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| Re: A honest cultural question... (26521) | |||
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Re: A honest cultural question... |
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Posted by Broadway Lion on Fri Apr 22 00:12:53 2005, in response to Re: A honest cultural question..., posted by AlM on Thu Apr 21 19:08:45 2005.  (answering brooklynQB rather than this post directly) It is an interesting question regardless of what the percentages is or how you count them, since any researcher or statictician with an ax to grind can come up with whatever numbers they want. Instead, listen to how people talk, how they use the language. Watch what they do, and how they work. Even if they have the job of wiping tables at McDonald's, watch and see if they care about the job, if they care what they look like, if they show up at work on time, and are reliable workers. The color or race of the person is irrelevent. So the question I ask myself is not "why haven't they earned more money." The question I ask myself is why do more black people seem to fall into a catagory that seems to marginalize themselves. It starts at home, is there a larger percentage of single parent homes in black communities? Is there a larger percentage of poorly educated parents? Is the a larger percentage of families living in poverty? What can be done about this? Better education? Better Schools? Schools are important, knowledge is important, but my most important lessons were learned at home. Good Schools (and mayby a majority of black people do not live where there are good schools) can overcome only so much of the home handicap (if there even is such a thing as a home handicap). I think for the individual person, it is a willingness to work: at home, in school, in those important first jobs. Wiping tables at McDonald's is not important in the grand scheme of things, but learning good work habits is. Having an employer say: "Yes he is reliable" is priceless, especially when one has other disadvantages in the work marketplace. It's not fair. I'm I white man answering a question that you asked of blacks. My experince in the black world is very limited. I grew up in Merrick back in the early 60s. Blacks lived on the other side of the Meadowbrook Parkway, and were seldome seen on our side of it. There was only one black family in our neighborhood, and they were no different from us. The house was the same, the income was the same, the school was the same, and their kids got far better grades than I ever did. Across the parkway in Roosevelt, there were many burnt out house. People rented homes rather than owning them. The parkway made a great barrier. Only Washington Avenue crossed the parkway, and there were no stores or other attractions near by on our side that would have attracted people to walk that distance. The only times I went into Roosevelt was on the bus headed to Roosevelt Field. How can you address these underlying issues? I do not know. IQ tests are known to be "skewed" towards the white kids. But this is not really so: they were only intended to measure how people were likely to succede in society: the predominent society, in white society. My first suggestion is not to measure your life, your success against the life and success of others. Set your own goals. Decide what makes you happy, what makes you to be fulfilled, and then work toward these goals. I am a monk. I live in a monastery. I am paid nothing. I have no job, no bank account. I have vows of obedience, and these include celibacy, so I do not have a wife, lover or family of my own to raise. But I can say that I have reached most of my life's goals. Those are not measured on IQ tests either. Nor are they measured against other people's agendas. If your goals include success in this world as others have defined success, then you will have to play by their rules. These include excellence in education, in communications, in interpersonal relationships. (Cay you write a cogent post that does not pull other people down?) You (as a black kid) can excel in this (white adult) world, others have done so, and in the process have become "white" in some ways. You already *know* what it takes to succede: and people will NOT put roadblocks in your path when you make that effort. Maybe *that* is only my "white" opinion, but even a mediocre teacher in a poor school will take interest in you when you try your best, and ask for help. My father loved algebra, it was his favorite subject, and he spent endless (and fruitles) hours trying to force it into my head. I have hated and done poorly with all varieties of mathmatics ever since second grade. He also discouraged my drawing subway maps. It never occured to him to use that subway map to teach algebra. Sometimes you have to succede on your own inspite of your parents. I have answered how you, as a kid, might push yourself into a better job and or income level. I really have danced around your original question of "why as a group..." But the group is a moot point. A group is nothing more than a group of individuals. You can only change individuals, not groups. Is this where you want to go? Then work in this direction. The more you put into life, the more you will get out of life. But remember, there *is* more to life than success as the white man measures it. Strive for a peaceful soul. |
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