This morning's Twitter feed included a grim NYTimes.com report about how hard it seems to be for some humans to rise above expectations. This page is full of flashy, annoying, repetitious graphics, but it seemed to work all right for this computer, apart from the need to scroll through the graphics, so I'm guessing it'll work for you too...
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/19/upshot/race-class-white-and-black-men.html?
Briefly: In most of the United States, White boys, White girls, and Black girls grow up to become about as wealthy as their parents were, maybe wealthier--but Black guys (not always, but often) fall through the cracks and grow up poor, even if their parents were rich.
The NYTimes writer admitted that there are places, notably including Silver Spring, Maryland (the side of Eastern Avenue that's easier to study separately from the ghetto than Takoma-DC is), where young Black men often do become as rich as their parents were. But there aren't enough places like that. Achieving, doing well, being well-to-do are apparently seen as "White things" or "girl things" during crucial stages of boys' formative years.
This has to be partly due to a problem in early-teen or even pre-teen boy culture. These young men grew up with fathers who were earning good money; they did not have to rely on Winston Peters' unsupported word to tell them that a Black man can be a doc-tah or a law-yah or a teach-ah or a bank-ah or, though it didn't fit the tune, a Cabinet Minis-tah.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jV1CFZ3EhsY
They had money. They had privileges. They went to good schools. They did well at those schools. They got decent student labor jobs, internships, scholarships. Then at some point, whether in middle school or when they finished their first B.S. and went away to university, they just got into some sort of trouble and sank down into the lower class again. And it's not even that they failed to get the Rhodes Scholarship or become a rock star, became discouraged, and spent the rest of their lives driving delivery trucks; that wouldn't drag down the group average so outrageously. In order to produce these depressing, disgusting statistics, a lot of these guys had to become addicts or convicts. Chances are that you, like me, could name names of men who had what it supposedly takes to succeed, and went far beyond failure...
Blaming White Americans addresses only part of the problem. Yes, even the affluent young man who talked to the NYTimes reporter said he has to self-monitor constantly to avoid intimidating people by looking like the thug stereotype. Yes, that's a shame, especially in view of the contrasting stereotypes that roll out when young men seem too polite, articulate, intelligent, considerate, or clean...but guess what? Those stereotypes have White (and other) versions too. Then there's the "Bad Girls have no standards whatsoever, and Nice Girls have no character and no fun" female version. We all can and should celebrate mature Black men who Do The Right Thing and Take Care of Business and Earn Respect, but at some point young men have to take responsibility for the decisions some of them made that it might be "cooler" or more fun to run drugs than it would be to keep doing a boring student labor job.
Young males of most species seem to be hard-wired to rise to challenges, to prove themselves.
Young male birds do almost all the singing that my part of the world has been hearing this winter. After the Big Freeze, the birds who normally stay in the Blue Ridge Mountains and sing all winter did not resume singing as usual. The lucky ones moved south fast. Several died. Today on the way into town I saw two pairs of robins, still flying together, and all weekend I've been hearing cardinals again...but different cardinals. I'm not hearing the familiar "Cheer, cheer, cheer!" I've been hearing for more than ten years. Nest sites near my home are being staked out by a cardinal who says "Birdie, birdie, birdie" and one who says "Quite, quite, quite," with what sounds like a Pennsylvania accent. (Birds can be said to have regional accents too, but I'm talking about the way humans from Pennsylvania say "quite.") The cardinals, the robins, and also sparrows and warblers and chickadees, are really saying something like "I am a male songbird! I've survived this long, thereby beating the odds!" They've probably outlived at least one of their brothers already.
Young male insects fly around, exploring the world, looking for females with fresh exotic DNA. They do idiotic things. They attract the attention of birds. Nearly all the Horrid Kingsport Bugs (palmetto bugs, Florida Wood Roaches) found in humans' houses, where they tend to meet unhappy ends, are young males. Young male butterflies hurl themselves against motor vehicles. Young male Brown Marmorated Stinkbugs raid my paper wasps' nests...this is looking as if it may be a waspless spring, which is a discouraging prospect indeed.
Young male mammals do all kinds of stupid things too. Young male cats, for example, do very little hunting in proportion to the amount of noise and odor they produce. Even cat lovers like the writer of this blog have to make exceptions for young unaltered male cats. They are necessary in order for there to be kittens, but they are a necessary nuisance. The ones who have any sense at all know they're a nuisance, and stay as far away from humans as they can get. A male kitten can be a lovable pet for a year, a year and a half...and then he starts to feel conflicting instincts telling him that he wasn't meant to be anyone's pet, that he's a different sort of animal now, a nasty, stinky, quarrelsome animal, hard-bitten and hard-biting.
I've not let myself bond with male kittens. Some of them can be lovable cuddly pets when they're little, but I've not thought of them as permanent residents.
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| Burr didn't actually live with me for very long after this baby picture was taken. |
Burr was not a cuddly pet. His claim to fame was that he was one of Irene's last litter, the biggest and most active one. Irene had the weak form of the Manx gene; those of her kittens who had the strong form of that gene hadn't survived for very long, so I didn't expect Burr to live either. I didn't even place him in a Purrmanent Home. Heather did that. That was the year Heather started placing the kittens.
"Where's Violet?" I said to Heather, who understood quite a lot of words, including the names of new kittens. "I miss Violet, and Peri, and Winkle..." (Two of Irene's kittens, and all of Inky's, had succumbed to Manx Syndrome; the kittens who lived long enough to have names, mostly Heather's, were named after the native plants that were in bloom when they were born. Violet had been missing for two days.)
"With Irene and me, and Sisawat, and Inky, and Tickle and Elmo, the porch is getting crowded," Heather nonverbally said. "Don't worry about the kittens. I led them off to lots of different places where they should be able to find food."
"This is Violet's home," I said, "and Peri's, too."
Heather thought about this and nonverbally said, "Well...for Irene's sake, mind, and be sure you don't start doting on her!...we can keep Violet. She's not so bad all by herself, and she does seem healthier than any kitten Irene's ever had before. But not Peri, not Winkle, not Burr, not Daff, and not Dill."
Heather said this by walking away in a brisk and purposeful manner, and returning a few hours later, leading Violet. So Violet spent the whole summer with us. But I saw no more of Burr and hoped nobody who didn't understand about Manx Syndrome had suffered along with him when he'd died.
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| In this picture Violet was actually watching Heather and Irene, who were nonverbally telling her to pose for an extra-cute picture. After their own official snapshots had been taken Heather, Irene, and Ivy figured out what the cell phone camera did, and would check out their own pictures and tell the kittens to cooperate when their pictures were taken. |
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| In this picture Irene and Heather, having directed Violet to pose adorably, next directed me to photograph them together. They saw and apparently approved their picture! The adult cats were guarding a stack of storage bins, with some old curtains draped over them, because the kittens were being brought up in a communal den in among the bins. In addition to Irene's two viable kittens, who were the eldest, Heather had four and Inky had three. |
Then the other cats moved out, except for Irene, who died. Heather became a lonely social cat. Enter Samantha, a very clever Listening Cat whose purrsonality had been almost ruined by having to grow up around middle school boys. After a few months among only quiet, calm adults, Samantha is much less defensive, but her idea of affection is still to jump up and try to knock things out of my hands, and she will still nip if anyone makes any sudden moves. Heather tried socializing Samantha a bit with food treats, before the Christmas Eve dumped-out dog invasion...
The Big Freeze killed a lot of things, apparently including several of the dumped-out dogs...but the circumstances of Heather's disappearance remain ambiguous. Heather had been close to her son Tickle and had been out hunting with him (social cats hunt in teams) before the dog invasion. Tickle had never liked his young cousin Burr, who moved back to the Cat Sanctuary after the dog invasion. It's unlikely that either Heather or Tickle would have survived the Big Freeze if they'd been out in it. It's possible that they may have survived at someone else's home. Samantha did unmistakably, if nonverbally, tell me (and tracks in the snow confirmed) that Heather came back to the Cat Sanctuary once during Christmas week, and left, of her own free will. Heather was my friend but she was Tickle's mother. Social cats don't show the confusion about this kind of thing that seems typical of normal cats. It is possible that Heather and Tickle could have decided to change places with Burr. If so they're still nearby, but it would take really abusive treatment in the home of their choice to make them return to what I want to consider their home.
Anyway, since Christmas I've been owned by Burr and Samantha.
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| Let's just say that, no matter how cold it was, Samantha was not allowed to sleep on my bed. (On the coldest nights of winter, Heather was.) |
Burr still answers to his name with a "meow," and will approach, cautiously, to see whether he's being invited to eat, but will not come close enough to be touched (or photographed). He still has the black-and-white coat and stub of a tail, as not too clearly shown in his baby picture. He's become a large cat, with heavy muscles and a wide Manx-type body frame. He remembered, and taught Samantha, where to find the cat door, which Heather and I hadn't shown Samantha; I had thought last fall that it might be just as well if Heather had a way to avoid Samantha, for a while, if she so chose.
And he's been teaching Samantha...not only how to hunt, but how to hunt with him as a team. I still don't know whether Samantha is really a social cat. That remains to be seen. Burr is a social cat and is training Samantha to behave like one. Normal cats seldom form social bonds with each other, but do bond with social cats.
Without Heather, I thought during the Big Freeze, rodents from miles around would be flocking to a house defended by only one half-grown kitten...No such. Burr and Samantha have kept the house rodent-free.
Wild felines don't seem to form human-type families based on pair bonding. If a wild feline family consists of more than one female and her babies, the social structure seems to be more like a "pride of lions," where several adult females share responsibility for their young, one or a few dominant males are allowed to strut around and act dominant when one of the females is in the mood to put up with them, and most of the males are chased away or killed. The males of most species are expendable, but cats seem to rub it in--not even a female cat has any use for a male cat after he's sired a few kittens.
Nevertheless...individuals don't always have to conform to the typical pattern, live up or down to others' expectations.
Burr has not only lived much longer, but also shown himself to be much more useful and intelligent, than I ever imagined--that his own mother could ever have imagined he could be.
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| Cabinet Minister Winston Peters, a.k.a. The Mighty Gypsy, Calypso Monarch of Trinidad Island...didn't expect to become internationally famous as a musician before winning the crown with a calypso song, "Little Black Boy," that memorably used a long list of job titles ending in "-ah" as rhymes, adding a comedy touch to a message that might otherwise have been too serious for calypso. It made him the island's biggest celebrity since Harry Belafonte. |
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