Dude naw.
Look, if you’re a middle-aged white guy writing for Forbes Magazine, and you find yourself writing an article entitled “If I Were a Poor Black Kid,” just stop.
Seriously. Stop:
President Obama gave an excellent speech last week in Kansas about inequality in America.
“This is the defining issue of our time.” He said. “This is a make-or-break moment for the middle class, and for all those who are fighting to get into the middle class. Because what’s at stake is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, secure their retirement.”
He’s right. The spread between rich and poor has gotten wider over the decades. And the opportunities for the 99% have become harder to realize.
The President’s speech got me thinking. My kids are no smarter than similar kids their age from the inner city. My kids have it much easier than their counterparts from West Philadelphia. The world is not fair to those kids mainly because they had the misfortune of being born two miles away into a more difficult part of the world and with a skin color that makes realizing the opportunities that the President spoke about that much harder. This is a fact. In 2011.
I am not a poor black kid. I am a middle aged white guy who comes from a middle class white background. So life was easier for me. But that doesn’t mean that the prospects are impossible for those kids from the inner city. It doesn’t mean that there are no opportunities for them. Or that the 1% control the world and the rest of us have to fight over the scraps left behind. I don’t believe that. I believe that everyone in this country has a chance to succeed. Still. In 2011. Even a poor black kid in West Philadelphia.
It takes brains. It takes hard work. It takes a little luck. And a little help from others. It takes the ability and the know-how to use the resources that are available. Like technology. As a person who sells and has worked with technology all my life I also know this.
If I was a poor black kid I would first and most importantly work to make sure I got the best grades possible. I would make it my #1 priority to be able to read sufficiently. I wouldn’t care if I was a student at the worst public middle school in the worst inner city. Even the worst have their best. And the very best students, even at the worst schools, have more opportunities. Getting good grades is the key to having more options. With good grades you can choose different, better paths. If you do poorly in school, particularly in a lousy school, you’re severely limiting the limited opportunities you have.
And I would use the technology available to me as a student. I know a few school teachers and they tell me that many inner city parents usually have or can afford cheap computers and internet service nowadays. That because (and sadly) it’s oftentimes a necessary thing to keep their kids safe at home then on the streets. And libraries and schools have computers available too. Computers can be purchased cheaply at outlets like TigerDirect and Dell’s Outlet. Professional organizations like accountants and architects often offer used computers from their members, sometimes at no cost at all.
~snip~
Is this easy? No it’s not. It’s hard. It takes a special kind of kid to succeed. And to succeed even with these tools is much harder for a black kid from West Philadelphia than a white kid from the suburbs. But it’s not impossible. The tools are there. The technology is there. And the opportunities there.
In Philadelphia, there are nationally recognized magnet schools like Central, Girls High and Masterman. These schools are free. But they are hard to get in to. You need good grades and good test scores. And there are also other good magnet and charter schools in the city. You also need good grades to get into those. In a school system that is so broken these are bright spots. Getting into one of these schools opens up a world of opportunities. More than 90% of the kids that go to Central go on to college. I would use the internet to research each one of these schools so I could find out how I could be admitted. I would find out the names of the admissions people and go to meet with them. If I was a poor black kid I would make it my goal to get into one of these schools.
The white privilege wafting from this article is so thick it’s practically choking me. I grew up in Philadelphia. I attended Girls High (as did my mother and my grandmother; my grandfather and great-uncle attended Central, back when it was still an all boys school.) I applied to Masterman (I don’t think I got in, but I can’t really remember, actually.)
I was not a poor black kid — I was just a black kid. My father was a tenured professor at University of Pennsylvania and my mother was a copy editor for W.B. Saunders (Harcourt-Brace). I never went hungry, I never wanted for technology, and I studied — hard. I worked hard. My parents were both heavily involved in my education. You can imagine growing up the daughter of a professor and a copy editor (it’s the reason I can string two sentences together in a cogent manner). I was a straight A student. But it very easily could have turned out differently.
I moved from suburban Maryland to Philadelphia in the middle of eighth grade. I went to Jenks in Chestnut Hill for about three months before beginning high school at Girls High. When I started at Jenks, the administration there took one look at me and my skin color and unilaterally placed me in math class with primarily black students. When my mother asked me how math was going, I told her it was too easy. I had done all the stuff they were doing. My mother asked me why I didn’t tell the teacher that. I said “But, I did!” (I mostly likely whined it.) I had told the teacher that I knew how to do all the coursework, but she essentially ignored me. My mother had to take off a day of work and go and talk to the principal and my teacher (imagine the look on their faces, when they saw that my mother was white) and basically demand that I be put in a harder math class. Reluctantly, they put me in a more difficult math class (with all the white kids) and ultimately, I got an A in that class. I did well, went on to high school, college, and law school, and the rest is history.
My point is this: Being a poor black child trying to succeed in school is difficult for myriad reasons: lack of resources, parents struggling to put food on the table (often working multiple jobs), teachers paying less attention to black students than non-black students. But being a black child — poor or not — is also difficult because teachers and administrators take a look at you and make assumptions about your intelligence and abilities based solely upon your skin color. In my case, even after I told my teachers and principal that the classes in which they had placed me were too easy, they didn’t believe me. It took my mother getting involved and putting her foot down.
Now how many mothers work jobs that allow them to take a day off to ensure that their child is getting the proper education? My guess is not many. Had my mother not taken that day off — or not been permitted by her employer to take that day off — I likely would not have gone on to take Calculus at Girls High. Maybe I wouldn’t have gone on to Oberlin, or UVA Law. And had my mother been black, who knows how her request to take a day off to talk to her daughter’s teachers would have been received by her employer. I wasn’t sick. There was no emergency. So who knows what would have happened to her — what would have happened to me.
Privilege and racism are embedded in the system, and grand statements like “Try harder! Get a computer (which a poor black kid likely can’t afford in the first instance)! Get into private school!” are offensive in their banality.
So Mr. Marks, the next time you want to opine about life as a poor black kid, just stop. You know nothing of growing up black. You know nothing of growing up poor. You know nothing of the systemic problems in education that result in many black kids, poor or otherwise, being left behind. It’s not a matter of just “trying super hard and really wanting to succeed.” Your assumptions are faulty, and frankly, you sound like a jackass. A well-meaning jackass, perhaps, but a jackass all the same.
So just stop.
[cross-posted at Balloon Juice]
So the bag of dix that wrote the ‘if I were black’ article believes it is incumbent upon a four year old to teach himself to read even if his school and parents don’t or can’t teach him? Really? What a pile of garbage. Racist and absolutely out of touch. You Go ABL. Tell ‘em.
Oh, and one thing I forgot to mention is that because my father was tenured at Penn, Penn paid a substantial portion of my college tuition. I could’ve gone to Penn for free (had I applied and gotten in) but I wanted to go away to school.
So yeah. So much thoughtless fail from Mr. Marks.
A couple of my boys (all college grads) are saying “If a Black man had said this, we’d believe him”. Actually, if a Black man had said this to me – poor Black kids are poor because they’re lazy and if they study really hard they’ll be ‘somebody’ – I, as a Black man with a college degree from a prestigious university and a good paying job corporate America – would probably call that Negro a Tom and possible punch him in temple. Oh wait, I did do that to my ex-girlfriends know-it-all brother. But I digress.
Also, my parents were blessed to have good paying, secure union jobs. Yes, I was a gifted child (I could read high school level books around 9 or 10) with a knack for math and social studies, but I also didn’t have worry about feeding myself or hustling the block to keep the lights on.
Again, this man speaks from a place of White Privilege, particularly (Upper) Middle Class White Privilege. Spit that work hard Horatio Algiers stuff to Dominican kid in the projects or a Scott-Irish kid in an Appalachian trailer park and see the kind of look you get.
Until we deal with income inequality and the fact that Compton Schools prepare kids for Prison while Westwood schools prepare kids for UCLA and Stanford, this man is blowing smoke out his hind quarters.
Amen Mujer! As a brown-skin girl from Cali I agree 100% . Recently a young man we know Was “invited” to apply at such colleges as Harvard, USC, and Stanford. His name happens to be Jose and he was raised by a single mother & his grandmother in a pretty rough neighborhood. While relaying this story to a friend she asked if I thought he got asked bc he is Hispanic. Yeah, sheactually asked, and yes, I hung up the phone.
Jose is an Honor student, has an amazing GPA, is a community volunteer, oh & his SAT score was nearly perfect. And fortunately for him his mana is Mexican and his daddy was black, because then his story would just be ordinary.
Another “sympathetic” white guy wants to know my pain,……..feh……
Just…..feh
As said, how about we improve the schools, improve the teachers, and make these damn parents active in their child’s education
The if I were black argument gets real old
Honestly, you would not last 5 minutes without said privileged
“If I was a poor black kid ”
First, you’d do well to learn the conditional tense.
I really like how Imani corrected Mr. Know-It-All’s atrocious grammar in this post. If he WERE a poor black child, mistakes like that would cause someone to speculate that he isn’t actually very smart and must have benefited from Affirmative Action.
Also, there’s this embarrassingly semi-literate construction:
“I know a few school teachers and they tell me that many inner city parents usually have or can afford cheap computers and internet service nowadays. That because (and sadly) it’s oftentimes a necessary thing to keep their kids safe at home then on the streets.”
It appears as if Forbes could use some copy editors.
He changed the title from “Was” to “Were.” I don’t know why that amuses me so, but it does.
The term ‘if I were’ is correct (although rare) in this context. The writer is using the subjunctive mode of speech which expresses wishes or something hoped for etc. E.g If I were rich I would….. I was is correct also but in the indicative mode of speech which expresses a thought that is true or factual. I was at the game yesterday. However when expressing a wish the subjunctive form of the verb to be is acceptable. The writer can never be a ‘black kid’ so the subjunctive comes into play.
PS I agree wholeheartedly that the writer is a cunt however.
If I were a rich white guy, I’d spend my days rolling around in the swimming pool of Benjamins that every rich white guy has.
If I were a rich white guy, I’d work to rectify the injustices that I had perpetrated, seeing as how I was born into a world of wealth and privilege that I didn’t deserve and I had never had to work hard for anything. Maybe that way, people would stop rightfully hating me.
Mostly, if I were a rich white guy, I’d keep in mind that I get really pissed off at anyone who claims to know what my life is like and indulges in the cheapest, easiest stereotypes about who I am and what I should be doing in life, and try really hard not to do that to other people. In print. For money.
If I were a rich white guy I’d study philosophy. Then I’d have some perspective of what goes on with poor black kids and know to keep my damn mouth shut when it comes to black issues.
Word!
Yes, I know that “word” is out-of-date, but I just couldn’t help myself.
It’s not that no white person should never talk about black issues. It’s just that they need to shut and listen or else they end up making idiotic statements like Mr. Marks’.
I’m not saying that white people can’t speak on those type of issues. I’ve personally known a few. I knew an old white guy in D.C. that was cool with people from the NOI. I’m talking about the ones like this article’s writer. Sadly there are too many like that one.
There’s nothing wrong with saying Word. I might bring back saying Fresh. If the younger cats can bring back the jeans they were wearing in the Furious Five days, I can say Fresh. “The way you’re flowing was mad fresh, kid.”
p.s. My teenage years were Pac and Big in their prime. I can’t wear the Furious Five jeans. It’s mad unseemly for me to be rockin.
I totally understand, Vic78.
Word!
Word. WORD. It’s amazing what a little poco theory will do not just to a brain, but to a heart.
At this moment in time anyone that still believes the hard work equals success may as well be one of Jerry’s Kids. Such a person is worthless and shouldn’t be considered for any serious discussions.
Completely missing the point, and ableist to boot.
And not for nothing, but hard work != success. It helps your chances, but you’re better off being smart and getting yourself born to multimillionaires; Mitt made his money not through the sweat of his brow, but the fat of his father’s wallet.
Exactly! Because if hard work is all that it took, then most of the country would be multi-millionnaires like Mittens. Ha!
I didn’t miss the point at all. I’ll give you the ablelism was out of line. What I was saying was that anyone that still believes in that bootstrap talk isn’t worth taking seriously.
Any white guy who even dreams of writing the aforementioned should be forced to watch Louis CK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY
Then he should just shut up.
Hi, I’m Kamal… longtime reader, first time commenter. I didn’t know you were (basically) from Philly! I grew up on Stenton and Mermaid, missing Jenks’ district by like an inch. I went to Houston.
I’m the son of a Professor (at UMass Dartmouth… could have gone there for free too, but didn’t want to) and an Editor (formerly of The Inquirer and Bulletin before she went into Marketing)
and yep I cosign every word you wrote.
(btw even though I don’t use twitter myself, I always check your tweets. hilarious stuff.)
Get right out of town! We were practically neighbors! (I grew up at Phil-Ellena and Stenton.)
I consider Stenton, from the top of the Hill to say, Johnson Street, my “stomping grounds.” small world lol. we’ve probably got like one degree of separation. :)
Oh dear lord! I really can’t believe this guy went there.
Geez, it may shake him to realize that you can work hard, study hard, and get the best grades yet STILL be at a disadvantage because of racial discrimination!
What about the well-known university study that showed that resumes with “black-sounding” names are less likely to be called back? Even when the qualifications are similar?
But, luckily for this guy, he doesn’t have to worry all about that. And he can go on continuing to naively believe that everything he’s obtained is based on all his “hard work” and “good grades.”
Ha! I did not know you from Philly, ABL! Me, too! Love my city…you know!
You ain’t never lied…
“I moved from suburban Maryland to Philadelphia in the middle of eighth grade. I went to Jenks in Chestnut Hill for about three months before beginning high school at Girls High. When I started at Jenks, the administration there took one look at me and my skin color and unilaterally placed me in math class with primarily black students.”
I was in parochial school in the city, school full of black kids and I moved to the ‘burbs in 4th grade. They took one look at me and tried to put me in the “B” class where most of the black students were placed. My mom was like ummm, hell naw. She pulled out my grades and standardized test scores and then they had a change of heart. I got up in that camp and was fully TWO years ahead of my 4th grade counterparts even in the “A” class. I was taking half my classes in the 6th grade when I got there and you know every single teacher and administrator hated to give me my due because I was a young, African American Philly kid! I completely blew up their thought process and their way of thinking and their reasons for being in the ‘burbs in the first place!
So I ain’t tryna hear nothing about black kids can’t learn, don’t want to learn, etc. When they aren’t tracked and have teachers (which I did) who have high expectations for them, they will excel.
I work in a comparatively rural area that has its own share of unbalanced social issues and injustices. As a high school teacher, I know all too well the glossed-over reality that is predominant among those in power–there is a perception that if a kid is ‘driven’ to succeed, then he or she can just buck up and meet or exceed expectations with little to no regard for the struggles that the individual faces daily. There is also a lack of regard for students who don’t meet the societal norms that are set up by people who have no connection to how they live or the issues that they face.
There is very much a ‘if I don’t see it, it must not matter’ attitude, wherein people outside the communities and schools where I work completely disregard the social pressures and cultural differences that my students have to deal with–even something like standardized testing is completely unfair because it tends to list toward things that are familiar to the upper middle classes, which are not things that these students can relate to.
My situation is often infuriating. I sympathize with people who have to deal with inequality on a daily basis– and think that this article perfectly captures the douchebags who don’t bother to look down from their high horses long enough to realize that not everyone lives/thinks/has people catering to them like they do. I’m trying to do some work with critical literacy in my senior high classes, and think I’ll bring in this article to promote discussion.
Reading The Warmth of Other Suns and one of the people profiled in the book was a black surgeon in the 1950s. He was from Monroe, Louisiana but the local hospital would not let him on staff. A local grocer (white) asked him why he didn’t work for the hospital. He explained because he was black. The grocer was sympathetic but honestly the thought never occurred to him that if you are trained to be a doctor, your race would be an impediment. Awkward moment but the author goes on to explain something that is so hard to articulate. Many white privileged people do not understand how those without privileged are in a cage and can’t see the bars.
“Sir, as a white kid who grew up on welfare in a single-parent home and went on to graduate from Stanford, you might think that I would support you. Instead, I am so incredibly dissappointed in your ignorant “recipe” for success. I got into a magnet school that my mom found out about by sheer accident. I went to the library and read a lot because it was the only place with adequate heat and electricity. The problem? I got evicted more times than I can count. Our utilities got shut off so often. I did not, contrary to your “teacher friends’” assessment, have a computer at home. Had I known about any of these tools (likelihood is that I would not have and that my mother would have been even less likely to as a waitress working 15 hours a day 6 days a week), I still wouldn’t have been able to use them. What library system could accommodate all the poor kids (of any race) to help them to realize this goal? Where would I find the time to use these resources when I started to work at age 15? Where would I get my stamina to study “coding” when we didn’t have enough food to eat dinner that day? It is articles like these that perpetuate the systemic ignorance of the role class and race play on success and prevent us from real solutions. You clearly do not understand what it is like to be poor, and your blindness is a danger because this article will only reach those who are well enough to-do to have an impact on policies that directly affect your mythical “poor black kid.” And those policy makers will make terrible choices that entrench systemic racism and class division even further in our country. Shame on you.”
There’s poor white people? What?
Yeah, there are poor white people. They tend to be even more considered responsible for their failure even by liberals because they, after all, are white and could have spoken with a standard accent and moved to a better neighborhood if they’d only applied themselves.
This maybe true, but even poor whites have a higher level of privilege above their black counterparts.
And what if somebody said that poor whites were genetically predisposed to poverty and no amount of equal opportunity would help them?
Well, actually, this is exactly what many racists feel about blacks. And it’s no picnic. It’s one thing to be accused of lack of effort. It’s another to be seen as terminally lacking it.
Love you so much ABL. The best thing Cole ever did was have you post there.
Mally upthread has written a refreshing diary about your post over at the Great Orange Obama-hate. Thanks so much mally, and good to see you too princess. :)
thanks, taylor! :)
Smiling and waving!!! Hi taylormattd!
heya taylormattd, so nice to see you.
Top of the wreck list at the GOS! Congrats!
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/13/1044985/-If-I-Were-a-Poor-Black-Kid-BUT-YOURE-NOT!!?via=siderec
It’s this kind of disconnect with reality this article spews that will guarantee when the hammer comes down and the 99% make the 1% into mulch, any hesitation or feeling of compassion is going to be non-existant.
I would hope that we can fix the broken parts of our society with out starting from scratch, but the monied classes have decided they would rather burn the house down than share a closet.
Honestly, I think the whole 99% business is, for a lot of people, a way of papering over real class differences in this country.
Yes. There is a very small, very wealthy group somewhere up there in the stratosphere.
But there are also worlds of difference between the 99%. And it bothers me watching people who, like me, have middle class educations and teeth and jobs calling themselves ‘the 99%’, as though they were not infinitely privileged in many ways.
It’s a lot more complicated than us and them. In many cases, we are the them.
This column reminds me of people who say, “If I was in that building when the spree-shooter came in, I would have been all, like, BAM! KAPOW! No way I would have hid under the desk and wait to get shot!”
“I wouldn’t have gotten on the train. I would have killed all those Nazis with my gun, and saved everyone.”
Yes. Like that. And God, I don’t normally do Holocaust references, but I’ve heard that one a few times too many.
Joe, I have an imaginary circle of hell for people who spew that nonsense. What they’re essentially telling the grieving survivors is “Hey, sorry your kids are dead — but they were just big stupid cowards anyway because they didn’t charge the gunman, as Fantasy Superhero Version of Myself would have done, so no big deal.” HATE them.
The man should have written nothing.
Its easy to knock on poor kids (any ethnicity) when you got popped out with a trust fund stuffed in your ass.
Some people fail to realize that being decent to each other is not mere altruism, but a strong defense against tearing and being torn to pieces by our lesser angels.
Just look at the news. More and more folks have gone off the deep end and decide that they want to take a few of their fellows with them. The whole of humankind needs to take a time out and get a perspective on what is going on, because if enough people decide to say “f-ck y’all I’m going for mine!!!” there wont be a fence strong enough or a big enough weapon to suppress the fury that will follow.
Okay, rant over. I’m gonna hide under the bed now. Toodles.
“But being a black child — poor or not — is also difficult because teachers and administrators take a look at you and make assumptions about your intelligence and abilities based solely upon your skin color.”
I was also the only black girl in a sea of white faces due to my high grades in elementary and high school. So I can totally relate to your story in a number of ways. Not to mention many of those white faces were C and D students, but still managed to get into AP classes year after year. White privilege is not a myth.
But what’s even more disturbing to me is that as an adult, we still have to put up with this type of snap judgment where people take one look at you and judge you based on the color of your skin. Happens with everyone from store clerks to the police.
Atteytood posted about your post at philly.com
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/Philly-raised-Angry-Black-Woman-rules-the-Internet.html
The comments can go fuck themselves though. It’s a series of “missing the fucking point”. That bodes well.
yeah…I try to steer away from comments on philly.com. They are beyond horrible but I think that is true of every online newspaper. Full of self-righteous racists.
oh, i don’t read the comments at the grio either and i skim the comments at BJ. not worth the aneuyrsm.
An individual poor black child (possible played by Steve Martin), may or may not be able to succeed against all odds. Some do, although it is a lot harder than I expect this man is able to understand.
But this doesn’t actually FIX anything, or suggest that there is anything like equality of access or treatment.
Totally missing the damn point.
I agree with your comment. the guy totally misses the point!!!Keep writing and have a good day. Peace!!!!
may or may not be able to succeed against all odds
Exactly right.
The odds are the point here.
“If I was a poor black kid I would first and most importantly work to make sure I blah blah blah blah blah…”
Oh.
My.
Gawd.
Pompous asses like this completely-clueless buffoon make me ashamed and embarrassed to be white (although I’m an inferior version of white, being “just a dumb Polack” as opposed to having the “better” WASP lineage indicated by the name “Marks”). This half-witted “essay” is so full of cliche’, specious reasoning, and self-congratulatory conceit that it made me cringe – it’s the reading equivalent if hearing nails on a chalk-board.
Marks writes: “Is this easy? No it’s not. It’s hard. It takes a special kind of kid to succeed.” And he is so full of himself that he cannot even see the glaring fundamental flaw that his own vacuous jabber makes so obvious, namely: the purpose of an educational system should NOT be to make it as hard as possible to succeed, but rather, to help *all* children reach whatever their own maximum potential might be. There is nothing at all good about “weeding out” all but the most obsessively-driven students – by making it as hard as possible, even the brightest seldom reach their full potential.
It really sickens me that this self-righteous and patronizing *drivel* is all too common among those who never had to face both blatant discrimination and, in the case of so many poor children, very real hardships, including hunger. Telling a hungry child to “go search the internet for magnet schools” is breathtakingly condescending, and downright contemptuous…
Another great response from an angry black man, lawyer Jesse Taylor.
http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/if_i_were_a_rich_white_motivational_speaker
thanks ranylt. good to see you over here.
I think both Imani Gandy and Gene Marks are being naive and condescending in their views. Obviously neither have any clue of what they are talking about. Both come from a privileged background that does not lend itself to realizing what it is like to grow up poor and black in our society. Ms Gandy seems to think that because she is Black she can relate when in reality she does not have a clue.
I must admit that I have no clue about either of their backgrounds on the subject, but neither speaks of any experience with the subject. Although both probably are aware to a certain degree of the subject they are speaking of, neither as far as I can tell have the background or authority to speak so knowingly on the subject.
Obviously neither have any clue of what they are talking about. Both come from a privileged background that does not lend itself to realizing what it is like to grow up poor and black in our society.
wow, it’s almost as if i made this very point in my blog post, which it seems evident you didn’t bother reading.
cheers,
Imani ABL
Despite your lack of knowledge of the topic How to Be a Poor Black Child, I thought your insights about How to Be a Privileged Black Child and How to Parent a Privileged Black Child were helpful.
So much so that I would like your permission to tell your 8th grade story to the next kind, well intentioned white person who explains to me how I’m working too hard by home schooling my Privileged Mixed Child, and surely if I’d just look around for a good school I’d find someplace that would be great.
Yeah, the problem is definitely that I think only I am capable of pushing my kid, not that the institutions that would push YOUR [white] kid will lower their expectations because of her skin color. That’s the problem, in a nutshell, it’s that I’m crazy, because otherwise racism exists and OMGWTFBBQ!
I would also like to ask the commenter at the top of the thread to come on over and give my MIL the punch in the temple treatment the next time she trots this out, which I cannot seem to do for myself.
“I must admit that I have no clue about either of their backgrounds on the subject…”
Didn’t really slow your fingers down all that much, though, did it?
Regardless the title, the column offers valuable truths. Ignorance IS the main problem of inequality in the modern (internet) era.
After the mortgage market went soar and I had to find other work, I went on google and taught myself how to write code and built my own websites.
If I can do that with the limited skills I had as a 96 High School graduate, the youth now with the ABUNDANCE of tools they have at their fingers tips really have NO EXCUSE. I mean wow, khan academy is brilliant.
Some of these over burdened parents can have their kids earn income online with a simple ebay biz and get them saving for college early.
There’s nothing wrong in what’s written in the article. While it does sound a little dreamy, that’s the needed extent of the context to deal with the realities of the situation.
ehustla.com
Please don’t make suggestions for “poor black kids” because you haven’t walked in their shoes!!!!!
Kids, regardless, of race, creed, or color should be equally educated! that’s one of the problems. Minorities are educated to be employees and whites are educated to be employers!!!!!!Inequality is hurting the whole nation!!!
Marks’ suggestions didn’t seem so jackass to the product of a white blue-collar home. Some of them, like applying to magnet schools, are pretty good. You’ve covered all the reasons why black kids can’t succeed; Marks offered ideas how they can. That’s all. It’s none of his business, but at least he made the effort.
Let me offer a suggestion of my own: Nothing more cripples anyone than telling them no matter what they do, they can’t succeed because someone else is oppressing them. To succeed, no one can allow anyone else to oppress them to the degree they’re kept from that success. Once given an excuse to fail, it’s easy for anyone, regardless of race, to fail. That’s because trying is hard.
And regardless how privileged anyone’s nemeses may be, no one is wholly responsible for failure of someone else. Failure is at least 50 percent owned. The sooner any young person learns this, the better.
White people are never to comment on African American’s endless oppression, and that’s been the rule for at least 50 years. According to you, little has changed in all that time. Maybe African Americans need some outside suggestions; on your own, you seem to be spinning your wheels in chronic – and I’ll be honest – tiresome struggles.
Who knows? With the right ideas, you might be able to achieve some privilege of your own.
Please see Melanie’s post below.
As she so accurately points out, Mr. Marks fails to see the REALITY of the society in which he lives. He’s still buying into that Horatio Alger BS that there is equal opportunity for everyone if they just apply themselves.
He’s ignoring real racial, gender, and even class impediments. And he can do this because he’s in the most privileged of groups in America. He’s not facing the barriers that so many others (even his own freakin’ wife if he’s married) face.
Sorry, but these barriers are real. Recognizing this is not the same as believing in perpetual failure. It this were true, slavery or segregation would have never ended.
And actually, there are whites who comment on African American oppression all the time, but unlike Mr. Marks, they know what they are talking about before they open their mouths. They clearly understand that their reality is not the same as those of non-whites. And this includes non-whites in the 1%!
And honestly, did Mr. Marks have really to follow is his own advice to achieve everything he has? The answer is no! Just ignoring the fact that economic status can be inherited and not earned is foolish. This is the denial of something that can be seen in every culture on the planet (including ours).
Yes, our nation celebrates the “rags to riches” story, but even we can’t escape the fact that many have privilege they were born into, but didn’t earn. Just ask George W. Bush! And while you’re at it, ask him about the “Gentleman C’s” he got while at Yale!
THANK you for writing this blog post. As a white girl, I am SICK and TIRED of these psuedo-compassionate a-holes speaking for me. Um, how about this alternative – considering the history of white success in this country, he would be better suggesting the children first study how to revolt against their current government and start a war to take control, then continue with a policy of genocide to eliminate the original inhabitants of the said country, then institutionalize the practice of slavery of an entire race of people (who are not given citizenship, let alone rights of any kind), finally tying said practice to the national economy and eventually nearly destroying the country in civil war over the issue, continue with the degradation of said population with inequal rights and segregation until the 1960′s, when a hard fought civil rights effort makes you change your tack and begin offering psuedo-concern and empathy for previously oppressed population, while simultaneously and sneakily suggesting said population is having difficulty because they just HAVEN’T GRASPED HTML CODING, conveniently ignoring 2 centuries of social oppression as a more likely root of the problem. There you go – there’s how you get ahead. Oh yea, if you can collaspe the global economy while your at it and hedge your bets – excuse me – investments, correctly, all the better…. I’m not a self-hater, but I’m also not cluelessly ignorant about our country’s historical reality (something Mr. Marks obviously has not learned in all of his techie coursework.)
Oh, and San Fernando Curt, there is one thing that might cripple someone more than acknowedging oppression – like ignoring the REALITY of a history of 200 years of oppression, plus current oppression and instead suggesting to said child that it is their fault they are having trouble succeeding in a political/ social/ economic/ and -or educational system that’s been stacked against them since the dawn of this country’s history because they are lazy or haven’t grasped current technologies or haven’t taught themselves to read. Just a thought. (Then again, the actual said oppression is likely more crippling than both suggestions altogether.)
sometimes, folks just need to sit back before they write bullshyt.
thank you, ABL for pointing out just how ridiculous this mofo’s bullshyt was.
“(I mostly likely whined it.)” The influence of your copy editor mother must be wearing off.
chamblee54
Special kind of arrogance is all I can reply w/out spitting out 4 lettered or longer superlatives!!!
Why do we accept that poor children of any color have to accept inferior schools, unsafe neighborhoods, polluted air and no jobs?
Racism in school like the writer describes is a form of child abuse piled on kids who already have too many hurdles.
Cutting off some Americans from basic services and protections creates an unfair advantage for others– affirmative action for the rich. And for a man of privilege to congratulate himself and offer advice on what he would do just shows how removed some are from reality.