Sounds like truth to power to me. One of my best friends in college was black, and a lot of the other black students on campus actively made fun of her for “acting white.” You know, doing racially charged stuff like using standard English and busting her ass to get the most she could out of her tuition money. There’s something heartbreakingly fucked up about bemoaning the stereotypes of black people as uneducated and lazy, while condemning black people who bust their asses to get an education as not being “black enough”. Yeah, that’s exactly what the civil rights leaders were fighting for, your right to make fun of someone wanting to get the education necessary to land a high-paying job. :rolleyes:
I’m still confused about how asking a beautiful, intelligent, articulate, ambitious black woman to tone down the intelligent, articulate, and ambitious bits is supposed to help fight negative stereotypes. It seems to me that encouraging black people to be as articulate and ambitious as possible would be more useful, but what do I know?
I am unfamiliar with this cultural problem. Is it actually true in any but the most insignificant minority of institutions that black people are expected to be inarticulate, slovenly, and slacking??
Would this (if true) be a problem of a lack of adequate black role models? Or is there actually pressure from non-blacks for blacks to act “black”? if the latter, how does it square with the ridiculous fad of popular culture of white young (and not so young) people speaking and dressing “black”?
I usually dont take what Eugene says to heart. Hes extremely liberal and he often uses the race card and likes to misdirect blame away from the black leaders in the community.
I was pleased to read his follow up correction of Cosbys statements. It shows Eugene has some back-bone and character.
Personally, I think the “problem” is overstated. Growing up, I did not get the “acting white” label thrusted on me by black peers for my high achievements, and I speak “proper” and have always excelled. Teacher’s pet, yes. But not “acting white”.
Not to say that others haven’t gotten treated like that. But I don’t think a high-achieving black kid will automatically face it if they hang around the right people and act decently.* A snob will be taken down a peg whatever he or she looks like it. (Unfortunately you don’t have to be a snob to get the label, though.)
Of course, I have been called “white” because I’m high yellow and can’t dance or go “cobra” on people…but white people are just as guilty of teasing me for that as much as black people.
*Some of the coolest, most popular black kids at my school were the smartest ones, who held leadership positions on the SGA and were the class valedictorians. My high school was 60% black.
I watched a segment about Cosby’s speech on the Today Show this morning. I couldn’t agree with him more if I tried.
I wish I had more time to elaborate but I’m swamped here in JuanitaTechVilleLandBurg. Hopefully, I’ll get a chance a little later today to come back and expand on my stance.
Good points all. At some point, the African American community in this country is going to have to stop pointing a finger at “the man” and look in the mirror. Of course if you say this as a white person you are branded a racist. If you say it as a black person, you are portrayed as an "Uncle Tom"or “out of touch.”
Anti-itellectualism, out of wedlock births, poor academic performance and criminal activity are all personal choices. The people that practice them should not have the gall to pretend to be shocked by their situation in life.
However, inequality of chances need not cause you to become anti-intellectual, prone to criminal activity, or reproductively irresponsible. It does mean that will most likely NOT live up to your full potential, but you can still do your best with the hand you’re dealt.
Of course I disagree with the statement “Black people need to stop committing crimes”! I meant to write that it implies that all black people are responisble for criminals who happen to be black, but I mistyped. I don’t know if the rest of your post is supposed to still stand after that correction.
Yes, as well as arrogant and out-of-line, for one, lumping a bunch of individuals, plenty of whom make no effort to point fingers at anyone, into a non-existant “community” and two, throwing his tired opinion around unsolicited. If you have a problem with people who are always looking to blame someone else, why don’t you just point you’re ire at them instead of being lazy and making it an “African American community” thing? There are plenty of content, well-to-do blacks in America; why can’t people get over defining the entire group by its worst elements?
How is my opinion unsolicited? It’s a direct comment on the OP and the thread in general. And where is the arrogance coming from? Suggesting that people take personal responsibility for their own actions instead of justifying their behavior by claiming depravation?
By community, I mean neighborhoods…churches…cities. Even though self-appointed black leaders use “we” to promote the illusion that they speak for an entire nation, the problems won’t be solved until everyday individuals decide to behave positively instead of negatively.
Am I out of line by lifting a politically correct rock to expose some uncomfortable subjects underneath?
because the “non-existant” community is actually very, very “Existant”–it is defined by law!
The affirmative action laws specifically define blacks as a community deserving to be helped.(and I agree, this was a good idea— for ,say 20 years, because blacks who suffered under Jim Crow laws deserved a helping hand)But today’s “official” black leaders(Al Sharpeton , Jesse Jackson, etc) are still demanding affirmative action for ALL blacks, despite the fact that the ‘plenty of well- to- do blacks’ that you mention have proven that anybody can succeed , if they work hard.
It’s not “arrogant” of us whites to resent black leaders who publicly blame society (and us) for all their own problems, which are mostly a result of bad personal decisions made by people who refuse to take responsiblity.
If you were denied an education before the Supreme Court decision of 1954, if you suffered KKK cross burnings, if the boss proudly announced that he doesnt hire niggers, then you deserved the benefits of affirmative action. But black people born since, say, 1975, have grown up in a better world-- an imperfect society, where they wouldn’t be accepted say,to run for president–but they sure could be elected mayor of Washington or New York.
Cosby was right to say it out loud., and he is the right man to say it. A leader with a phD in education should be speaking at a black university in an effort to create a better society, so that one day someone in his audience will be accepted in the White House—But having to tell college graduates not to say “Where you is”, is a sign of a serious problem in black culture.
[QUOTE=chappachula]
because the “non-existant” community is actually very, very “Existant”–it is defined by law!
The affirmative action laws specifically define blacks as a community deserving to be helped.(and I agree, this was a good idea— for ,say 20 years, because blacks who suffered under Jim Crow laws deserved a helping hand)But today’s “official” black leaders(Al Sharpeton , Jesse Jackson, etc) are still demanding affirmative action for ALL blacks, despite the fact that the ‘plenty of well- to- do blacks’ that you mention have proven that anybody can succeed , if they work hard.
It’s not “arrogant” of us whites to resent black leaders who publicly blame society (and us) for all their own problems, which are mostly a result of bad personal decisions made by people who refuse to take responsiblity.
If you were denied an education before the Supreme Court decision of 1954, if you suffered KKK cross burnings, if the boss proudly announced that he doesnt hire niggers, then you deserved the benefits of affirmative action. But black people born since, say, 1975, have grown up in a better world-- an imperfect society, where they wouldn’t be accepted say,to run for president–but they sure could be elected mayor of Washington or New York.
Cosby was right to say it out loud., and he is the right man to say it. A leader with a phD in education should be speaking at a black university in an effort to create a better society, so that one day someone in his audience will be accepted in the White House—But having to tell college graduates not to say “Where you is”, is a sign of a serious problem in black culture.[/QUOTE
Why do we have to talk about this? Why can’t we talk about white culture’s backwards and arbitrary rejection of technology? Walking down Amish country you see white people pulling carts by hand and neglecting modern standards of hygiene and grooming. Why is cart technogly okay but electricity somehow taboo? How, exactly, will a smooth, shaved face, the type of face required in today’s corporate society, hurt you? That type of stubbornness and irrationality in white culture keeps white people from effectively joining mainstream society. Also, I’m sure you’re aware that plenty of your white leaders blame blacks for all of your problems too. I guess I’m just smart enough not to take them seriously as arbitrators of their entire race.
monstro: I didn’t realize anybody still used that term. I don’t believe I’ve ever actually run across it in anything but books set at least seventy years ago. Hmmm. Also, is “going cobra” on someone that funky little head-bobble-thingy that goes with the finger wave?
Abe, there was no pressure from white students for black people to act any way at all. The only pressure she experienced was from other black people, and it was some pretty hard-core pressure. They told her she studied too much, talked too white, had too many white friends, and was a betrayal of her race for not letting other black people call her a nigger. I think part of the issue may have been relative upbringing–she’d grown up in the only black family in the county in rural West Virginia, and like a lot of smart kids from rural areas where there’s no opportunity, she’d embraced education as her only way out of there. The people calling her an Oreo had grown up in urban areas with larger concentrations of black people.
It might also have had something to do with the muddled, convoluted sort of plans college students often make for social progress–it might have been meant as a backlash or protest of some sort. It seems counter-productive to me, but so do a lot of protests college students plan.
gum, inequality of chance is a cop-out. Life is 10% the chances you have, and 90% the choices you make. And speaking poorly even when you know proper English, becoming sexually active and not using birth control, not making the most out of the educational opportunities you have, and engaging in criminal activity are all choices. Fighting your way out of poverty is damned hard, but it most certainly can be done.
Ever read any Thomas Sowell? He’s an economics guy that loves numbers. He’s big on the kind of stuff Cosby (and Chris Rock and many others) are saying and he’s got the numbers to prove it.
I can’t remember any specific examples, but I remember listening to him on the radio - he’s on the “short list” of guest hosts when Rush Limbaugh goes on vacation - and he was talking about test scores in Harlem in the 1960’s. His view was that the scores were lower, but not much lower than the average “white” school in Manhattan. This he attrubuted to lower funding and other (technical) reasons. Sometime in the 1970s - when crime and divorce and out-of wedlock babies took off, in America in general but in the black community in particular - test scores at those same Harlem schools sank like a rock and created the huge gulf that most black schools still face today.
Did I mention that Thomas Sowell is black?
Anyway, I always found it telling that Atlanta’s Auburn Avenue district was called “Black America’s Rodeo Drive” until the 1970s or so. It’s coming back around today, but even until the early 1990s most stores were boarded up and any people - white or black - wouldn’t walk down the street in that area after dark. What the hell happened? Most black folks back in the 1960s were like most white folks - except for skin color and the amount of money they had. Like Sinbad said “kids are shooting each other over their clothes? Man, when I was a kid, I wore a jacket that was handed down so much I could leave it in teh playground for three days and no one would take it!”
I have so much to say about all this, but I’m sick of typing and probably couldn’t phrase it just right even if I wanted to!
Yes. Apparently I was born without the right neck muscles to do it.
Easy. Auburn Avenue used to be one of the places where blacks of all economic strata were segregated in the city of Atlanta. Doctors and lawyers lived side-by-side to teachers and ministers, who lived across the street from janitors and maids. Poor kids went to school with middle class and rich kids. They attended the same churches and civic organizations. There was no ghetto or ghetto mentality. Middle class values were shared by all.
Once integration came, the well-to-do were no longer “forced” to share space with the less fortunate. They flocked to Cascade Heights or the West End or like now…Gwinnett County, leaving their old neighborhoods to turn into ghettos. Poor blacks became segregated with other poor blacks. The values of middle-classdom were not passed down.
Integration was worth the blood and sweat shed during the civil rights era, but a lot of good was lost as well. I believe that bussing, for instance, has contributed to the decline in many predominately black schools. In Atlanta, the minority-to-majority program allowed (and still does, I believe) black kids to be bussed crosstown to predominately white–and well-to-do–schools, all in the sake of diversity. Who were those kids, though? Many were poor, but many of them were from solidly middle class families (like my own). Parents had to be politically aware of such a program to get their kids in (my mother was so aware and assertive that she managed to get the buses to pick up and drop off her kids right in front of the house). Who tends to be politically aware? Not poor people living in the projects!
I wonder what would have happened if more middle-class black families had supported their own neighborhood schools rather than those schools twenty miles away. As outsiders (in more than one way), my parents had little influence on the schools my siblings and I attended, but they most certainly could have affected change in the schools down the street from us.
I hate that this conversation has evolved into a slam fest on irresponsible black people. All too often people (usually white, to be honest) try to suck me into conversations about Bad Behaving Black People. I don’t feel like I have to apologize or defend no-class blacks, but I don’t feel like I need to launch into a public rant about them either. Especially in mixed company. That’s why Bill Cosby’s comments are kinda irritating to me. He was not only preaching to the choir, but he gave permission to everyone to rant about those no-account negroes ONCE AGAIN. I’d love for a “white” leader to do the same for no-account whites, just once.
I was bussed to Brooklyn Tech HS, In Brooklyn. Although I liked the experience that I had, I sometimes wished that Bushwick High School, which was then 3 blocks away from my house, had the funding and willpower to deliver Brooklyn Tech quality education.
First off, “bastard generation” is a bit much, don’t you think? You might not think too highly of kids born out of wedlock, but these “bastards” are not always equivalent to purse-snatching, welfare addicts representative of the moral decline overtaking society today. Since the rate of out-of-wedlock births is increasing nationwide, not just among blacks, maybe we should look at what is going on as a country rather than (yet again) heaping scorn on a whole race of people.
Secondly, what makes you think “black leaders” are not addressing these issues? Believe it or not, there are legions of African Americans who are getting out in the streets trying to provide positive role models to young people, trying to help poor people do the things that we Dopers take for granted, like write good resumes and dress professionally, trying actively to improve things. These are as much “black leaders” as the media hams that everyone associates with that stupid title. But some of you act as if all black folks–irrespective of class-- do nothing but sit and complain about The Man.
And when is the last time you’ve gone to a black church? Do you not think some of these issues are being preached about every Sunday? When is the last time you’ve been to a predominately black community center or predominately black school? What is it that you are looking for? Jessee Jackson to get up on the mike and start deriding black welfare queens who can’t keep their legs shut? Can we expect Bush to do the same thing for white welfare queens?
