The concepts cultural deprivation and cultural disadvantage are widely used and misused in the educational and lay literature. The terms are applied mainly to the ghetto blacks of America and occasionally also to poor whites of Ozarkia and Appalachia, to Spanish speakers of the Southwest, and to the reservation Indians. To some these concepts imply that there is something wrong with the culture of the labeled group and this is why they subsist in poverty. In the past some blacks, too, might have subscribed to this thesis. But today they believe that it is not the non-material culture of their groups which needs changing, but, rather, it is poverty which must be overcome.
A teacher’s attitude on this controversy will likely relate in many ways to how he treats the child from lower school to college.
In rejecting the notion that there is something wrong with the black culture, the typical black appraisal of culture is similar to that of most sociologists and anthropologists. No one is deprived of culture. Culture is there; a person grows up in it, becomes socialized in it, and ordinarily does not question it until he is mature,† if at all. Some cultures are technologically more efficient than others. Some are richer in religious symbolism. Cultural deprivation can mean only that one group is deprived of the culture of another group.
To say that a person is culturally deprived is to say that he is at a disadvantage in some system but not necessarily in every system. Thus the nature of the system in which he is disadvantaged must be specified. The system in which the ghetto dweller finds himself at a disadvantage is the economic system.
Recognition by blacks that their principal disadvantage is in the economic system leads them to view American capitalism in a way in which acculturated whites seldom consider. The blacks see that America is business oriented. Business runs the country and, in times of peace, all institutions are subordinated to it. All institutional spheres tend to support the free enterprise system which for years has been most characteristic of American life.
The economic system seems to pervade everything in America. This is the one system in which every individual is encouraged to show proficiency. Students are asked to gain verbal or technical skills, to become qualified and knowledgeable in order to contribute to the economic system. Other “ism” are not dictated because they are not the most relevant aspects of the system. If a man does not wish to get married and raise a family, we do not talk seriously about his being deprived. If he is Protestant instead of† Catholic, we do not give him special programs and instructions to help him overcome religious deprivation. One has the option of participating or not participating in these and most other institutions, but the same option is not extended when the economic institution is involved.
So-called “cultural deprived” youths are not† so much at a disadvantage because they do not speak grammatically correct English, do not comb their hair in a certain manner, do not pray in churches on Sunday but shoot craps at the poolroom instead, do not know or appreciate music by Bach, and do not know their way around a museum. They are deprived because they do no have the tools to function in our economic structure.
A teacher who downgrades all aspects of the ghetto culture will meet with resistance and hostility. Educators trying to mold “white” youth from black faces will fail. The newly developed pride in black ghetto culture makes even the term “cultural deprivation” objectionable. The only admitted deprivation is that of economic tools. With those tools and the elimination of poverty, blacks feel that their culture would no longer be a social problem.
Today’s ghetto students have questioned and often rejected bourgeoisie norms. They have had experience in the hardships of life and have had time to become bitter and disillusioned over institutionalized racism and ghetto poverty. Many have had substantial civil rights experience, having participated in major demonstrations in their regions. They have combined the tribal dress of Africa with the revolutionary dress of the poor people of Latin America adding to it the inimitable dash of American uniqueness. The outcome is a style of dress and a manner which frightens and confuses many but captures the approval of many whites willing to admit it.
Of most importance is the fact that the black student, from the ghetto or not, will not be stereotyped into one line of thought or behavior. And no more is he willing to listen to, not to mention accept, any argument about black stigma or black cultural inferiority. Professors who have not substantially revised their thinking and rewritten their lectures, editing our racist clauses, may expect to run into trouble in teaching the sophisticated black student.
Many teachers of ghetto youth emphasize that the youth are not as fervent in their aspirations for upward mobility as they should be. Ghetto youth have been alienated, confused, beaten down, preached to, talked about, and despised, and teachers and community people must be prepared to drag them to success than offer gentle pushes as former generations of students required.
The culture of the “disorganized ghetto” is said to be one of defeatism. The student from that part of town has been forced to live with defeat and uncertainty. His environment problems are overwhelming and would be a source of constant hurt and anxiety for him unless he developed means of controlling them. To keep from feeling hurt in any type of comparison with others from favorable backgrounds, the ghetto student avoids the comparison. By his logic, defeat is a normal part of existence and is to be viewed along with the other hardships of life. It is not something to get excited about. By setting no external standards he has no one or group with whom he may be compared. Without a standard by comparison with which he fails, the student is able to accept academic and other defeats without agony.
Defeatism and the accompanying alienation are kinds of defense mechanisms built up over years of hardship and failure to protect the ghetto youth from the pain of his fate. The resulting effects in college are an insulation from any evaluation of success or failure, a self-protecting defensiveness hindering possible success, and a reluctance to submit to a comparison by objective standards with his fellow students.
The usual description of the ghetto student notes his bitterness. This bitterness is the result of trying to grapple with multiple frustrations encountered most of his life. He was unable to comprehend many of the conditions he faced such as poor slum housing, hunger, inferior schools, discrimination and poverty. As a young child life was uncertain and disorganized for him. Often his parents were new to the big city slums, coming there in search of improved economic opportunities which the city supposedly provided. The child was typically small when brought to the ghetto though many have grown up there. The uncertain economic position of his parents often meant divorce or desertion and constant moving from one part of the ghetto to another.
The picture of the ghetto youth as he thinks, feels, and acts in the educational settings today is complex.The author has presented the ghetto student mainly from the student’s own perspective and that of his teachers.
The result is a complicated, sometimes almost self-contradictory, image of youth from the ghetto in an educational environment for which he is not properly prepared either in academic background or in terms of the prevailing academic culture. Yet he is present in educational institutions in increasing numbers, desiring better conditions for his community, and seeking ways to eliminate slums and poverty. However, he is unsure of† how education relates to these social goals or to his personal future, and he is unwilling to abandon his ghetto heritage and psychological blackness.
Professor Gordon Morgan 1970