Post 305: The Other Wes Moore

The Other Wes Moore by...well that's redundant. ISBN: 9780385528207.

There's a very telling moment when Other Wes Moore asks Author Wes Moore when he first felt like a man. Author gives a kind of generic response about responsibility to other people, but what is more important and telling were his thoughts and reflections after the prison visit ended.

"There was no official ceremony that brought my childhood to an end... But for some of us the promotion to adulthood, or at least its challenges, is so jarring, so sudden, that we enter into it unprepared and might be undone by it." Page 66.

I personally hate that we do not have an official age where we become adults. It seems to be different for every family and every individual. So while I was more or less a full-fledged adult at 22, living on my own and providing for myself, I know of other 22 year olds who rarely even set foot out of the parental home, much less have ambitions of leaving it permanently. I hate, hate, hate that I am currently living the way I am now and absolutely feel like a child who can't take care of herself. My mother has been very good about not making me feel too bad about it, but the fact remains that I am using her resources when I should rightfully be building up my own in preparation for my slow decline into old person-dom.

I really think it might be a good thing for this country if we just sat down and said, "At 16 you become an adult, no more do-overs, no more second chances." There a lot of 16 year olds out there who are capable of being treated like adults and should be treated like adults. Those are the people we are doing a disservice to because we lump them in with the 16 year olds who are getting drunk every weekend and acting like children. Perhaps if we expected our young people to behave like adults and act with a certain amount of decorum, they might actually start doing it.

Poitier is not amused.

The example I'm going to use is a movie starring Sidney Poitier (who is a cinematic god and should be treated as such). Poitier comes in to teach a bunch of hooligan kids and the first thing he says to them is, 'I'm going to call you by your proper titles, and I expect you to address me in a similar fashion. You are all young gentlemen and ladies now. I will treat you that way and you will act that way, towards me and each other.' And with that declaration the curriculum is literally thrown out the window (in the form of textbooks) and the children-now-adults are taught what they want to learn. Sidney Poitier is a badass like that, and you will be amused to know that he starred in a similar film called Blackboard Jungle as a young hooligan. Both films are amazing, and apparently still have something to teach us, because we don't never learn nothin'.

The question I would like to put to those who might object to this treatment of young persons as adults is, What harm would it really do to show young people the same respect you might show an adult? After all, these are kids who can hit things really well with a car drive. Either they are old enough to earn our respect and trust in driving a large vehicle or we ought to put them back on their bicycles and tell them to fuck off until they can enlist in the army and buy cigarettes or alcohol. By the way, that last thing is silly, a kid can kill himself slowly through consumerism or sign up to kill himself quickly through war, but he can't get ferschnockered before he goes. Nice job, USA.

And if we're going to take the car away we can go ahead and take away his crappy part time job which might very well be the only responsibility he has nowadays. Yeah, if he's not an adult there's no way he should be working around things like hot grease or cleaning chemicals. Those things are dangerous for children! And respect, god dammit, what use is there in respecting some snot-nosed kid behind a Burger King counter? It's not like that little shit will go off to college and end up being more successful than me someday. Might as well treat all those teenagers like dirt under my fingernails rather than as the young adults they are.

Now, to all the 16 year olds who are probably not reading this, please act like young adults. Please earn the right to be treated as young gentlemen and ladies. I think you will find life much more enjoyable and fulfilling in the long run if you do.

My review can be found on Goodreads. Also, there's an excellent interview from the Colbert Report.
LibsNote: Free copy received from the Firstreads Program on Goodreads.

Post 304: The Other Wes Moore

The Other Wes Moore by...well that's redundant. ISBN: 9780385528207.

 Although I've never come across another Amy Campbell in person, I know the chances of doing so are pretty high. Even using my middle initial I get pages of Amy Campbells from Facebook. Using my full name, Amy Leigh Campbell, I get about six results. This doesn't even cover the pages of results from Google where I'm unable to even differentiate between my dopple-namers. If you're wondering if I ever wonder what my namesharers are up to, you would be correct.

The name Amy L. Campbell has been quite the blessing and curse all at once. There's nothing about my name that shouts out and says, "Hey! Pick on me! I have a funny name!" It is an all out American name, a comfortable name, a name relatively unassociated with successes or failures. My name is about as boring as the can of overly salted soup it is printed on. And I like it that way. I have enjoyed the relative anonymity of being one of the hundreds or thousands of Amy Campbells floating through the internet and life in general. However, I sometimes wonder if maybe, just maybe, that anonymity has also cost me something.

Maybe those kids with the weird names actually have a leg up on me. Maybe the Prochaskas and the Yaggys and the Schupaks and the kids with first names like Moonbeam and Janezila have an unfair advantage. I mean, who is going to forget a name like Janezila Yaggy*? I have been wondering a lot recently if this especially comes in handy when committees are reviewing my curricula vitae. Oh sure, my credentials are pretty decent for someone just out of grad school, but who can remember that those credentials are attached to a bland name like Amy Campbell when there's a Mandela Cortez-Schupak who has roughly the same credentials and a name that will grab you by the throat and stare you down like the piece of steak you are?

This of course is all my self doubt and worrying over something that may not actually be happening, but I have to wonder. And what about all the Amy Campbells who have made a name of their name? There are some pretty big lawyers and doctors, and at one point I know there was even a cheerleader, who all share my name. If I ever become a famous writer of ridiculous Adult Cautionary Tales it pretty much ensures that the publishers will want me to use a pseudonym, or at the very least some alteration of my name. AL Campbell... nah. A. Leigh Campbell? Maybe. But the fact is, I still want my accomplishments attached to my name. This is yet another reason I have no desire to take on my future husband's name, although that's a slightly different topic.

I mean, I love the fact that I can type in my name in Google and only people who know me well can figure out exactly which Amy I am. But I also like that I can pretend for a brief moment to be another, different Amy Campbell. Maybe I didn't grow up with a deranged father and an irrationally violent brother. Maybe my mom stayed home all day and helped us with our homework. Maybe I'm not unemployed right now and I'm already married and I'm just so damned happy that all of my friends want to shoot me so I'll shut up already. Or maybe I'm that Amy Campbell that the world forgot, who became a name and then a fuzzy face barely remembered and finally a distant, aging memory and "who the hell was that I went to high school with?".

Which Amy Campbell do you think I am? Which one do you think I will become?

My review can be found on Goodreads. Also, there's an excellent interview from the Colbert Report.
LibsNote: Free copy received from the Firstreads Program on Goodreads.
*As far as I know this is a made up name. If there is a Janezila Yaggy out there, Hi! Feel free to comment.