and William’s older brother, Curtis, was murdered as well. The drug abuse by Arthur’s father and the various instances of violence within the communities these two boys grew up in relate to the issues we are talking about in class. These two boys both saw basketball as a way out of their situations and the environment they lived in presented many challenges to achieving this goal. The long commute to the school and the lack of resources for their families made it particularly difficult for these boys to achieve their dreams. Do Amy Wax’s ideas in her book Race, Wrongs, and Remedies still apply to this situation or does the documentary help to shed light as to how many of the things that are plaguing inner city communities are out of the control of the people suffering? How does the documentary express ideas similar to that of the American dream and how does the documentary show that this dream may be unattainable?
Tag: Race
In this section of Race, Wrongs, and Remedies the author goes into detail as to what needs to happen to both the culture of African Americans and to their personal values and goals. In the opinion of the author she believes that equality will be impossible to achieve unless there is a massive shift in personal and cultural values of the African American community. She argues that there must also be a shift in the family structure of the typical African American family. The author presents data showing the high rates of single-motherhood and out of wedlock birth and explains how she believes that the lack of a familial structure leads to a lack of values being instilled in children and perpetuates the problems that the community faces. Wax believes that there needs to be a shift in how African American culture views the family structure and how they address the inequality present in America. Wax argues that there needs to be a look into the future and not into the past meaning that she thinks there needs to be a shift towards self help. As she continues to emphasize she thinks that there is only so much others can do to help ones situation. She believes that members of the black community needs to take a proactive stance and mindset in order to improve their condition. Lastly she speaks about affirmative action, which she believes is not a particularly positive thing. Wax argues that affirmative action relies on the idea that an even playing field is not enough to achieve equality. Wax believes that affirmative action and programs similar to it hinder equality and do not create any actual change within culture. Overall Wax believes in a self help approach to inequality along with a massive shift in what she perceives to be the culture and views of the black community. Seeing as this book was published in 2009 are there now more things to take into consideration considering the climate of America today? Do Wax’s ideas make sense or is she not considering aspects about the condition of the African American community that are crucial in determining how to solve inequality?