Messages to Future Generations Essay Example

Coco wasn’t a bigger, better story. In fact, she was the exact opposite of that. Coco was what others in the community would call ordinary. She was a dime a dozen. “ She was what people in the neighborhood would call ordinary'' (Kelliher). People didn’t understand why Coco was chosen to be written about. So why did Adrian Nicole LeBlanc give up on reporting on a high profile drug dealer to writing about a nobody like Coco? When LeBlanc met Coco she was a teenage mother, living in a shelter with two daughters, another one on the way, with only the money given to her  welfare. The telling of Coco’s story represented the telling of the story of many others in The Bronx just like Coco.

A story like Boy George’s was rare, but Coco’s wasn’t. It was because Coco was so ordinary that made the book that much more impactful. Her story was the direct result of a system rigged against her and those like her. Even though Coco’s life was considered ordinary to others in her community LeBlanc’s Random Family seemed “that it's ‘novelistic’ or that it ‘reads like fiction.’' (Kelliher) So even though Coco was deemed “ordinary” by her peers, others read her story in disbelief. In addition, the constant reminder that Coco was not the only one living this life. There were so many other women in The Bronx who went through the same things Coco did. LeBlanc knew exactly what she was doing by switching her focus to the story of just another girl in The Bronx.

Coco’s ordinariness exposed the reality of poverty in The Bronx. In LeBlanc’s Random Family she

writes: Thick and fed was better than thin and hungry. Family fights indoors— even if everyone could hear them—were better than taking private business to the street. Heroin was bad, but crack was worse. A girl who had four kids by two boys was better than the girl who had four by three. A boy who dealt drugs to help his mom and kids was better than a boy who was greedy and spent his income on himself; the same went for girls and their welfare checks. (LeBlanc).

This quotation in LeBlanc’s Random Family illustrates the community’s view on life in The Bronx. One bad situation is worse, so don’t be the worse one. The low standards they set for themselves are the same ones their parents also set. This lifestyle is hidden away from the rest of the world. Nobody wants to see what’s sad. This was the harsh reality that Coco helped LeBlanc expose. In an article written by Laurie Kelliher called Ties that Bind it was stated, “‘What I thought was so interesting was that it wasn’t teenagers in the story that were upset -- it was that townspeople that didn’t know what was going on and didn’t want to believe it’” (Kelliher).

The people LeBlanc wrote about were not angry at LeBlanc for publishing the intimate details of their lives. They were accepted and knew why she had done so, understood her cause. That same cause infuriated the townspeople that LeBlanc was trying to send the message to. They allowed their ignorance to get to them making them upset. People who lived the life that those like Coco would dream of were upset

at LeBlanc for sharing the story and spreading the awareness of what poverty in The Bronx was right. Their ignorance prevented them from showing empathy and educating themselves.

Whilst reading LeBlanc’s Random Family you’ll tend to forget that the events taking place are those that happened in real life. LeBlanc leaves the book without a resolution. Laurie Kelliher adds, “There is no conclusion. No expository writing. LeBlanc allows the characters to leave the book as they entered, in their full humanity, struggling with situations in which they have little control and fewer options.” (Kelliher). Many may find it disappointing, those who do forget that there is no such thing as a happy ending when it comes to the cycle those like Coco are trapped in. Rather than ending the book with a clear conclusion to any issue, she leaves them in the reality of what their lives are and what it will stay like even if she hadn’t chosen to write about them. By doing so LeBlanc keeps the integrity of the book intact. To show the public that there isn’t always a happy ending. It reminds the author that the book is in fact non-fiction and the characters are real-life people who will continue to live a very real struggle that is too common among such communities.

This is life. This is the truth. LeBlanc wrote a book, the book is nonfiction, yet it reads like a novel. Hopefully, you will read the book confused as to how Coco’s life can be a reality and unable to even picture this as your reality, but sadly some of you will read LeBlanc’s Random Family able to relate

to Coco too much. Her life along with so many others like her. Like Jessica, another girl mentioned in LeBlanc’s Random Family. Jessica, like Coco, had children at a young age. She made some bad decisions and landed herself in jail, unable to care for her children. Jessica eventually gets out. A moment LeBlanc writes about Random Family when Jessica is out of prison is Serena, her daughter’s, sixteenth birthday. Margot Talbot reports in In the other country: the author reports on 10 years with a family that displays many virtues but cannot escape poverty.

But as LeBlanc describes the scene, they took around aimlessly, sheepishly asking the limo driver where he thinks they should go, and end up, finally, just a few blocks from home. ‘They wanted to leave the familiar world behind,’ Leblanc writes, ‘but no one knew the direction out.’ (Talbot)

The mention of this part of the book brings to light the reality of what their life is like. Constantly looking for a way to escape and find something better, but only to find themselves back where they started. Serena’s birthday symbolized the cycle of oppression in a system rigged against them. For one night Jessica splurged so her daughter could escape reality. For one night Jessica gave her daughter wheat, so many others considered normal. And the ones who didn’t consider it normal still found the idea of spending a birthday driving around aimlessly sad. That is what LeBlanc wants her readers to realize. That is what I want you, the future generations, to see. See that there are people who will look their entire lives for something better.

People will go their

entire lives in search of what is actually mediocre because their lives are so bad, that’s the furthest their imagination will let them aspire for. However, there is no example for them to follow, no instruction manual to tell them how to escape their lives for something better. So they will go in circles trying to find a way out but never do.

One Person’s Normal Is Another Person’s Dream Life

LeBlanc’s Random Family almost flawlessly represents the hidden poverty cycle in, not just The Bronx, but all over America. One key factor that she fails to represent is the role race plays in systematic oppression. Coco and Jessica constantly want the American Dream. They want to escape poverty, but are unable to as if it is impossible. This American Dream also happens to be “The Dream of acting white, of talking white, of being white, murdered Prince Jones” (Coates) that Ta-Nehisi Coates writes about in his Between the World and Me. In Coates’ Between the World and Me, he addresses race issues in America as in the form of a letter to his son.

He writes to his son why he has to be tougher than other parents because being nice would only put him in danger. 20.8. That is the percent of black Americans in poverty in 2018. It also happened to be the highest poverty rate of all the races. Following that would be Hispanics by 17.6%. And with the lowest poverty rate at a staggering 8.1% would be white Americans. Now if one was to apply the cycle of poverty that is shown in LeBlanc’s Random Family to these statistics the percentage would never

change. This factor is such a crucial part of poverty in America, yet it is not represented in Random Family. The cycle that is represented in Random Family is Coco and Jessica learns from their mothers and absent fathers. Then they continue this cycle with their own children. They have no other role models in their life to teach them that there is a way out. Jessica and Coco learned from their moms to choose a man, have his kid, and he will care for you. So from a young age these young women look for suiters to have their kids and expect to be cared for.

However, every time they are left to care for themselves and for their kids with little to no help from the father. The fathers who often end up in prison. Then they teach their own kids the same things. Rather than telling their kids to find a different way out their children are forced to learn the same broken lesson their mothers were taught. Now apply the race statistics to this cycle. A cycle is a series of events that is continuously repeated. This is the case that 20.8% of black Americans in poverty are never going to decrease. Black Americans will continue to take the lead in poverty rates. While white Americans will continue to only have 8.1% of poverty. This factor is completely ignored LeBlanc’s Random Family.

In spite of the fact that race is not a clear point in LeBlanc’s Random Family, some can still argue that the people in the book were Hispanic, therefore race was represented. In LeBlanc’s Random Family more often than not Coco

and Jessica do speak Spanish. Their obvious Hispanic heritage is represented in the book through dialogue and culture. That is an understandable claim, however, LeBlanc does not connect the Hispanic heritage to their poverty in any way.

Coates’ connects race where LeBlanc fails to mention it. Part of this is the danger of being a minority. According to Dana A. Williams, “Coates’ letter to his son in the wake of a series of state-sanctioned violence assaults against black people, from Marlene Pinnock to Tamir Rice to Eric Garner.” He tells the stories of these fallen people to his son as proof that the color of his skin puts him in danger. All three people named were people of color who died at the hand of the very same people who are supposed to protect them. A police officer’s job is to serve and protect the people, but the term “people'' is limited. “People'' is an opinion. “People'' are those seen as human. “People” are those deemed worthy of protection. With all these definitions of “people'' Marlene Pinnock, Tamir Rice, and Eric Garner did not fall under them. They were not people when they died at the hands of police officers.

Marlene Pinnock was not a person when she was beaten on the side of the road by a police officer. Tamir Rice was not a person when he was shot dead by a police officer at the age of twelve years old. He had barely lived his life before it was taken away because of the color of his skin. Eric Garner was not a person when he was put in an illegal chokehold by, wait for

it, yet another police officer. An illegal chokehold that took his life away at the age of twenty-seven. An illegal chokehold that was made illegal for that reason. One would think that after the loss of a life, society would own up to its mistake. Instead, news outlets fill themselves with excuses. Saying the officer felt as if his life was in danger because the color of their skin was so dangerous. News outlets telling the people how the dead were not upstanding members of society anyway. Well, now they aren’t standing at all. They are lying dead, six feet under, where those who serve and protect put them. This is the society we live in. This is the cycle.

Sadly, this is the way life is. As if right now. I am not sure which future generation will be reading this. It could be the next generation or it could be fifty-plus generations from now. I hope things are different. That they have changed for the better. That the cycles are broken. I feel as if poverty is inevitable. There will always be people wealthier than others. One thing I hope there is a change is the percentage. If you’re reading this, whenever you are reading this, I hope it is a time where people are seen past their race. A time where someone is not judged based on the color of their skin or certain features. I hope that by the time you are reading this you are offered the same opportunities as the next person. That you nor anybody else is a slave to the system meant to oppress certain groups of people.

I hope that everybody is seen as a person, a human being. Nobody is seen as anything less.

Works Cited

1. Coates, Ta-Nehisi, and Klaus Amann. Between the World and Me. Reclam, 2017.
2. Dana A. Williams. “Everybody’s Protest Narrative: ‘Between the World and Me’ and the Limits of Genre.” African American Review, vol. 49, no. 3, 2016, p. 179.
3. Kelliher, Laurie. “Ties That Bind.” Columbia Journalism Review, vol. 43, no. 1, pp. 40–43.
4. LeBlanc, Adrian Nicole. Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx. Scribner, 2004.
5. Talbot, Margaret. 'In the other country: the author reports on 10 years with a family that displays many virtues but cannot escape poverty.' The New York Times Book Review, vol. 108, no. 6, 9 Feb. 2003, p. 12+.