Wednesday Journal, February 7, 2001
Edited by KEN TRAINOR
Dr. Jay Ruby, who teaches at Temple
University in Philadelphia and has a Ph.D. in social anthropology,
has spent the last eight months of his one-year sabbatical doing
an ethnographic field study of Oak Park, the town where he was
born and attended school. In part one of our Saturday morning
conversation last week, Ruby explained that ethnography is conducted
not by an impartial detached observer, but by someone who gets
involved in his subject matter. In part two, he discusses getting
involved--eg. taking part in our community conversation about
diversity and integration:
You came along at just the right moment to tune into our "community conversation" on maintaining diversity.
It couldn't be better for me because people are talking on a daily basis about what I'm interested in. These conversations are everywhere. Oak Park has reached a level of success [with diversity] where the really serious problems now appear. Most places don't get to that point. When you look at integration, it is a profoundly offensive concept. Because people [in other communities] don't really get that far along, they don't have to deal with it. Integration--the fact that you have to do this artificially--has to be based on the fact that most whites are racist. Now that's not a very nice thing to say, but it's true. They're only able to deal with living in a community with a certain percentage of other people.
And the history is that they run. Well, that's very implicit to talk about, and it's very offensive to everybody. So it's not hard to understand why people get upset about it when they really begin to confront it.
The problem is, what's the option? The option is to live in a single-culture community, which is fine if people want to do that. There's nothing wrong with that--except some people don't want to. You can make a really good argument why you're better off raising your kids in a diverse community because the world is diverse. Look at the multi-billion-dollar industry of diversity sensitivity training in corporations, base on the fact that people don't grow up with difference, [and] you realize how important it is.
It's tough. I don't envy people having to sit down and work it out because it brings up a whole lot of very deeply felt, unpleasant feelings. It has to.
Oak Park is a little island. The rest of the United States, by and large, doesn't need to have these discussions because they're not trying to do [diversity]. It's easy not to talk about it. I think it's very strange that in every aspect of civil rights, the United States has done quite well--education, employment, equal opportunity. It's only in housing that we have had very little progress. That's too bad. That's very sad. So Oak Park is, I think, to be appreciated for the struggle, but it's just not going to go away.
Also, the education thing is really tough. Again, to talk about the problem of inequality of achievement between blacks and whites in school is to talk about a ticking time bomb.
I hope we've finally gotten rid of forever talking about the possibility of biological or racial differences. We all have the same capacities. Why do Asians, at no matter what social class, excel in school? It's not that they're wired genetically different. It's something in their culture. So you have to look at the cultural problems, and there are two kinds. There's something about the culture of the school and something about the culture of the home that causes some African Americans not to perform well. Both of those [realities] makes schools and families defensive.
Each one blames the other?
Yeah. If you look at it through time, if you look at African-American kids who are second- and third-generation middle class, they do quite well in school. So to some degree, it is a cultural problem and a class problem. It's not going to go away quickly. It's going to take time. I'm certainly glad I don't work in the schools. It must be godawful. No matter what you do, you're wrong. Someone is not going to like what you do.
As an outsider/insider, what is your perspective--is Oak Park on the right track?
We need Oak Park because there are so few places trying this. It seems to me that somehow, some way, as we get increasingly more multicultural, as the white majority disappears, we simply have to figure out a better way to live together than we have in the United States [in the past] And Oak Park is trying. That's why it's the most interesting social experiment.
I have to say, as much as that makes me look bad, I couldn't live here. I don't have that kind of energy. If I didn't participate, I'd feel guilty as a bad citizen. But I'm not capable of spending the time and energy that people have to have here to make this work. It's quite remarkable, and I am in awe of people here who devote their lives to trying to do this. It's terrific.
So I think the value of Oak Park is as an example. One of the things that I thought I might be able to do in my research--and I'm thinking less and less that it's true--is [determine] how much of what's going on can be exported.
I think there's a set of unique circumstances that makes Oak Park what it is that probably doesn't get replicated [elsewhere].
The most important thing is that
it's politically independent, affluent and small. What would have
happened to Austin if it hadn't been incorporated [by Chicago]?
I think it would be a lot better off right now because it could
have responded to what was going on there in the '60s a lot more
rapidly than being part of a megalopolis.
So I'm not sure that there are a whole lot of other places like
Oak Park in that sense. It's a combination of the affluence and
the independence politically that makes this place pro-active.
It sees a problem ... look at graffiti, the way that's dealt with.
You've got the money and the energy. When it appears, it almost
instantly disappears. Or the gang intervention programs that are
so successful here when gangs are all around in every other place.
Unfortunately, [Oak Park] should
be, but I don't think it is, a model. I look at my experience
in Mount Area, which is this terrific part of Philadelphia. As
hard as they tried--and they've been trying to integrate longer
than Oak Park--they still are in Philadelphia, and they still
have rotten Philadelphia schools and rotten Philadelphia services.
But if Oak Park can do it, and they've done it for 30 years, that
doesn't mean it's not useful to look at. Look at the survey the
village produced: the majority of people here still think managed
integration is an essential thing that they want to support. The
critics of it, I think, are in the minority, if one is to believe
the survey.
On a more superficial level, what have you enjoyed most about
living in Oak Park this past year?
I love the fact that we can walk
to places. That makes this place so nice. A sense of community
is really lovely. Going to the Farmers Market is just terrific,
sitting there and listening to music. It's sort of fantasyland,
as far as I'm concerned, about a real sense of community. On the
other hand, there are very few African Americans there.
We're spoiled because we haven't lived in an apartment, my wife
and I, for over 30 years. It's a little adjustment, but it's fine.
And because I have people I went to high school with that I've
maintained friendships with, I have a fairly active social life.
I went to [OPRF] with John Sprafka, Sue Helfer, Sara Bode, Carol
Shields, Rich Gloor. Actually, my class did quite well for itself.
Nice restaurants, the Lake Theatre. I'm a movie freak, so that certainly is nice. It's more pleasant, in retrospect, than growing up here. That's partly due to the fact that it has changed, but it's also due to the fact that I've changed. Part of growing up, I think, for a lot of us, is the adolescent need to rebel and get the hell away from the confines of that world.
Will your final report be at all critical or prescriptive and talk about what Oak Park needs to do?
Critical in a theoretical sense. Let's just talk about the Housing Center. I see the Housing Center in a real dilemma. When it does what it does--and what it should do--it has to bother some people, and there's just no way around that. Making that balance is very difficult. I see that very tenuous, running-on-the-tightrope feeling. Realtors ... what do you say to people--that isn't going to be illegal or improper--about neighborhoods? So you don't say anything; then they get annoyed at you because you're not giving them information. I'll be critical in that sense.
Am I going to be predictive about what I think should be done? Probably not. I'm much more interested in trying to understand how this place works than try to understand what it needs. But one of the things I will do, if asked, is sit down with the Housing Center board, having spent lots of time there, and tell them what I think. Very practical things. For God's sake, get a computer system. They still write things out longhand, which they've been doing for 30 years. But that costs money, and like most non-profits, they're struggling to survive.
It's very important to me that people here get a sense of usefulness of what I do, or I would feel bad about that.
Will you come back at some point and make a formal presentation?
Sure, as often as I possibly can.
And the people I've been filming are going to get preliminary
versions of this stuff to look at. And then I want to come back
and film their responses, add that to the mix. And copies of everything
I do will be at the library.