Word: keri
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...them is Keri Wingo, 17. A senior at Phillips this year, Keri is a bright, motivated kid who goes to school every day. He does not use drugs and is not in a gang. A varsity football and baseball player, he is hoping a scholarship to college will help him break free of the ghetto. "I want to get out of the projects," says the 6-ft. 2-in., 240-lb. lineman and outfielder. "I want to go to college. I want to make something of myself. I don't just want to be another victim of the ghetto...
...look at all the abandoned businesses and you see all the homeless people, it's very depressing," he says. "Where is the community service? Where are the kids going to play on a cold day?" In many ways, Phillips is all that stands between Keri and the mean streets of Chicago. If the school does close, he says, he might drop out rather than run the gauntlet of hostile gangs to attend school in another neighborhood. His mother's insistence and his own determination, though, will probably prevent that drastic step. Another thing that keeps Keri in school is concern...
That misery weighs heavily on the shoulders of even the most motivated inner-city kids. Keri is no exception. Says Lovelace: "It's the government's responsibility to educate these students equally as well as all other students." Beyond that, Keri's success or failure depends largely on himself. ( "Getting out of ((the ghetto)) depends on Keri," the teacher says. "But Keri has to realize that, unfortunately, because he's black, because he came out of this neighborhood, he's going to have to work a wee bit more, a wee bit harder...
There's nothing new about that. For every successful African American, self- help and personal responsibility have always been a part of the equation. What is new is that if people like Keri manage to make it out of their grim neighborhoods, they will do so only by clearing hurdles that many black students of my generation never faced...