Miles Corwin's And Still We Rise

In "And Still We Rise," Miles Corwin chronicles the daily struggle of gifted students in 1997’s South Central L.A. Even with abundant street temptations and challenging peer experiences, these students find refuge in a school system that affords them both happiness and hope. Everyday is a challenge, and yet, they continue to strive for success.

Cedric is surrounded by man working class black students. These students have no idea where Cedric has been and what Cedric has had to fight against. To Cedric and Cedric's peers, a 910 SAT score was great, but to the black students at the MIT program, the score was low. Unfortunately, Cedric did not have a proper person to vent to. Instead, he had to listen to Torrence talk about how the white person's world is no place for Cedric. It shows the adversity Cedric had to face, not in just becoming educated, but in proving to others he was not just given an opportunity to make white people feel better about themselves. He earned the right to improve his condition, intellectually and hopefully, financially.

Establishing the relationship between achievements and struggles, Francis Bacon once said, “In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.” In this instance, the relationship is revealed through Miles Corwin’s narrative, And Still We Rise, in which he spends an entire school year with twelve high school students, who not only seek an alternative future away from their current lifestyle, but also attempt to break stereotypical labels. The narrative is set in South-Central Los Angeles, known for its constant gang violence and impoverished neighborhood with limited opportunities for the residents. Specifically, Corwin concentrates on the local Crenshaw high school and its gifted student program, which is portrayed as

In the book And Still We Rise By MIles Corwin, we hear the stories of students childhood and upbringing. We also hear about their aspirations for the future but each of them seem to have extensive barriers that try to stunt their growth. Throughout the book we see how it’s not how someone is brought up that dictates who they are, but it’s that person’s perseverance that makes them who they are.

In the novel, “Black Boy White School” the main character, Anthony “Ant” Jones, from East Cleveland was given a scholarship to Belton Academy in Maine. At first he wasn’t sure about attending because he felt as if he had no business being at that school and that the majority of the kids attending was caucusing. In the story Anthony and his friend “Mookie” one night, was being tailed by a blue Buick, Anthony wanted to dash, but fear gripped him. The boys continued walking and the car was tailing quietly, then all of sudden gun shots came from the car and the boys disbursed. Then Anthony found Mookie bent over the top rail at the waist, dripping blood. This indecent motivated Anthony to attend Belton Academy and to avenge his friend’s death

The education system in Bayonne was also far from ideal, and Gaines shows the injustices Black children face versus their white peers. The students are forced to get down on their knees to use the benches as desks or do their work in their laps (36). The students are so incredibly disadvantaged that they do not even have desks to write on to do their work, whereas the White children presumably have a well furnished school. This clear distinction between children’s’ learning environments shows just how bad the racism in Bayonne truly was. They are merely innocent children and they are already treated differently from their white peers. Gaines describes Grant’s class to show readers the circumstances of the Black community in comparison to the White school district. Additionally, the school year, according to Grant is only,” five months, and when the children are not needed in the field” (36). Even though slavery had been abolished almost a century prior, the Black children were still deprived of a proper education due to the field work that they were forced to complete. Grant also has to attempt to ration his supplies, because the school board does not give him an adequate amount for the year and at one point tells a

In his book And Still We Rise, Miles Corwin wrote about how he was researching a homicide in South-Central. During the homicide a boy was shot by gangbangers. The detectives thought he was another gangbanger but they realized he wasn’t. He was a junior at high school and was in the gifted program. After the homicide, Miles Corwin decides to write this book because we wanted to write not only about gangbangers but also about other children who wanted to succeed and had to overcome obstacles in life. He wrote about the problems that occurred in inner-city high schools. He followed a group of seniors that were in a gifted program at Crenshaw high school in Los Angeles. Students who had many problems in life, who were abandoned and abused by

Rankine’s extensive use of second person point-of-view establishes both directness and vagueness. Throughout the book, the reader experiences racism directly and indirectly, and acts as the author’s medium for expressing ideas and emotions. In one instance, we’re presumably placed in the shoes of a 12-year old Rankine, who allows a fellow student to cheat off of her exam, “You assume she thinks she is thanking you for letting her cheat and feels better cheating from an almost white person” (19). The occurrence is described passingly, as if it was one of many microaggressions young Rankine has experienced in the past. These seemingly normal happenings contrast with the book’s thought-provoking images; a street sign that reads “Jim Crow Road” is pictured after the aforementioned incident (21). Rankine utilizes these contrasts to force the reader to think deeply about

At Tom’s school, Chicago Grammar School, the Negro children were often separated from the white children, the only exception being in smaller classes where there were only five to ten students. Tom could never understand why the two types of children were separated. When he talked to them during recess he realised that they were just normal people. They may not have had the exquisite items that Tom had but they were people - people who could afford to send their children to the prestigious school of Chicago Grammar.

The ideas of slavery have resonated throughout American society, allowing many individuals of color to experience systemic forces of racism that hinder their abilities to obtain success. Anna Deavere Smith’s Twilight: Los Angeles 1992 accentuates that these Racist ideas have continued to plague marginalized groups and have led to the development of societal hatred. Institutionalized racism remains a major issue within American society, as thousands of individuals of color continue to endure poverty, police brutality, and lack of educational resources that have created a racial and class divide between white individuals and individuals of color. In Twilight: Los Angeles 1992, Anna Deavere Smith illuminates these racist barriers constructed by

Anya Kamenetz, the author of A Former Drug Dealer’s Defense of the Liberal Arts Education, fights for the account of Donnell Hughes’ passion for the liberal arts despite his circumstances and the impact of liberal arts. Kamenetz first introduces Hughes as a drug dealer who was destined to go to jail proven by the statistics she provides and cites by saying, “Hughes instead became one of the 1 in 15 black men who are incarcerated.” (paragraph 5) The author conveys her original expectations for a redemption story and then expresses her astonishment when Hughes is more than just a headline story of the underdog. Kamenetz confirms the issue of incarceration being formative versus reformative and verifies that many who finish their sentences often

Cory Miller is a high school senior and performs at the top of his academic class. With a 4.0 grade point average, he spends his time involved in after school activities while working a part-time job. In a few months, Miller will have completed what only 52 percent of Black males nationwide achieve – a high school diploma. As Miller crosses the stage full of knowledge related to math formulas, vocabulary words and American history, he will continue on without the knowledge of money management, cooking, negotiation, and urban survival

We are in a privileged environment with nice homes, designer clothes and specialty cars and great expectations for education and successful careers. The expectations begin in our early years competing for the top preschool; the right type of traditional vs. Wickliffe-like alternative educational style; the best high school with over achieving students in IB programs and competitive athletes in upper divisions for the state titles. But is every student a comparison to that mold? Not all students are exuberant in their personalities or can or choose to focus on supreme achievement. Some students have average goals and ambitions in comparison to the greater Columbus area, but seem to be labeled the lesser ones in this sheltered and privileged society.

Growing up in such a poverty struck town, you feel for people a little more than average. You learn to appreciate what you have because you can see what others are lacking. My 5a high school has roughly 1,200 students where at least 25% of those kids are failing one or more classes. However it is not their fault at all. Being the fourth least educated city in the United State and so close to the poverty line, Brownsville kids miss many educational opportunities because of the weak mindset they are immune to. It is hard to maintain an ambitious state of being when everyone around you seems to already have their life set on staying exactly where they are. However because of my exposure to this specific way of thinking, it has assisted me in establishing and craving the want for more. Because of Brownsville’s mentality, I am self-driven. I have seen what I don’t want to become, and it has planted the seed to exceed past my bubble. I can do whatever I set my mind too even if all the odds are against

There exists a dichotomy between inner-city schools and suburban schools, Ernesto Quinonez’s “Bodega Dreams” shows that there is a disparity rifled in tension between most of the staff and the student body as it becomes a manner of us vs them. In the story, one of the students Julio illustrates this by saying “He was one of those upper-middle-class people who think highly of themselves because they could be making money or something but no, they have taken the high road and have chosen to ‘help’ poor kids from the ghetto”