The premise seems compelling: Two boys, same name, same background, same neighborhood. However, one becomes a Rhode Scholar and the other becomes an inmate serving a life sentence. What led to these boys' diverging paths? A reporting and analysis would be presented. Only, the final product did not deliver on that premise.Wes Moore's The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates (2010) is a New York Times bestseller that is now common on many schools' summer reading list. That's how I came about purchasing it. In the end, I found the book stylistically bland, socially relevant, and politically irresponsible.
In short, The Other Wes Moore does not deliver on its premise, for other than sharing the same name and being black, the two Moores have very little in common. This is because Wes Moore, the writer, comes from an environment rich in resources that enabled him to succeed: he was born from college-educated parents whose married partnership was intact, who had their own home, and most importantly, had extended family to tap into for emotional and financial support when challenges arose, particularly after Wes Moore's father's untimely death. In contrast, the other Wes Moore grew up in resource poor circumstances which facilitated his downfall: he was born to an absent father and a single mother who, denied the opportunity to advance herself educationally, and thus socially and economically, ended up living a life of survival at the expense of being a nurturing, attentive, and responsive parent.
Glossed over though it plays a critical role in the life of the other Wes Moore is his mother's lack of educational opportunity due to the slash and dash of many social programs and educational grants during the Reagan era. This is not to say that the other Wes Moore's life would have ended differently, but the impoverished circumstances and minimal opportunities that arose for his mother out of the policies enacted during that era provides necessary context that Wes Moore failed to explicitly discuss. Rather, the reader is left to infer the deleterious effects of systemic issues at play. Teenagers who are assigned this book to read in schools have limited understanding of the time period, so there is a danger to not having contextualized the events that played out in the life of the other Wes Moore. In fact, from my vantage point, the other Wes Moore's story reflects what is possible today with the rising cost of higher education: Those who would benefit from the social and economic opportunities that result from having a college degree are doomed to remain mired living a life of struggle and oppression. In the end, all in society lose out, for the instability, dependence, hopelessness, and violence that result impact all.
Failing to address the socio-political factors at play results in a book that I find gimmicky and superficial. It is my hope, then, that those who teach it do so with more intentionality and depth by contextualizing and analyzing the Wes Moores' situation within the larger political structure and systems. It is irresponsible to not do so.
The Other Wes Moore is a watered down moralistic, wag-your-finger tale about making the "right" personal choices. While personal choice is at play, this story is really about opportunity, particularly access to higher education, and how not having access because of systemic oppression is crippling to the working poor.
This is a CBR8 crossposted review.
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