I picked this one up on impulse because I saw it inside the library van I visit for picking up books for my son. This is the story as told from Michael Oher's perspective (Michael Oher is the NFL player whose life is portrayed in the book and movie The Blind Side).
When I first moved to the US I used to wonder why the black population simply could not get a grip on their lives. There were so many programs to help them, social workers were almost running after them to clean up their lives, but there they were, generation after generation, repeating the same patterns.
I think I found a large part of my understanding in the book "Homegoing" by Yaa Gyasi. The rest of the picture was filled in by this book. Homegoing is work of fiction, but I think it sums up the history of black people in America in a vivid portrayal that shakes you up. While I understood how the community got where it was through that book, what was not clear was why they could not get out of it.
Michael Oher's book sheds some light on that for me. My takeaway from the book was that it is not lack of government programs of access to resources that constitutes their problem. It is the absence of a loving family and supportive community. They grow up in broken homes, usually with a single parent who struggles to get their own act straightened out. Very often the single parent themselves are addicts, as was the case in Oher's case. His mother would disappear for days, sometimes weeks, leaving the children (in some cases when some of them were as young as 14 months) alone in their house in the projects in order to get high. While she was gone they would not even have food at home, so they would sleep and eat wherever they could - usually from neighbors homes and from the free lunches provided at school. None of the children ever saw what a "normal" person was like - nearly all the adults in their community was similar to this, or were involved in gangs. The ones who wanted to "get out" got their role models out of television where their idea of success was to become NFL players or Rappers. Gun fights were common where they lived. The children learnt to dodge bullets as they learned how to play soccer.
Despite all of this, the surprising thing for me was, he wanted to stay with his family. In his case, family was the brood of a dozen or more half siblings his mother had had with a variety of men. He loved them all, and enjoyed being with them, even though they were hungry and not really going to school while they were staying in his home. They looked at social workers who were trying to transplant them into more sane places as enemies who were trying to pry them away from their families.
At first it did not quite make sense to me that the children would not want to leave. But then I understood - doing what the social workers wanted them to do would mean they would have to split up, and they were placed in homes where the caregivers did not really love them like their own children. True, they had food and a decent place to live, and they went to school regularly and got help with school etc, but love wasnt one of the things the caregivers often found in their capability to give. Some lucky children who were adopted by some families found it, but most were often less fortunate. I guess it is the absence of love that really withers children.
In that sense, probably India's poor are not really poor at all. They have family ties that are quite strong, and all someone has to do is give them some resources. One of the realizations I had while reading this book was that solving the problems amongst America's poor is a lot more complicated than solving problems among India's poor.
I wouldnt classify this book as a "great read". Its more meant to be a source of hope for children stuck in the situation that Oher was in, and it also provides some pointers to others regarding how they can help. It is however, an "important read", if you wonder about inner city children who never seem to be able to get out of their situations.
When I first moved to the US I used to wonder why the black population simply could not get a grip on their lives. There were so many programs to help them, social workers were almost running after them to clean up their lives, but there they were, generation after generation, repeating the same patterns.
I think I found a large part of my understanding in the book "Homegoing" by Yaa Gyasi. The rest of the picture was filled in by this book. Homegoing is work of fiction, but I think it sums up the history of black people in America in a vivid portrayal that shakes you up. While I understood how the community got where it was through that book, what was not clear was why they could not get out of it.
Michael Oher's book sheds some light on that for me. My takeaway from the book was that it is not lack of government programs of access to resources that constitutes their problem. It is the absence of a loving family and supportive community. They grow up in broken homes, usually with a single parent who struggles to get their own act straightened out. Very often the single parent themselves are addicts, as was the case in Oher's case. His mother would disappear for days, sometimes weeks, leaving the children (in some cases when some of them were as young as 14 months) alone in their house in the projects in order to get high. While she was gone they would not even have food at home, so they would sleep and eat wherever they could - usually from neighbors homes and from the free lunches provided at school. None of the children ever saw what a "normal" person was like - nearly all the adults in their community was similar to this, or were involved in gangs. The ones who wanted to "get out" got their role models out of television where their idea of success was to become NFL players or Rappers. Gun fights were common where they lived. The children learnt to dodge bullets as they learned how to play soccer.
Despite all of this, the surprising thing for me was, he wanted to stay with his family. In his case, family was the brood of a dozen or more half siblings his mother had had with a variety of men. He loved them all, and enjoyed being with them, even though they were hungry and not really going to school while they were staying in his home. They looked at social workers who were trying to transplant them into more sane places as enemies who were trying to pry them away from their families.
At first it did not quite make sense to me that the children would not want to leave. But then I understood - doing what the social workers wanted them to do would mean they would have to split up, and they were placed in homes where the caregivers did not really love them like their own children. True, they had food and a decent place to live, and they went to school regularly and got help with school etc, but love wasnt one of the things the caregivers often found in their capability to give. Some lucky children who were adopted by some families found it, but most were often less fortunate. I guess it is the absence of love that really withers children.
In that sense, probably India's poor are not really poor at all. They have family ties that are quite strong, and all someone has to do is give them some resources. One of the realizations I had while reading this book was that solving the problems amongst America's poor is a lot more complicated than solving problems among India's poor.
I wouldnt classify this book as a "great read". Its more meant to be a source of hope for children stuck in the situation that Oher was in, and it also provides some pointers to others regarding how they can help. It is however, an "important read", if you wonder about inner city children who never seem to be able to get out of their situations.
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