"Whenever I think about it, everything bad that has ever happened to me has involved a black person." My eldest daughter certainly can't say that any white folks have ever done her wrong. I would say that all of her obsticles derive from a single source: her own choices. And she's black! The major external wrong done to her was Prairie View A&M's administrators failing to provide her a dorm room that she paid for; they're black, too. But she wasn't doing anything productive in school anyway, regularly dialing-down her major from one cake walk to another, and never studying much. Where other black college kids facing this same outrage find a way to push through (even those who don't get a new car given to them by their daddy!), this dear child packed it back home, got pregnant, and now aims for... trade school!
When my buddy Vassar sent his teen son to live with me for a school year, can't say any white folks ever did that boy wrong. Perhaps no black folks either... except his own self. He's now 22 years old, and a bum.
Speaking of bums: reminds me of a few childhood chums now flopping around Austin. Can't say they ever even spent enough time with white folks to ever get done wrong by them. To get around white folks in Austin, TX, you have to at least try to get a job or go to school.
Now, I've sure been done wrong by some honkies. But I don't count, since I'm a honkey. Also been done wrong by many more black folks. But since I spend 78% of my non-work time with black folks, that's just the odds. I reckon that's the point of this drama, "Shoot the Messenger."
9 comments:
Nadir: I demand that you start sending my eldest daughter $150 / month. Six, do you think that's enough? Nadir, surely you are compassionate enough to send her this money. She is poor! Of course by poor I don't mean that she hasn't put on some weight or is living in a shanty. I'll text page you her address.
Boy, has she been using that car I bought for her! Going to classes, and to work... oh, wait, that was me, my brother, and sister in college. We used cars for those purposes. Somehow, we got cars without our parents purchasing one for us.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060830/METRO/608300362/1003
I wonder who this guy would say did the most wrong to him in his life. He had a restaurant in Detroit, but lived safely in a honkey subburb.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14137625/
I wonder on the top-ten list of wrongs done to this guy, how many antagonists are non-black. In 1990 this DC "community activist" got shot "in a case of mistaken identity", putting him in a wheelchair for life. At the time he was a Howard U law student; the animals who killed him thought he was an undercover cop.
Recently he debated Bill Cosby, chiding the Cos for blaming black folks' problems on themselves. Then last week, sitting in his wheelchair in a park near where he got shot before, he and another man got shot to death.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/08/AR2006070800861.html
Another article about the wheelchair guy, including about his debate with Cos; it was heated. Also mentions the adults in his apartment building, who complained about the young people being "violent and disrespectful." I think Cos will be able to use this guys fortune as evidence in favor of his own argument.
"Nadir: I demand that you start sending my eldest daughter $150 / month."
Why? Because she is poor and black and her white daddy won't send it to her?
Certainly many of the problems of poor people (Black and white) are caused by poor decisions. Many Blacks use the scapegoat of blaming racism for all of their problems. That is counterproductive.
Racism continues to exist as evidenced by Paul's insinuation that only Black people make poor choices and wrong other Black people. However, it is not as great an impediment to African American progress as many believe it is.
Poor education, absentee fathers, a culture that celebrates materialism, and the effects of poverty are most often the primary factors.
Institutionalized racism does play a small part in some of these factors. The fact that public school funding is based on property taxes in many states is more classist than racist. A white controlled media that celebrates violence, sex and materialism at the behest of advertisers is to blame for the degradation of young inner city Blacks and suburuban whites alike. A nation that spends a greater percentage of its money on the military and on prisons than on education is more classist than racist.
I always contend that classism is a much greater problem than racism in the US. Racism is becoming more a byproduct of the stereotypes that many ignorant Americans still maintain. When we stop using stereotypes to dictate our actions, racism will be eliminated.
Classism will be a problem as long as there is such a significant disparity between the haves and the have-nots. Racism will be used by the media and by public officials to polarize poor Blacks from poor whites in an effort to maintain the status quo - the power of GREEN!
"...this dear child packed it back home, got pregnant, and now aims for... trade school!"
Once again, classism seeps into the converstion. What's wrong with trade school?
I'm sure there are plumbers, welders, machinists, graphic designers, construction workers, photographers, and many others who make more money than Whitney's father and his 12 degrees.
I think it is admirable that she recognized that perhaps academia isn't for her before it's too late. Learning a trade where she can start making money to feed her child isn't a bad idea.
I happen to know that Whitney's father advocates non-mandatory public schooling. He claims that kids who don't want to go to regular school should be sent to trade schools and apprentice programs where they may find a more productive use of their time instead of disrupting academic classes. Funny that he doesn't approve of his daughter's personal (and adult) choice to follow this route.
Kudos, Whitney! You go ahead, little mama! Experience is a better teacher than books anyway.
Nadir: It appears that you and I are much closer here than I imagined.
1. If I in any way implied that only blacks make poor choices, permit me to clearly state that I do not believe this. I only believe that in examining overall averages of such factors as education, income, and wealth, that in dividing Americans by "race", the results indicate the average decision-making of there people. Recent immigrants from accross oceans rank first, whites second, and blacks third. And indeed, we find that such immigrant children study more, select higher grade classes, await marriage for pregnancy, and avoid criminal behavior more so than whites... and whites more so than blacks.
2. I certainly do not disdain the working trades. I would be extatic and proud if my daughter became exceted about carpentry, plumbing, and perhaps even nursing, and set about seriously persuing expertise in any of these areas. Many people out there make more money than me (engineer) in any of these areas, and certainly many carpenters, welders, and plumbers are erecting projects that impress me artisticly. The problem I find with my daughter is that the extent that she ever asserts herself in any declared interest restricts itself merely to her very weakly expressed declaration. And because she's "black", her failure to achieve self-sufficiency and education will show up in statistics that some people (apparently not you, my most dear Nadir!) will interpret to indicate the existance of active anti-black "racism" in the US.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060906/OPINION02/609060327/1122
This guy, his siblings, and parents were doing fine for themselves in Detroit. I wonder if any of them have any white-on-black obsticles to report. Well, they certainly have a black-on-black one to report here. Now they want to move, something that many black racists would call "white flight" if they were white. The article says they would have moved long ago, but feared they couldn't find a buyer for their house.
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