Update, I just did a quick search, and found that it was about 40 years after slavery was abolished before there was a black millionaire (it was the woman who invented hair straightening, oddly enough). Very good example of the exceptions to the trend of steadily accumulating wealth - she was orphaned at 6, married at 14, and widowed at 20. She invented her de-kinkifier in 1905 and had a successful business employing over 3000 people in 1910.
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Blacks don’t always have the same opprotunities as whites, pure and simple. It’s hard to become a success when a myriad of factors are working against you. Not that it’s impossible, of course, but it takes an incredibly determined individual to manage to overcome all obstacles. To point to one or two execptions does not mean that it’s just a matter of a little bit of effort, and that the only thing holding black people back is laziness.
What people don’t realize are the automatic advantages that come from being born into a white, middle-class family. These include, but are not limited to, better schools, better nutrition and medical care, better social training, the ability to “network,” and better prospects for higher education.
Without these, poor blacks face incredible odds. Yes, there are some people who fit the stereotype of the “welfare bum” but a good potion of those receiving welfare benefits are in dire need. Good jobs, jobs which would support an entire family, are very difficult for the poor to get, and there simply aren’t enough high-paying jobs for everyone. Someone is going to get stuck working the seven-dollar-an-hour job because nothing else is available. (Try raising a family on seven dollars with no benefits.)
It’s a tough, cold world out there. Without higher education, black people are doomed to low-paying jobs, and these jobs are usually the first to dissapear in an economic pinch. Black youths sometimes face peer pressure not to try to excell in school work, and also the depression of knowing that even if they should graduate with good grades, college is an impossible dream for most poor blacks. They can’t pay for it, and without athletic ability or stellar academic preformance, a scholarship isn’t likely. What then happens to the kid with average grades?
Which leads us to the highly debated theory of the “culture of poverty.” If all you see around you is people mired in hopeless poverty, you have less inclination to think that you will be an exception. Sometimes peers and family members will deride an individual who seeks to “better” themselves. They can see it as an insult: that the child is saying that their way of life is not “good enough.”
Some black youths can find that selling drugs can make them more money than a job at McDonalds ever could. What is their motivation to work at a dead-end job?
Many poor families also have transportation problems. A reliable car is somewhat expensive to purchase and maintain. Getting together the money to do so may be very difficult, especially if you have no credit established, and no one wants to give a loan to a person with no job. Public transportation may not be available, and taxis are expensive. Unfortunately for them, good jobs are rapidly leaving the inner-cities and moving out to suburban areas.
Not to mention business clothing, and social training. Proper clothing for a nice job is out of the reach of some poor families. It’s one of those “You have to spend money to make money” quandries, but getting together a sum of cash to purchase nice clothes is difficult for a family who struggles to pay the rent. This, of course, limits you to a low-paying job in which you’re issued a uniform, or in which people don’t care what you look like.
When it comes to social interraction, many people sincerely have no idea how to express themselves politely. “What do you want?” is a perfectly valid question to ask a customer, but is politely expressed as “May I help you?” This is not an innate skill. Without training, people can lose jobs, or be severely limited in their prospects.
There is also a certain level of subservience required in a low-paying job. Frankly, often times, you’re treated poorly. For young black man who has faced racism all of his life it is sometimes difficult to swallow his pride and take abuse from a white manager. (Even if the boss is not racist, his actions can be percieved in that way for someone who is sensitive to it.)
Without proper medical and dental care, your job prospects are also limited. Who would hire a secretary with pink eye, or one who is missing her front teeth?
If the individual has a child to care for, they are further held back. Childcare is extremely expensive, and for a lot of families, the money they bring home from one of these seven-dollar-an-hour jobs will barely cover their childcare costs, let alone rent, utilities, etc.
Simply put, the opprotunities aren’t there for a lot of people. You can’t become a millionaire by working at McDonalds. You need tools to help you reach that goal: tools which simply aren’t available to many people, white and black.
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It has a lot to do with the stereotyping of Asians as smart, and hard-working. (Whether it’s positive or negative, a stereotype is a stereotype.) Blacks, on the other hand, are stereotyped as lazy, theiving, and stupid. Asians have an advantage right off the bat.
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** I think it has something to do with citizens by birth expecting a free ride because they were born here. This applies to whites and blacks. I have heard that the problem is that the social safety net of society has too many holes in it. I disagree, I feel like too many people are using that safety net as a hammock.
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Yes, there are some folks who fit that descripion, but the majority are people who have no other choice. No person on welfare lives in the lap of luxury. IIRC, the rules of welfare programs limits your opprotunity to leave it, in that you’re not allowed to save money, or buy a vehicle worth over a certain amount. Many essential benefits cease when you leave the welfare system to work.
In some circumstances, leaving welfare and working can actually lower your family’s standard of living.
The people I have known who were on welfare struggled every month just to get the necessities of life. They were not proud of living off of others. (One woman wept as she told me that a woman had berated and humiliated her in the grocery store for buying a cake with food stamps. It was her son’s birthday.) There certainly isn’t enough money to squander. The social perception of welfare is enough to make accepting it downright embarassing for some.
Do you want to be a millionaire? Are you? WHY aren’t you? You must not want it badly enough. You must be lazy.
There is a perception in this country that poor equals lazy: that everyone could have the American Dream if they’d just work for it, and that the poor would rather just remain that way, collecting checks for doing nothing. It’s THEIR fault that they’re poor.
There is also the perception that the poor are immoral. “Welfare mothers” are seen as sexually loose, their husbands/boyfriends are potential criminals or alcoholics/drug abusers, and their children are deemed by some to end up the same way. No one wants to financially support such a lifestyle of immorality and irresponsibility.
We don’t like the poor. In some instances, you can see an attitude approaching disgust when some people discuss the poor. We don’t want to give them our hard earned money to help them, we don’t want them taking up valuable social services, and we certainly don’t want to live around them.
You like getting off on hearing the gasps and screams of horror bounce from coast to coast, don’t you? 
Lissa,
Great points. Rarely do I find such engaging responses to posts on this board. Thanks for making your points with a measured level of intelligence and (as it appears) thought.
I have witnessed first hand that blacks are having BETTER opportunities than whites of equal qualification simply to sever accusations of race before they can be built. Businesses are leaning toward the qualified black applicant over the same equally qualified white applicant for political reasons. I realize that we are referring to employment on the higher end of the job spectrum, but it does exist. I submit to you that the only thing holding anyone back is laziness. As an aside, rednecks and long haired FM types are having an even tougher time than blacks getting jobs. There is stereotyping everywhere, and I imagine that even the most racist of employers would hire a qualified black applicant over a long haired hippy-type. The world is what it is, you can accept it and still prosper.
Hmm, admittedly this has been the case. More recently no such guarantees are made. Especially since White middle class families are NO LONGER the majority, if ever they were. I might ask you to cross reference your findings of more white children having better opportunities with white children having those opportunities AND taking advantage of them. Laziness is at the core here and I submit that at least on some pronounced level, laziness is at work within the black community as well. We ALL need to take advantage of our advantages if given. A black person CAN pull himself out of his disadvantaged situation and although it may take more work, IMHO it gives him the opportunity to become a better person for succeeding IN SPITE of his disadvantages. I sterotype black men and women rising from these disadvantages as being slightly more ‘committed’ to success over their ‘advantaged’ counterparts who make similar advances. I applaud them as their numbers ARE growing, an indication that perseverance is catching on.
Try raising a family WITHOUT THAT JOB. I don’t need to try and raise a family under those circumstances, I watched my mother do it for years with me and my younger brother. She was a pizza delivery driver. When she went to get assistance from the government (food stamps) she was told she qualified for 15.00 a month in food stamps. She told them they could keep it, and as she was leaving witnessed black women pulling up in new cars (one a Mercedes) and getting their 300 plus dollar assistant packages. She waited in line behind a black woman loaded with jewelry getting her “aide”. We witnessed one woman selling her 300.00 dollars in food stamps for 225.00 in cash. How disconcerting is that. To address your claim that blacks (and other races) without access to higher education face incredible odds, I disagree. I am a once high school drop out and I have a very nice technical job that pays me well. There is no question of my intelligence. The difference is that I went on to educate myself and the results have given me the advantages I need to survive comfortably. If you want to be educated well, you CAN be, schools be damned.
Blacks face no more peer pressure to excel than any other race. Being a brain is not cool. I faced peer pressure on levels you wouldn’t believe. This pressure was just one of the reasons I dropped out. We all face this pressure and I disagree that blacks peer pressure tactics against one another is any different.
Incredible? Hardly. Difficult? Yes.
I agree that this is a problem. I think the way to defeat this is to continue to empower people by letting them know that they are in complete control of their futures. I believe that for the most part you are in complete control of your educational future. Library access is free. I used it.
How about an inherent moral turpitude? The same thing that kept ME from selling drugs instead of working at McDonald’s.
Been there, done that. Again, this does not apply to blacks only. I lived in a trailer park with transportation that was less than reliable throughout my childhood.
Again, I disagree. I’ve gotten abuse from a manager that wasn’t white. The world is what it is and I have always found that being armed with this information has given me the upper hand in the world. Rich children are ill prepared for the premise that it is a tough old world, and when the reality of it hits them, they find it difficult to cope.
I have never had my own doctor and I have never been to a dentist until I was in my twenties. I don’t think that this is a valid argument.
Yet so many people that prosper have come from poor families. You make your own opportunities in this world or you take advantage of opportunities that are given to you. Rich families can take advantage of the latter, poor families must take advantage of the former. You are owed nothing. It is also up to you to take advantage of morality and not break the law in reaching these goals. I have lived in predominantly black communities and I am here to tell you, ignorance is what kills you. Not lack of special programs or government programs. It is YOUR duty to educate yourself regardless if you are on the streets or in Harvard.
Where is it written that you must be a millionaire to be happy? I am content with my life.
We? For your information POOR PEOPLE DON’T WANT TO LIVE NEAR POOR PEOPLE. POOR PEOPLE DO NOT WANT TO GIVE THEIR HARD-EARNED MONEY TO POOR PEOPLE. I think that it is a huge mistake to manufacture opportunities for people who simply may not want to take advantage of them. When you do this you set the stage for people to abuse these opportunities. I have lived there, I know. It is not your responsibility to feel guilty for poor people. It is your responsibility to stay out of their way and allow them to either make strides on their own or fail. If you tell people that you are going to help them get a good job, you are essentially telling them that they are not good enough or strong enough to get these jobs on their own, you are insulting them worse than referring to them as ‘Niggers’ or ‘Spics’, etc. The fact of the matter is that EVERYONE CANNOT PROSPER IN THIS WORLD. IT SIMPLY IS NOT POSSIBLE. YOUR DESIRE TO MAKE IT SO WILL NOT CHANGE ANYTHING. We just need to come to grips with that and move on. The herd has always had a funny way of thinning itself out. This is coming from someone not long ago beyond poverty, so take it for what you feel that it is worth.
Thank you
Ok, we should expect 70, but have 0, and you’re saying there’s nothing wrong? Not that I think it’s necessarily The Man keeping them down, but the number should be somewhat higher than zero.
Yeah, but we’re NBA shoo-ins. 
Well, thank you. It’s always nice to see people who don’t get personally offended when someone disagrees with them.
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Well, of course, there’s always the difficulty of becomming qualified. Urban schools are hell-holes. Teachers can barely keep control, let alone teach. It’s a hostile environment for any kid who truely wants to learn. Home life may be disruptive, which makes it hard to do one’s homework. A kid may be under-fed, making it hard to concentrate. He may not have pencils and paper, and be too embarassed to admit it.
Never underestimate the value of being able to “network.” Many times, a job comes your way because your dad, or a friend heard it was available and told you about it, or even says they’ll “put a good word in” for you. If everyone around you works in dead-end jobs, no one is able to point you in the right direction.
A hippie can cut his hair, but a black man cannot change the color of his skin. Despite all of the progress we have made toward racial equality, there is still a remnant of people who despise and look down on blacks.
A company can sometimes skirt around the EEO laws by hiring blacks, but keeping them in the low-status occuipations, while giving whites the promotions. It’s sometimes very difficult to prove racial preferences in the work place, and some may hesitate to sue even in the most blatant cases, either out of fear of losing the job they have, or retaliation.
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My husband is employed by the state. I’ve noticed, from the stories that he’s told me about his co-workers that there is an incredible ammout of bitterness and resentment toward what some people see as “affrimative action.” When a black gets a job that a white person wants, it’s almost automatic with some whites to grouse that the other person only got the job because they’re black.
There are still many negative stereotypes which fight against even the most determined black person.
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This is clearly a case of welfare fraud, and it should have been reported. Anyone who sells food stamps can be reported via a 1-800 number, and faces prison time. (Many states have now gone to the “credit card” form to prevent this.) As is the Mercades case. Welfare rules restrict the worth of the automobile that you can possess without losing your benefits.
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I’m very happy for you. My education was spotty as well. I went to a Christian school whose education standards were poor at best. Were I not a voracious reader, I would be astoundingly ignorant of all but Bible quotes.
For a person of middling or lower intelligence, reading and self-education is extrordinarily difficult. Many kids are graduating these days with extremely poor reading skills. If everyone around this kid says things to him like what’s in books is not important, or if reading is painfully difficult, he has little incentive to try. Many people are unfortunately infected with a lack of curiosity about the world around them, except by what they are directly affected. This is more of a personality trait than anything. (Hell, I’ve seen college graduates who are the same way.)
What if you feel hopeless? What if you feel that it doesn’t matter how hard you try, you’ll never get anywhere? Your family history tells you so, your peers tell you so, and you’ve never met anyone who managed to succeed. (Sure you’ve heard the tales, but they seem so remote.) Everything you see and hear tells you that you’ll never amount to anything.
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In some neighborhoods, to reach the library, you must run a gauntlet of drug-dealers, thugs and bullies. In the worst neighborhoods, walking to the library is practically putting you in danger of your life from muggers and drive-by shoottings. A bully may steal the books from you, forcing you to pay for them. In families with many children, Mom way want you at home to watch younger siblings while she works.
Also, sometimes blacks are harassed in libraries by employees who are concerned about theft. I’ve read many a tale of black patrons who left in disgust after being followed closely and obviously by a library employee who would not leave them alone to study.
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What morals? The ones your mother taught you? But what if she hadn’t taught them to you? Morals matter little when you’re hungry.
To kid who has had nothing their whole lives, a drug dealer’s life can be mighty appealing. The only people they see with disposable income are those who sell drugs. Their family members and peer role models may sell them. Drug dealers can buy fashionable clothing, eat out at resturants and buy fancy cars. They make more in five minutes than you could in a week working at McDonalds. Without parents who instill values and work ethics in their children, the life of a drug dealer seems the epitome of success.
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Again, your mother most likely took the time to teach you how to cope with this world. Unfortunately, many poor children do not have a solid upbringing. They will then base their behavior off of their peer role models: tough-talking kids who won’t stand for any “disrespect.” If you’ve faced racism your entire life, a manager who harasses you may appear to be doing so out of racism. Even as a white girl, I’ve had difficulty at times swallowing my pride and being berated and degraded for a tiny pay-check. The temptation to say, “Man, this just isn’t worth it!” is strong.
Are you missing your front teeth? Do you have pink-eye, lice, or any other “gross” disfigurements which imply poor hygeine? Do you have any health problems which necessitate time off of work? (Many low-paying jobs don’t have sick time, and are very unsympathetic to anyone who needs time off.) Again, if your mother had not stressed taking care of yourself, you might have ended up differently. Appearance is important. A kid who is talked into a facial tatoo by his friends has just screwed himself for life out of a “respectable” job.
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I agree that ignorance is what holds most people back. Combined with lack of opprotunity, this is a lethal combination. As I said, what if there are no well-paying jobs available? There aren’t enough of them for everyone in this country. Someone is going to be left behind, no matter how skilled or qualified.
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As am I. However, if I had to worry about how to pay the rent, I might not be.
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And I think it’s a mistake not to make the opprotunities available because some may abuse them. (It’s like reasoning that there’s no point in having laws beacuse some may break them.) Honestly, I’d rather that ten folks abuse them but one gets ahead in life than leave them all behind.
I do agree that personal responsibility is incredibly important to success. You can give a man a $600,000 per-year job, but if he refuses to get out of bed in the morning to go to it, he will fail, and that is entirely his own fault.
True, very true. I still think that it’s important to try to help the disadvantaged as much as possible. Education programs, low-cost health care, and job training are essential in helping people to leave poverty. Food programs help children who cannot go out and provide for themselves. Maybe, with all of these helping hands, they can escape the cycle.
never said anything about anything wrong… just annoyed by some peoples lack of understanding that 10,000 white millionares doesn’t mean there should be 10,000 black millionares to be fair…
(and I made up the statistics… it was something along the lines of that but I certainly don’t remember them… its just a fact that some of white’s apparent advantage is just an adavantage of more ‘trys’ because there are alot more white people)
Just to add my little bit - here in NZ, on average, it takes a white man 15 years to pay off his university loans and it takes a polynesian woman 30 years to pay off hers.
Also, if you grow up with parents and friends of your parents who are merchant bankers or brain surgeons, you will think of this as a possibility for yourself. If you grow up with teachers, nurses and mechanics around you, you can see this as a possibility for yourself. If you grow up with people who are having babies at 16 and living off social welfare, you will see this as a possilibity for yourself.
To leave what you consider ‘normal’ behind is a very hard thing to do, it doesn’t mean you are lazy if you don’t.
Aha! There in a nutshell is the problem in this country. There are far too many people having children and not taking the responsibility to properly raise them. This however has nothing to do with race. We have got to get back to raising our children! I don’t care what anyone says, there is ZERO excuse for not raising your child and if there is then you should not have had the child in the first place. I have no sympathy for this.
I don’t know, but I think this sounds like an excuse to me. If you want to get access to books in this country, there is a ‘safe’ way to do it. I’ve lived in one of these neighborhoods you describe. There are ways to get by all of this.
It was reported. Nothing became of it. One of the workarounds are to have a boyfriend (live in) with a good job. You still get your benefits. This seems to be one law that no one is looking to prosecute. Upon close examination I have found that people who actually really need the help for the most part are not getting it. It almost always goes to the ones who are abusing it. This is essentially why I think these government programs should be completely revamped.
I also think that it is time that we start requiring more from the people that are collecting our tax money to survive on, but I guess we are getting off topic.
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Man, no argument here. It sickens me when people give their children less care than they would a house plant.
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Yeah, but as I said, the desire must be there. Unfortunately, avid readers are a minority in this country. Most adults never read a book about history once they graduate. Even newspaper readership is plummeting. This isn’t necessarily confined to the poorly-educated, either. Some college graduates that I personally know hate reading and will go out of their way to avoid it.
The only way to instill a love of reading is through the parents. Kids must be read to at a young age, and should see their parents enjoying books as well. If everyone around you hates to read, chances are you will reject it as well to fit in.
Even some people with a desire for education (or at least a diploma) hate to read. My husband teaches at our local university, and the number one complaint of his students is having to read.
The text he chose was a very interesting one. Instead of a dry recitation of facts, it used stories to illustrate the concepts. (I read it for pure entertainment, and enjoyed it.) The assignment per class was usually one 5-page story. My God, how they whined. “What am I supposed to learn?” they asked. “Where are the bold-faced words?” My husband tried to explain that you could learn about each concept by reading the story and seeing it illustrated in the example. Blank stares. The concept of reading comprehension was utterly foreign. They WANTED the dry text, because all they would have to do is highlight and memorize the bold-faced words. Actually having to read the five pages per class was too much to ask.
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Yeah, I guess I can see that. Prosecutors really do have their hands full. The courts is clogged and terribly backed up. Even prosecution for violent crimes is difficult to schedule.
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I really do think the majority of cases are legitimate ones. Simply because the crime is so aggregious it seems to be more common. It “sticks in your head.” (Much like crime reporting-- even though crime rates are down, it gets so much publicity that people think it is skyrocketing.) The same goes for welfare fraud. For every story you hear of a “Welfare Queen” abusing the system, there are ten families living quietly in the backgroud, struggling to survive.
Yes, it’s off topic, but I think it should be addressed.
The idea of “workfare” is good on paper, but in “real life” it has a lot of logistical problems, such as transportation, child care, work clothing for those who cannot afford it, job and social training, and finding jobs that “fit” each individual.
Let’s say, for example, a program is introduced that recipients muct pick up trash along side the roads. First of all, you must somehow provide transportation for all of the people to the work site. Secondly, some will be limited by health concerns, and not be able to walk, or be out in the heat, so a second job program will have to be created for hose folks. (And then, some will be unable to do those jobs, so a third and fourth program will have to be started.) Third, you will have to provide day-care for their children, and transportation to get the children there. Fourth, you’ll have to worry about lawsuits from those who may be hit by cars while picking up the trash. Fifth, you’ll have to hire supervisors for the welfare recepients. It goes on and on.
When it comes to requiring training and education programs, the problem is space limitations. Many teachers will have to be hired in order to provide training to every welfare recepient, and the day-care and transportation problems still exist.
What the heck is this thread still doing in the Pit?! There’s WAY too much civility going on in here…
But thanks…I am so glad to see some intelligent conversation about this type of topic. A breath of fresh air indeed!
Sorry to dissapoint you. I’ll try to be more nasty in my next reply.
This doesn’t tell us much. It could be that polynesian women are doing better in school and are able to take university courses that incur a high debt (law/medicine/dental etc). Not that I think that polynesian woman aren’t disadvantaged in NZ, just that those particular figures don’t demonstrate anything when taken out of context.
Agreed, it seems difficult for many people to realise just how hard it may be for someone to take on a career and lifestyle that noone else in their family has done.
Lissa, I really love your passion and thinking!
Jack, Deer Isle Forever!