<p>First of all, do the best you can for you and your family. Take care of them and you will have helped a lot of black people.</p>
<p>Succeed and you will not be denied the opportunity to speak and teach and mentor and inspire others.</p>
<p>Help someone become someone who can help someone. Start a chain of events. There are kids just like you - kids who want to succeed academically that live in an environment and culture that opposes them. They need support, inspiration, hope and opportunity.</p>
<p>Just keep working in yourself first and you’ll figure out the rest. You may not be able to help your peers but with time you may be helping their kids and your peers will thank you for it.</p>
<p>You can’t help black people if you don’t love black people which means you got to love yourself as you are too.</p>
<p>-Your oppressors are the victims.
-You will one day be an inspiration to those who reject you now.
-You are representative of the strength and courage and intellect of black America, not the gangbangers, the minstrels or haters out there. </p>
<p>I’m trying to flip your world view upside down. Think of a picture with sky on the bottom and land on the top. Flip it upside down and you will see things as they are.</p>
<p>Many around you can’t let you change your opinion. If you are good, they are bad. If you are right, they are wrong. If you succeed, you deny them all their excuses for failure. If you leave, you will look back and see them as they really are - weak, followers, pitiful and dumb. </p>
<p>That is why you are rejected. To accept you is to reject themselves and they won’t allow that. It’s true.</p>
<p>I just came back from a trip to a country in Africa. I was accepted everywhere by everyone. Your problem isn’t race. It’s ignorance and culture and peer pressure.</p>
<p>This is very interesting. I think also what it is difficult is that people’s experiences with stereotypical blacks affect those of us that try not to fit the stereotype. For example, my friend and I were at the mall. We were in the food court, and at the table next to us was a group of black ppl. They were being very loud and left their food trash on the table. Everyone was looking at them, and I was so embarassed because I knew that the black race is judged by the actions of the a few. As blacks, we have the burden of representing our entire race. Whites do not have that burden.</p>
<p>Daughter accepted to Dartmouth ED, she is very excited. Good luck to all of you waiting for RD’s, I know it’s very stressful. Keep your heads up and remember the mere fact your applying and being strongly considered at these highly selective institutions puts you in the top 1%. Great things are in store for you all!</p>
<p>@mad
I appreciate your words very much. I’ve spent my gap year trying to improve myself. I want more than anything to inspire someone else.
∩__∩</p>
<p>@buttafly
Yeah, I saw that a lot in school (notorious lunch table of loud black girls, lol). I guess all minorities experience this? Ah, well. >_<</p>
<p>I was almost ready to let out a deep, ancestral sigh @ some of the comments posted on the last page. Alexis, I can sort of (I guess) understand when you say that sometimes you feel ashamed to be African-American-- I go to a college that has roughly 9,000 Black non-Hispanic students, and some of the things I’m forced to see at school make me weep for my race. Then again, I essentially attend High School 2.0. Now my eyes are open to the fact that our race really needs help, and fast. I don’t think a day has gone by that I haven’t felt the need to put on a “I’m not one of them, I’m not one of them…please believe me” smile, with a cut-through-the-soul side-eye included.
However, saying “If I had a chance to be another race, I’d take it” is a bit extreme. If you would take the time to research the recent accomplishments of African-Americans who aren’t looking to entertain, I’m almost positive you’d be impressed. Just because our accomplishments aren’t discussed on CNN every single day doesn’t mean we are all sitting idly in our living rooms wondering when we’ll become the next ewok formally known as Lil’ Wayne, or the next culo model.
Of course, it’s hard to have “black pride” when seemingly all the crabs around you are making damn sure that you won’t be getting out of that bucket (or barrel? I grew up saying bucket, so) anytime soon. It’s also hard feeling as if you have to represent for your race all the time.</p>
<p>Just know that you are not alone. You have the potential to influence the lives of many in your situation–i.e. low-income, high-achieving black students. I think I read somewhere on CC that you were recently admitted to Cornell. Congrats! High school, and even middle school, students in your situation will look up to you and see that even living a seemingly unglamorous life, as I think you’ve noted on CC, can lead to spectacular achievements. As a potential role model, having an I-don’t-want-to-be-black-anymore mindset isn’t exactly healthy.</p>
<p>I’m in the middle of post-Spring Break midterm cramming, so hopefully some parts of this post made sense.</p>
<p>Also, congratulations to the superstars on this thread (and the African-American Class of 2013 thread). Hopefully more wonderful news will be coming for you all.</p>
<p>These discussion really have inspired, empowered, and show me a whole different prepective to look at things…I go to a high school that is predominately white but the little black population in my school Rey to act ghetto" or gangstar. It just puts me down and sometimes it is hard to ackowelge and be proud of my race. But the biggest battle for me is dealing with white people and teachers in my AP classes who think I don’t belong there. That I should act and take the classes the other black kids are taking; I cannot wait to show all of them my cornell acceptance letter (March 28th).</p>
<p>@lachica
Yes, your post makes sense. This struggle has certainly been difficult ever since I was like, five. xD
Someday I’d like to be a leader, I really would. I just need more time to eradicate these…feelings…like you said. I’ve let it go for faaaar too long. Thank god for this gap year, eh? T_T I think I will look up those accomplishments. It’ll make me feel better. <em>^▁^</em> </p>
<p>And thank you! I’m STILL in shock. I’m all “why did you all accept me”? LOL</p>
<p>I just want to wish everyone good luck as you wait for your Ivy acceptances. </p>
<p>@eberej. I am very sorry to hear about your experience in your AP classes. It is appalling to me that you are in that kind of environment in school. My son, like you, is the only or one of two in his AP classes, but he has never felt unwelcome or put down. As a matter of fact, the Assistant Principal took him out to lunch to try to find out how they might get more AA males to take more AP and honors classes.</p>
<p>I’ve been asked and my kids have been asked at times by others how to get other kids to pursue xyz or abc.</p>
<p>I’ve never been a fan of that question. It usually gets asked way too late. A kid has to want something enough to go get it and have enough support behind him to guide and direct and motivate and work harder than everyone else around him.</p>
<p>@marabouts. While I agree with you that asking that question many times comes way too late in the process, I am glad someone is at least addressing the issue. I think the school environment that eberej faces is horrible. I think it is very difficult for children to take AP classes if they haven’t had the quality of classes in K-8 that would be necessary to be successful in an AP class. As you said as well, there has to be emphasis on education in the home as well. Putting a child in an AP class who is ill-prepared is probably doomed
before the aforementioned child even cracks a book. </p>
<p>As an aside, in our area a Principal had the vision to start an elementary school for the gifted/high achieving kids that was supposed to serve the kids in the poorer section of the city. When my son was a student there, there was an immense amount of diversity both racially and socio-economically. The school quickly became one of the top performers in the state. Fast forward seven years, my son is now a senior, my daughter attended the same elementary school and the diversity is almost non existent. The school has been almost completely co-opted by upper middle class white children. Do the gifted/high achieving minorities still exist? I am sure they do. However, for some reason, there aren’t many in the school. It starts at the grade school level and needs to grow from there. If these kids are missing out at the elementary level, they are almost certainly behind when they get to high school.</p>
<p>I agree. I guess the question bothers me because it comes across as “what makes you so special?” and “Why aren’t you on drugs, in a gang or lazy like your black peers?” at the same time. It’s like wondering why you are so unique and how to make everyone else just like you.</p>
<p>It can’t be done. Many folks don’t understand that black kids are cursed from very early on in both the home and in school with low expectations. Asians tend to be “burdened” with high expectations. The results of each speak for themselves. Expectations need to be raised but some many teachers can’t see passed color enough to get to that point.</p>
<p>Just a couple months ago, even though my D is a HS senior, ranked near the top of her class, near a 4.0 gpa, a leader in many activities and her AP calculus BC is her sport coach, he still said to me that he didn’t realize she as smart as she is until he had her in class.</p>
<p>He is a good guy but why, even with her 4 year track record of outstanding performance, did she have to “prove” how smart she is to a teacher that knows her? Other kids have it assumed they are smart before doing anything but with my D, she still has to demonstrate it to people who already know it.</p>
<p>There is a race issue here - it’s subconscious and cultural, not malicious or hateful. It exists in the schools AND in the homes. Blacks that use the N word or other despicable language or hold feelings of inferiority are also part of the problem.</p>
<p>Oh yeah, and just because someone has no malicious intent in their heart, doesn’t mean they don’t have the same impact and influence as if they did.</p>
<p>My hs was started by a black woman and was meant for inner city low income kids (mostly minorities and poor whites). It’s second in the state now and 80 to 85 percent white. Mostly upper middle class.
Interesting.</p>
<p>A principal inquiring about how he might “get” other blacks to take APs, well. That’s a tough task. There has to be a drive. When I transferred from my no name hs to an elite (eyeroll) one sophomore year I hadn’t even heard of APs. In fact, I was not informed by anyone that they even existed (admin never cared for me). I took a bunch junior and senior year because I’m competitive and wanted to best the Asian and Caucasian kids. No other black person in my school took as many as I did (wasn’t really a lot tbh) because they didn’t believe in or cherish knowledge like my mom taught me to do. They hadn’t parents who cared deeply for educations. To get black youth to succeed one must first address the problem’s root–their parents.</p>
