A Startling Statistic at UCLA

Parents Forum
521

<p>red dragon,</p>

<p>I appreciated your post & relate (thought not black) to your exasperation & your tendency to refrain from AA debates. I, too, have that tendency because it is difficult to watch & listen to people in general over-simplifying a complex issue. Even in the racial (non-gendered) category, AA means a lot of different things to a lot of diff. people -- from whether you believe someone took your job/place in the freshman class/fill in the blank, to whether you have creative & practical concepts to implement in a hope-endangered community you have since left, to whether you are prepared to affirm to your own URM children your support for their educated futures, even if you yourself were denied that, unable to take advantage of that, etc.</p>

<p>I would add to your sentence ending with "fix education in inner city schools" the phrase "and in inner city homes." I don't want to repeat content from my earlier posts on this thread & similar threads over the last few months, but it continues to be true that uneducated homes, when combined with poverty, are high-risk homes for maintaining that status quo, and for by default "promoting" early-pregnancy. In underserved communities where massive amounts of money have been put only into the K-12 educating <em>institutions,</em> overall the results have been disappointing relative to the funds applied.</p>

<p>The entire public school system, certainly from the late '40's on, has been based on the implicit assumption that a basic familiarity with, understanding of, support for, & fluency with, the tools of education already pre-exist at home for that kindergartener's (or once 1st-grader's) first day at school. It was assumed that the classroom experience was extending, & building on, the functional literacy being practiced in the home. It's interesting that with all the social programs & hand-wringing since the late '60's -- on behalf of minoriites -- most people have not stopped to look at a radically different <em>structure</em> for inner-city vs. suburban schools.</p>

<p>In my middle class neighborhood in ancient times, (& attending a beautiful, middle-class school), my home & the homes of my peers generally had a full set of encyclopedias, a globe, an atlas, reference books, & all the mathematical tools, etc. (haha, slide rule & other quaint artifacts). It seems that nothing has changed, merely updated. Today, those middle class & upper middle class homes all have computers, printers, calculators, at the very minimum. And, again, schools are based on those assumptions. </p>

<p>It might be more effective if inner-city schools were to become Family Educational Centers, to include adult education classes, child + adult libraries -- much like well-equipped public libraries -- & technology centers. They would not be open just until 3 pm. The intergenerational role-modeling could be fabulous. </p>

<p>I think one reason that some debaters here seem to dwell on the slavery issue is that the denial of education, combined with post-slavery poverty, had a generation-to-generation impact that to this day is still having an effect. Like many others, though, I have seen that opportunity is hollow when not supported by competency. It's the competency that's the key. Yet "doing it on one's own" is very difficult when you have not the tools for that.</p>

522

<p>"It's interesting that with all the social programs & hand-wringing since the late '60's -- on behalf of minoriites -- most people have not stopped to look at a radically different <em>structure</em> for inner-city vs. suburban schools."</p>

<p>Head Start starts at 3 years old in many locations, and even younger (6 weeks old in one state that I know of). Getting the majority of poor parents involved in their children's education has been very difficult. Many of the mothers begin having their children as teenagers, and are trying to complete high school or generally collecting public assistance of various sorts, once they have children.</p>

<p>I think a lot of schools try very hard, but until the people in the community take a real responsibilty, there is not much that can happen. I see this every day where I live, the teachers in the schools around here are amazing, but a lot of the children, even by age 3-4, have no idea how to cooperate and the mother (generally there is no father or multiple fathers for the mothers' children) haven't a clue either.</p>

<p>It needs to come from the communities, defining what they want for their children. Often the cities with the largest expenditures per pupil have the lowest graduation rates.</p>

523

<p>collegialmom,
Head Start has always been only a Start and nothing else. There have never been follow-up programs. Most minority kindergarteners I have taught have been able to keep up with the classroom requirements, more than half of the 1st-graders, too. It's beyond then that the problems set in, and <em>especially</em> at the critical middle-school bridge phase. Many of the parents of minority children I have taught (both black & Latino) do not have functional literacy beyond the 3rd-4th grade, even if they have a "high school diploma."</p>

<p>Head Start does not address the structure of K-12 schooling, or of the educational fluency of poor minority families. As to the obedience issue, I've known plenty of single black mothers with sons who respect them & who respect other authority, & have managed to find effective male mentors for their boys through various community mentor programs -- educated male mentors. However, again, those mentors are not permanent members of the community in an ongoing position of role-modeling that education. Those mothers have not been able to assist their sons at home with the demands of middle school & high school work, nor provide, again, the tools necessary for educational success. Those mothers I have interacted with do indeed "take real responsibility"; but that is not enough.</p>

<p>There are dozens of examples in urban minority neighborhoods of those communities "taking real responsibility" & "defining what they want" by forming their own charter schools. Those schools that are working maximally have a very different structure & very different set of assumptions than the typical suburban or urban site school.</p>

<p>"Often the cities with the largest expenditures per pupil have the lowest graduation rates." I actually already discussed this. The reason for this is that, again, the money is often being misdirected, i.m.o., based on faulty assumptions & a lack of awareness about just how much education occurs in & through the home -- casually, in the car, over dinner, etc.</p>

<p>A good parallel is to look at bilingual homes where both parents have a decent, basic education -- doesn't have to be an advanced education. In every single case that I personally know where a student is "learning" a second language at home (by speaking/hearing), that student -- regardless of the level of income -- <em>begins</em> that foreign language at a high level in high school. They are 2-3 yrs. ahead of any other student not from such a household. It allows them to take AP and foreign literature courses early on in h.s., affords them opportunities for special educational programs utilizing that literacy, etc. Not to mention the indirect corollary advantages across other curricula, due to multiple language fluency.</p>

524

<p>Epiphany: There have been effective charter schools, but some cities are considering closing many or all of them because of a lack of accountability of some, not all, per finances, standards, etc.</p>

<p>It is difficult to generalize, but the inner city where I currently work shows more of the hopelessness of the statistics. I often find that parents are not only ill-equipped to have children but are unwilling to take even the basic responsibilty. An example is that even with the availability of excellent FREE pediatric dental care for their children many of the parents do not take them to the dentist. The state of the teeth of many of the children is just unbelievably bad. Why can't these nonworking mothers on public assistance get the children there? Transportation is available, as are appointment times. </p>

<p>There is overall very little parental involvement here in the schools, despite the free time of the mothers, and the willingness, actually desperation, of the schools to see signs of parental life. Where you live must be a more progressive community, if you are able to see significant numbers of ongoing male role models in the community (here a huge number of males are incarcerated or have children by multiple women) and if you see success at any level. I see little progress here, in fact things seem to be going backward with the loss of a tax base and soaring dollars needed for social services.</p>

525

<p>actually paf, it has nothing to do with opinion and all to do with tone as displayed in your "earth to drosselmeier" and "get a life" remarks. I don't actually have a fixed opinion on AA and am trying to understand an unfamiliar world through drosselmeier's patient and generous observations. I would be very surprised if those in your orbit do not frequently complain about your pontificating, condescending tone. Say it ain't so,..</p>

526

<p>rorosen: This is the second time you've run interference for Dross. I have a feeling he can take care of himself? :)</p>

<p>I'm sure no one is interested, but I'd just like to say that I did not find PAfather's tone pontificating or condescending. I'm new here so I don't really know where he is coming from, but based on his posts here I'd say that the problem with them is that he's saying things some people don't want to listen to, let along hear, so perhaps that's what makes them seem a little harsh.</p>

<p>Also, I am going to go out on a dangerous limb here, addressing this also to Dross, and say that I have consistently found Dross's posts to be pontificating and condescending. Condescending, in fact, to the entire white race (maybe with a little bit of exception for Jews in his view, but not much). In addition, I have read statements of his such as "there are so many of you sitting strong and proud in your white skins" and "so far the whites have been really decent" which if black were substituted for white in those sentences they would be viewed as racist statements, no? Yes, he is a very smooth writer, very patient and generous with his time, but to me the anger screams out from behind the gentle words. I believe people are doing this generation of young black men great harm if they believe that there is some kind of answer in perpetuating the anger.</p>

527

<p>
[quote]
In addition, I have read statements of his such as "there are so many of you sitting strong and proud in your white skins" and "so far the whites have been really decent" which if black were substituted for white in those sentences they would be viewed as racist statements, no?

[/quote]
I think you do me a severe injustice here. You have destroyed the original meaning of both these statements.</p>

<p>In the first statement I describe what it is like to feel squashed by the social forces that I think are innate to American life. A black guy walks out of his home and finds he is on, on, on, on, where he looks and sees images everywhere that tells him white skin is preferred above all. That is the reality in America for blacks.</p>

<p>In the second statement I think I described the fear I had of deliberately keeping my prejudices against whites away from my children, so that rather than have them be automatically guarded against whites, as I am, they will be forced to come to their own conclusions about whites, based upon their own experiences. It was a great risk, from my view, because I was not really sure if society deserved this sort of trust. I remember being a kid and playing with whites and then suddenly having them all turn against me, calling me nigger and making fun of me. I remember being mistreated by white adults, punished for no reason, excluded, called dumb, tricked. What a sad time. I was pretty deflated around these folks, and to this day, some thirty to forty years later, I still remember it. So I get married and have kids. What am I to do with this?</p>

<p>My inclination was to warn my kids, prejudice them against whites so that whites could not even have the chance to harm my precious ones as they have harmed me. But I also knew if I did that, I would blunt a part of their minds that they could really use, you know, that part of the mind that is free to create and investigate and experiment, and stuff like that. So, I figured I would teach them a way to look at the world that was based on some basic things I believe, and let them just hold to those things until they could get strong enough to question them for themselves.</p>

<p>I now think I done good. They seem better prepared than I ever was to handle racism, but I wasn’t sure of this even at the time I wrote here. When I said “so far, the whites have been really decent”, it was an expression of relief. I had fully expected that my children would have encountered severe racism quite frequently by now. But they haven’t. Their experiences have caused me to rethink some of my approaches to racism.</p>

<p>But their experiences have not caused me to think racism does not exist. Even as recently as a few weeks ago my son had a coworker falsely report that another coworker had called him the dreaded N-word. But whereas I would have been pretty deflated and angered by this at his age, my son calmly questioned it, gathered all the parties together to see if he had angered any of them, put the accusation on the table, discovered the falsehood, inquired as to the liar’s motive (jealousy), had him apologize to the coworker on whom he had lied, told him not to fear for his job, and the issue was closed. I think the way my boy investigated this thing was something else. He was looking for the big picture, and just didn’t sense any harm to himself personally, even though that white guy was trying to get underneath my boy’s dark skin.</p>

<p>Anyway, I think you’ve misrepresented me here.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Yes, he is a very smooth writer, very patient and generous with his time, but to me the anger screams out from behind the gentle words.

[/quote]
Well, what you are interpreting as anger is from my perspective called “passion”. I believe what I believe here and am trying to forcefully put my little piece in the public forum for folks to look at. Take a look around. There just aren’t very many folks taking up my view here. Yeah, there are some. But there are plenty folks like you, and mam19??, and pafather, and a whole bunch more who are every bit as passionate for your “its just up to them!” perspective. I do understand where you are coming from, whether you think so or not. But I am gonna keep hacking away at you with my view, until you either stop posting or face it and give me a very logical argument why I am wrong. I actually want to be wrong because if I can see that I am really wrong, it means I likely have a solution to this problem that is a lot easier than what I have managed to come up with as of yet (which is not much).</p>

<p>
[quote]
I believe people are doing this generation of young black men great harm if they believe that there is some kind of answer in perpetuating the anger.

[/quote]
We perpetuate their anger by not listening to them, friend. We perpetuate it by ignoring their grievances by saying nonsense like “yeah slavery was bad and all, BUT...” There just aren’t any buts. It was bad. Period. The next word out of our mouths ought not be “but”. It ought to be “how”.</p>

528

<p>Wow epiphany. Good stuff.</p>

<p>
[quote]
I would add to your sentence ending with "fix education in inner city schools" the phrase "and in inner city homes."

[/quote]
The communities in which I am used to working are very similar to what collegialmom has described. The kids really are rudderless, undisciplined, and usually fatherless. And their mothers are quite often too emotionally drained and/or immature to make the sacrifices needed to tend properly to their kids. It is just a mess. So I fear an external approach to fixing the homes will not be very effective.</p>

<p>There are people around who are trying to make a difference, but, you know, we also have our own families, and are often struggling with many of the same forces that are threatening blacks in general. So it’s tough – and there aren’t really enough of us relative to the magnitude of the problem.</p>

<p>But I think some of your ideas have a lot of potential. That radical restructuring of black education is something I have thought about for a long time. I never really considered a family center. I don’t think it would be enough to just build it because probably too few parents would engage it. But with some other changes, this sort of thing could perhaps work fantastically.</p>

<p>I really think a radical and deliberate change in culture is needed, not just inner city culture, but in black culture generally. I think blacks already have the basis for something really amazing. I just don’t think we are fully capitalizing on it. I think if we could discover ways to be deliberate, to harness the power of those blacks who have the wherewithal to change in themselves the things we all know need changing, well, it could cause something pretty dynamic so that even the inner city would be positively affected (how to make this cultural change is the issue. I am having problems even getting folks to agree it is needed). To fix the family is probably gonna take some fundamental change in thinking like this.</p>

529

<p>Drosselmeier & collegialmom,
I think your points are solid. I don't mean to be painting too rosy a picture. We happen to get more of the truly motivated parents, simply because we <em>are</em> charter & by definition such schools are begun & sustained only by those with motivation. But the point is, motivation is both essential and at the same time not enough. When the capability does not match the motivation (when full parental participation is not possible), the parent must leave with children in hand, and -- with too many such departures -- the charter closes.</p>

<p>Perhaps it seemed as if it was coming across as "an external fix," when what I really meant was a cooperative internally driven but externally supported experiment -- & it would be an experiment. Again, I don't want to sound like a naive idealist. John Ogbu's frank look into the Cleveland (I believe?) school system showed that black families who had left inner city schools for suburban schools unfortunately largely brought their previous attitudes with them: those attitudes assumed rather rigidly (according to Ogbu's interviews) that the institutions should be solely responsible for education. Not suprisingly, their students did not show marked improvement in suburban settings, for which the parents blamed the schools. But Ogbu, like others, and like myself, saw the cures & the solutions as complex. </p>

<p>What suburban non-URM kids tend to have is immersion. It's just that this is so taken for granted, that when creating a school not for that population, the aspect of immersion, & its lack, is forgotten. But when grass-roots charters begin in affected urban neighborhoods, there is an attempt to provide the saturation in the institution itself.</p>

<p>There is some evidence that these charters with diff. structures & diff. assumptions from previous urban schools, are having some success in breaking through. But let's not fool ourselves. It's hard work to reverse patterns & previous expectations, & I'm not under any illusion that universal transformation is around the corner -- with the <em>best</em> models of schools. I think your point about maturity & collegialmom's point about taking responsibility for all aspects of parenting cannot be dismissed.</p>

<p>I have a couple of days of intense work ahead of me this week. In a few days I hope get back to you in a PM, Dross. I have some very concrete ideas I'd like to run by you, given your own perspective & your regular involvement in education. They are very different than what's been tried before, but some of them build & expand on the most successful features of the newer experiments in my neck of the woods.</p>

530

<p>hereshop: watching a pack of lightweight wolves nipping at the heels of a brown bear is certainly entertaining but now and again I can't help but divert their attention by waving a lambchop. That you transfer my accusation of 'pontification' from paf to dross confirms an imprisonment within your own ideas and a tone-deafness. There is a difference between an intellectual game, solving the problems of society, and living that problem with a life or death immediacy. Guess which side I think you inhabit? And surprise, I'm on that side also, where the problems within America might very well disturb me but do not really, if we are being fair, condemn me and mine to a whirlpool of hopelessness. I have been ready to blame black people for their problems and have found in dross' words (and in house solutions) both a heart and mind that gets me out of that narrow perspective and inspires me to reexamine my reflexive defensiveness. You might track some of my efforts to understand and confess if you cared to review but i don't expect it of you. the sound of ones own opinions is so hypnotic.</p>

<p>Epiphany- I thank you for providing the measured voice of experience and erudition. The concept of a learning center is a revolutionary one to me. That you have chosen to teach within troubled places, given your caliber of mind, lifts my troubled spirits. If possible could you share those 'concrete ideas' once they have taken a solid enough shape to 'bear' the inevitable corporeal scrutiny?</p>

531

<p>
[quote]
Epiphany- I thank you for providing the measured voice of experience and erudition. The concept of a learning center is a revolutionary one to me. That you have chosen to teach within troubled places, given your caliber of mind, lifts my troubled spirits.

[/quote]
SAME HERE!!! I was just reading over epiphany’s post and thinking “Goodness! If we could get people like this the forum they need to evaluate their ideas, and then get them the resources to experiment in the way she has in mind, we may be able to lick this thing”.</p>

<p>Btw, I don’t want to come off here as if I have some general axe to grind against whites. As I have said previously, I have plenty of whites who are close to me-- friends and even relatives -- and for whom I’d go right down to the mat without any question or hesitation. Inexplicably, I don’t even think of them when I am talking about this stuff. In my response to hereshoping I was only trying to address how negative experiences, especially those incurred as a kid, can create serious conflict despite even the most positive experiences incurred later on. They can have significant impact on our thinking today, especially when your own kids are involved.</p>

532

<p>Epiphany:</p>

<p>Both you and rorosen have shown me that there is a pretty well-established group of scholars out there that is hitting pretty hard at the issues we are discussing. I read a lot of books (mostly very old stuff these days), but my goodness – I have really been missing out. It turns out that a lot of stuff I thought I had come up with, was probably given to me by this Ogbu guy.</p>

<p>His most recent book, "Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb: A Study of Academic Disengagement" (Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers, 2003) also drew widespread attention. Concerned parents and other members of the middle-class black community in Shaker Heights, Ohio, invited Ogbu there to help them understand why some black students in their highly regarded suburban school system were "disengaged" from academic work and performed less well than their white counterparts. He concluded that the black students' own cultural attitudes hindered academic achievement and that these attitudes are too often neglected.
<a href="http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/08/26_ogbu.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/08/26_ogbu.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>This gives me a lot of comfort because I know if we could find ways to address this one issue, we would cut through all the others. I think the issue is probably even more complex than Ogbu has described, though I need to read his stuff to find out. I’d bet that even if a black parent is affluent, and even if a black parent is highly involved with his kid’s education, that black kid is STILL at an academic disadvantage because of society’s influence, including peer influence.</p>

<p>There are racist forces in our society (attitudes and approaches to media and institutions, etc., etc.) that severely affect the shape and structure of black culture. A lot of this structure was developed not deliberately, but in REACTION to these awful forces. Some of it developed in acceptance of them (like "black english"). Blacks are thinking that their reactionary and passive developments are protective and/or self-defining solutions and they are holding onto these things for dear life (and if you are black, don’t suggest that they give them up, or you will be attacked as “acting white” or an “uncle tom” or something like that. If you are white, then you’re just being racist). Many of these developments would work fine if they were fairly isolated from general American culture. But they are pernicious otherwise. As blacks engage in them and fraternize with each other, these developments and structures tend to weigh down even the most affluent of blacks. This is why I think a comprehensive evaluation of black culture needs to take place. And we need to encourage a deliberate effort to change much of the culture.</p>

<p>It is possible to do, I think. It has been done before, in parts. I think it would be a mistake to think it is possible to do this by including all so-called “black leaders”. Nothing would get done with these guys because their character is too small and their vision too narrow. We need to convince enough people like this Ogbu guy to do this work. And we also need guys of his caliber, who have the charisma to commandeer the media and therefore public attention, to use their influence to explain to the folks how all this stuff is killing them and how to get out from under it. Over time, I think it could have a fantastic effect. But it needs some heavy hitters buying into it.</p>

<p>Hey, I didn’t think you were being naïve at all. I am convinced that your experience is real and that you are finding ways that work within it. I have work to do myself, and will have to break away from this.</p>

<p>Good will to you.</p>

533

<p>Another negative side to AA - read some of the other threads on this forum from students trying to figure out what percentage of a particular race one must be to be able to check the box on the app form, trying to figure out what the 'desirable' races are, trying to figure out what 'African' or 'African American' even means (is a person of Egyptian parentage AfAm since it's on the African continent?, is a native white from South Africa and other African countries 'African'?, and the details go on and on. It sounds very similar to the issues some Indian tribes are having now with people coming out of the woodwork claiming to be some percentage of that tribe in order to receive a part of the newfound gambling wealth some tribes have.</p>

<p>It's amusing and sad at the same time. We need to eliminate racial bias by governments, schools, businesses, and everywhere and focus on equal opportunities and fixing the root causes of the issues that have been debated here which must happen well before the college level.</p>

534

<p>Of course where the government is concerned, AA exists expressly to ease the fallout from multiple centuries of slavery and Jim Crow here in America. Black Americans suffer this fallout. Egyptians, South Africans, etc., do not.</p>

<p>Where college admissions is concerned, AA can and does benefit all groups, including whites, because of an interest in creating a racially diverse and proportionate mixture of students. I suspect that without AA, far fewer whites would be in certain colleges because Asians, who are used to engaging in this,</p>

<p>*Universities in China base their university entrance exam off ONE single score, that is the National University Admissions Examinations (more commonly known as Gaokao). </p>

<p>So what you get in China is a student population with no ECs, no research, no projects, etc..., and hits the books from everyday till 12 or 1am (maybe even later).</p>

<p>Heck, the Chinese even have a name for this type of studying, Ti-hai, literally "Question Ocean". They believe that the practice you have (i.e. doing more from exercise books), the higher you will score in Gaokao.*
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=2664218&postcount=8%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=2664218&postcount=8&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>would naturally be pushing the whites out in the same way they are pushing them out here:</p>

<p>*By most measures, Monta Vista High here and Lynbrook High, in nearby San Jose, are among the nation's top public high schools. Both boast stellar test scores, an array of advanced-placement classes and a track record of sending graduates from the affluent suburbs of Silicon Valley to prestigious colleges.</p>

<p>But locally, they're also known for something else: white flight. Over the past 10 years, the proportion of white students at Lynbrook has fallen by nearly half, to 25% of the student body. At Monta Vista, white students make up less than one-third of the population, down from 45% -- this in a town that's half white. Some white Cupertino parents are instead sending their children to private schools or moving them to other, whiter public schools. More commonly, young white families in Silicon Valley say they are avoiding Cupertino altogether.</p>

<p>Whites aren't quitting the schools because the schools are failing academically. Quite the contrary: Many white parents say they're leaving because the schools are too academically driven and too narrowly invested in subjects such as math and science at the expense of liberal arts and extracurriculars like sports and other personal interests.</p>

<p>The two schools, put another way that parents rarely articulate so bluntly, are too Asian.*
<a href="http://www.realestatejournal.com/buysell/markettrends/20051123-hwang.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.realestatejournal.com/buysell/markettrends/20051123-hwang.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>(btw: This is why I would not prefer that my kid matriculate within the UC system, even if he were accepted (he certainly has the quantitative stats to do well: stellar work quality, no less than a 780 on any of his SATs, including math IC and math IIC). To me, education ought to be a lot richer than what is apparently taking place in California.)</p>

<p>We have historic definitions of race here in this country, and blacks are living under them, typically to their detriment. In America, if you have discernable black features, you are black. If you do not, then you are not. Sure, there are genuine black people who can easily pass as whites, and these people are very special because they take on the burden of being black in America willingly, but the vast majority of American blacks simply do not have this freedom of choice. Blacks generally are living under the historic definition of race regardless of their wishes. And their lives, including academic achievement, are tougher because of it. In view of this, AA is for those among them who, despite the odds, have become qualified for certain opportunities. If there are people who generally live outside of the difficulties I mention here, but who wish to take advantage of the elasticity of race to gain some advantage, it is not the fault of AA. We are dealing here with something altogether different.</p>

535

<p>In America, if you have discernable black features, you are black. If you do not, then you are not</p>

<p>Is it just me- or do these two statements contradict each other?</p>

<p>AA exists expressly to ease the fallout from multiple centuries of slavery and Jim Crow here in America. Black Americans suffer this fallout. Egyptians, South Africans, etc., do not.</p>

<p>WHat I hear is that African Americans suffer racism disporportionate than blacks who are from Ghana, France, or Canada.</p>

<p>But then it also seems to be saying, if you are perceived as "black" no matter where you are from, you have a similar experience as others who are also perceived as "black"</p>

536

<p>Well, Duh. White rich folks receive a great benefit from white people's affirmative action than white poor folks. Doesn't eliminate the fact that both benefit from it, just that the white rich folks are better positioned to take advantage of it.</p>

<p>The number of times I have heard white folks renounce the advantages offered to them as a result of white people's affirmative action I can basically count on one hand; most of the time we don't even notice we have it, it is so ingrained in our way of life.</p>

537

<p>In what way have you been able to take advantage of affirmative action mini?</p>

<p>If it could be pointed out to me in which way my husband ( who barely graduated from high school, and works in a factory) and myself ( who didn't graduate from high school, but I am apparently too well spoken to find a minimum wage job) benefit from white peoples affirmative action, it might make it easier to swallow.</p>

538

<p>
[quote]
WHat I hear is that African Americans suffer racism disporportionate than blacks who are from Ghana, France, or Canada.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>For the children of black immigrants in the United States, they face a choice as to whether they will identify as black Americans or whether they will maintain an ethnic identity reflecting their parents' national origins. </p>

<p>First-generation black immigrants to the United States have tended to distance themselves from American blacks, stressing their national origins and ethnic identities as Jamaican or Haitian or Trinidadian, but they also face overwhelming pressures in the United States to identify only as "blacks"(Waters, 1994). </p>

<p>However, the biggest dilemma facing children of black immigrants is the to the negative opinions voiced by their parents about American blacks as a result of the tension between foreign born and American-born blacks. This tension has helped to create a legacy of mutual stereotypes as immigrants see themselves as hard-working, ambitious, militant about their racial identities but not oversensitive or obsessed with race, and committed to education and family. They see black Americans as lazy, disorganized, obsessed with racial slights and barriers, with a disorganized and laissez faire attitude toward family life and child raising. </p>

<p>American blacks describe the immigrants as arrogant, selfish, exploited in the workplace, oblivious to racial tensions and politics in the United States, and unfriendly and unwilling to have relations with black Americans. The first generation believes that their status as foreign-born blacks is higher than American blacks, and they tend to accentuate their identities as immigrants (Rumbaut, 1994). </p>

<p>Ethnic and racial identities of second-generation black immigrants in New York City</p>

<p>Waters, Mary C. The International Migration Review. New York: Winter 1994.Vol.28,</p>

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<p>Dross:</p>

<p>I agree that whites can also benefit from AA. This is clearly proven by taking a look at what's happened to the demographics of the most selective UCs where racial discrimination isn't permitted. The majority group is now Asian and the ration of non-hispanic whites is down. IMO, this is as it should be since these accepted Asians are perfoming at a higher level than the displaced whites. So be it. I hope more colleges and all governments abandon the practice of racial discrimination. On the other hand, I hope that they enforce equal opportunity by prosecuting those who do practice illegal racial discrimination.</p>

540

<p>Dross: I have just gotten up the courage to read your reaction to my last post for fear of your response. I do appreciate your clarification and I do understand the context in which you were writing. Yet I still maintain that if I exhibited surprise that the black students at my son's school were "pretty decent" toward him (contrary to what I expected, obviously), I would be accused of racism.</p>

<p>And, my friend, you have little idea to whom you are speaking, calling to mind the "assumptions" about a person just because they are of a particular race I mentioned long ago.</p>

<p>I was "passionately" on your side way back in the seventies, my friend. I have on my bookshelf "Soledad Brother" and "Black Like Me" and "Soul on Ice" and Nikki Giovanni and on and on and on. I've had deep relationships with blacks, my friend. I even believed the rage was justified - BACK THEN. But it's served its purpose; it's done its time, and the time is OVER.</p>

<p>I'm lost on the argument that everyone has to connect to their homeland. You don't get it there. Most people I know don't have any more knowledge of their families than going back three generations. My ancestors were from Northern and East European countries - so what? Do you really think I have any idea what town or city they they were from? All I know is they landed in large midwestern city with nothing but the clothes on their backs, with no one to take them in (as you claim) and where I do go and visit to show my kids their "ancestry."</p>

<p>You CAN do the same. You can, I'm pretty sure, trace your ancestors back that far. Point with pride to where your relatives lived (basically a shack where mine lived? - fine - it's their history). Show them the churches they attended, as I do. </p>

<p>In fact, I'd be willing to bet there are many, many blacks who know their history IN THIS COUNTRY going back further than many whites. </p>

<p>We have so much more in common than you think, my friend. </p>

<p>What I really love is the church history. What would OUR church history be like without the black church (the one you put down for having a "white Jesus" on another thread). We wouldn't have the beauty of the spirituals, would we? I have had black friends of whom I've been in AWE because of their faith. Why is the music so beautiful? BECAUSE of the struggle, my friend. Without the struggle it would be meaningless, wouldn't it. That's the way life works.</p>

<p>I have no clue why you have to be angry over Africa. You have a rich and beautiful history in THIS country that you can be proud of. I wish you could build on that, turn the struggle into something to be proud of, instead of denigrating it at every turn. Replace the anger with pride, pride of self and pride of your people.</p>

<p>You have misread me also. I have only come to the conclusion of less anger and more personal responsibility after 36 years, my friend. I am no newcomer to this debate.</p>