Interviewing the American Dream; The Aspiring Artist Final Part. "We're Lost"

"And this dream now has taken on a life of its own that says it has to be bigger, faster, newer, greater."

 

In this final part, we talked about the American Dream in general, the state of American Society and then the talk turned to some matters of race and equality.

In talking to a colleague I brought up the subject of the American Dream and he said, “The American Dream? Isn’t that what got us into this mess?”

What do you think about that?

(Laughs). Yes. I would have to say that I agree. I agree with the caveat of greed. I think there’s always been an American Dream. And I don’t think that the American Dream, in and of itself, got us in this state. But I think the greed of it all. It’s not just enough to have a house but you have to have a mega-mansion. It’s not just enough to have a nice car you have to have the Audi S5 or whatever. It’s not just enough to have a diamond ring it needs to be a four carat. It’s the greed of it all. And here’s maybe where I say the media does play some part. It’s not just enough to have an iPhone, you have to have the newest iPhone. I found it a very interesting phenomenon when I have the iPhone 3. Okay, I’ve had it a year. Works fine, answers fine, does everything I want it to do. One year later they came out with the iPhone 4. Record numbers of sales. I know all kinds of people who traded in their 3 for the 4, extending their contracts. We are getting, excuse the term, raped, on the contracts just to have the iPhone. I am absolutely a part of that, but then you’re going to extend your contract? You’re going to pay even more money? Because if you’re in a contract, to upgrade costs you even more money. But that’s not the point. The point is, it’s bigger, or its better, it’s faster, it’s got new features. And this dream now has taken on a life of its own that says it has to be bigger, faster, newer, greater. And we’re constantly driven that; ‘What, you only have the iPhone 2? Dude, seriously you’ve got to get with what’s happening now.’  I think that is what got us where we are. And let’s just be clear it doesn’t just stop with poor people, middle class people, it goes all the way up to rich people. Rich people don’t stop wanting money and things because they’re millionaires. Millionaires want to be billionaires. And it just keeps going on and on and on and on.

The talk turns to James Truslow Adams’ definition of the American Dream.  “But there has been also the American dream, that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”

Well it’s clearly not the American Dream that I grew up with. Because mine was motor cars, the high wages (laughs). But having read it and based on the conversation we just had I would absolutely agree that this is in fact my idea of the American Dream, now. It is about living a richer, fuller life according to your ability and achievement. Absolutely. And I think that is essentially what I came to, to say, yeah well it’s not all about the material things but it is about, he uses here social order, which is an interesting thing, “a dream of as social order in which each man and each woman should be able to maintain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others…”

Yeah, to be appreciated for what you have attained. Yeah, I would say that as I sit here today, this is the American Dream that I have spent my life getting to. But it is not the American Dream that I was raised and reared on.

We began to discuss African Americans and the American Dream.

It’s never been for us. You know what I’m saying. There are lots of us. Lots of us who have managed to carve out an American Dream. Whether it be the 1931 version or the one I grew up with. But it wasn’t meant for us. Probably the easiest way to think of it is if you do a gender. The whole globe, but definitely here in the United States is made and run by men. Now while women have achieved a lot, they still haven’t necessarily, in the numbers, given the fact that we outnumber you depending on where you’re at, two to three to one. The fact that the last study I read you had more females graduating from college. The fact that everything would indicate that at some point there would be equal wage, equal representation, possibly more representation. And yet it doesn’t exist. Because if you really think about it, it wasn’t made for us as a female. So there will never be the equality because it isn’t about equality. It isn’t about you being an equal participant. And so that’s how I feel about it in terms of being an African American.  I don’t think that African Americans should say, ‘well I can’t make it because I’m African American’. No. But to say that I’m a part of the American Dream as if I have equal abilities…like I could participate in the lion’s share, I don’t agree with. Like our President. If you happen to be able to go to some of our better schools you certainly can reach the pinnacle. But then you have Bush, who had none of that. And guess what, we gave it to him too. So we have to be better. We have to be so much better to reach the same heights. So, am I a part of it? No. Do I struggle against it? Absolutely. Do we oftentimes succeed? Absolutely. Should that be an excuse for failure? Absolutely not. But to suggest that we’re in it together, that this is something that I’m a part of, in my mind suggests we have equal ability to achieve and it’s only limited by our own individual abilities, stick to itevness, you know whatever and that’s not the case.

We discussed other aspects of the racial issue. She described a conversation that she recently had with an African American friend of hers in which the friend talked about his feeling about the experience of being an African American male in white society.

His (the friend) point to me was that you as a black female have no idea what it’s like to be a black male in this society. And I said, please do explain. His take as a black male was it doesn’t matter that I’m a black female because one, men have a certain ideal about women. Men do not see women as a threat, as an equal. If anything, in his words, quote, ‘a white man sees you and he’s looking to fuck you, period.’ Okay fine (laughs). So his point was, how they’d come to me even as a white (police) officer, there’s still some sexist, sexual things going on. He’s not going to come at me like a black man. His point was that, white officers in particular, but white males in general have an innate fear of black men. Won’t discuss the reasons or rhymes or hows or whys. This is his perspective. And because there is this fear there’s always somewhat of an over aggression, like let me go ahead and put this man down, let me show him. So he as a black man, he says ‘you know I get stopped,’ he says, ‘I’m not trying to give this man any reason, any reason, you know; yes, okay, I’m going to the glove compartment,’ whatever and he feels for him as a man and certainly as a black man it’s somewhat degrading. It’s like wait a minute, I’m a man too. But since he already knows that there’s this fear, this something, he says that he lives in fear of being stopped. He lives in fear of them taking what he’s doing or what he’s saying or how he’s reacting to them wrong. I sat there and said, ‘really.’ Because I’ve never been pulled over. I’ve never been stopped while driving black. I think there’s a book, Stopped While Driving Black or something like that. I’ve never experienced that. He claims he gets it all the time. Now mind you this is an upstanding citizen, musician, has a job. I can only imagine that if that was my life and if I lived in fear, if I’m living in fear because you are fearful…I would be angry. And I would be angry all the time. And I could see there being this, “f” this, just bring it. Because there’s not a lot of win if I’m undereducated  if I’m underemployed, if even because of those things I don’t necessarily have the command of the English language as I should which means that people are looking down on me, that doesn’t mean that I’m not smart, doesn’t mean that I’m not capable, doesn’t mean that I can’t be taught. It just means that right now I’m lacking. Nobody wants to feel stupid. Nobody wants to feel like they’re less than. I could see that kind of snowballing into something where it’s like, okay, I’m already doing the time whether it be how you look at me, how you respond to me, then I’ll give you a reason to look at me that way, or I’ll give you a reason for you to respond to me that way. I think they want the American Dream like everyone else and I’m not meaning the 1931 (American Dream). And I think they feel hopeless to get it in the same arenas that everybody else has been taught or told or directed towards. Everybody wants it though. Everybody’s being told that, on some levels, means success. And then to go back to an earlier comment, if you’re talking about, my understanding from just watching documentaries, some of your lower socioeconomics then, yeah, TV really is the babysitter. So yeah it becomes important to be a Shaq. because that means getting out. Or a rapper or something because that means getting out. That means having the cars, the women, the diamonds, the whatever. So both as a hero worship but also as a way to escape what you see as a kind of a dead end or no hope situation. So yeah I could see them not really feeling they’re a part of the American Dream in any type of way unless they play ball, rap or just plain out take it from you.

Wrapping up our talk I asked for any final, general thoughts.

As we were talking about the American Dream and all of this, greed and all of that. I think that we’ve lost our way, as a country, as a people. I look at some of the European Countries now, it’s kind of ironic, we ran from Europe. We (African Americans) didn’t, we were brought here (laughs). The whole American thing was running from the oppression of what was going on in Europe. Strangely enough Europe has gone through its own little cycle and they’re in many regards far more liberal, far more socially minded than we are and yet some of those are the reasons that they felt they had to go. I think we have gotten to a place where people feel like the American Dream is a right. And I mean the American Dream like the cars, the house, the whatever. And they will do whatever it takes to get it. And it’s interesting that we have this whole political thing with Obama saying, healthcare, universal healthcare. And people are debating back and for the and the largest voices I was hearing was, well, he’s trying to turn us Socialist. And not having a great grasp of Socialism in all of its aspects I’m not really clear how that is necessarily a bad thing. Clearly you don’t want deadbeats, you don’t want people saying, well shoot I’m getting food and shelter and I ain’t even gonna work. You definitely don’t want that. But the idea that we’ve completely lost our way. Nobody cares about anybody. You know something as simple as driving down the street, you have four way stops, people go (right through the stop), you go well wait I was here first. (There’s) no care or concern for your fellow man. People don’t say excuse me, people drop things and people walk over them. Again, back to BART, you’ll have problems on the train, you know, medical. People are irate that the train comes to a stop and will not move until a medical team comes. Because they have places to go. Not is the man or woman okay? Did they have a heart attack? Is there something we can do? Nobody’s pulling off any jackets or make sure that they don’t go into shock. Its how quickly can we get this train moving? I have to go to work. I’ve got to go pick up my kids. Me, me, me, me, me. It’s always me. And of course BART, in its ultimate greed is absolutely the same way. Our supervisors will ask, can you get that passenger off the train? Is there a way, because trains moving means money. BART isn’t interested in losing any money. So here you go. You’ve had a heart attack on public transportation, you got hundreds of people on the car with you and nobody from the company to the people that are sitting next to you give a damn except to the extent of how long are you going to inconvenience them. We’re lost.  

As my interviewee might have said, this interview could be called "ridiculously long." Our conversation went on long after I turned off the recorder.  It continued at other times when we met to take bike rides. She is an extremely bright, thoughtful individual with very strong opinions and it was these that told me to, yes, publish the whole talk and no, do not edit the interview.  I've been taken to task a few times for my posts being too long.  To those who've found the posts too long, maybe this rag isn't for you; there are thousands and thousands of blogs out there with short posts. To those who hung in there I hope this three part interview resonated with some readers.