Obama has tough-love message for African-Americans

Student Lounge African-American Students
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<p>Obama</a> has tough-love message for African-Americans | U.S. | Reuters</p>

<p>"We need a new mindset, a new set of attitudes -- because one of the most durable and destructive legacies of discrimination is the way that we have internalized a sense of limitation; how so many in our community have come to expect so little of ourselves," he said.</p>

<p>Obama told a packed ballroom at a Manhattan hotel that blacks need to recapture the spirit of the civil rights movement of a half century ago to tackle problems that have struck African-Americans disproportionately -- joblessness, spiraling healthcare costs and HIV-AIDS.</p>

<p>"What is required to overcome today's barriers is the same as was needed then -- the same commitment. The same sense of urgency. The same sense of sacrifice," he said.</p>

<p>Obama said parents need to force their children to set aside the video games and get to bed at a reasonable hour, and push them to set their sights beyond such iconic figures as NBA star LeBron James and rap singer Lil Wayne.</p>

<p>Education is the path to a better future, said Obama.</p>

<p>"Our kids can't all aspire to be the next LeBron or Lil Wayne. I want them aspiring to be scientists and engineers, doctors and teachers, not just ballers and rappers. I want them aspiring to be a Supreme Court justice. I want them aspiring to be president of the United States," he said.</p>

<p>Obama noted that his own life could have taken a different path, had it not been for his mother's urgings."</p>

<p>But you guys know this....</p>

<p>Can't WAIT to tell my sin President Obrma said to GO TO BED!</p>

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<p>This is very interesting. Obama has changed the view of African Americans in many ways. His speech, however, is constructive and it demonstrates his tough love for the African American community. He portrays the realities facing African Americans today. People are looking to be ballers and rappers rather than making a difference in society, whether it is through the arts, sciences, or education. Being an African American I have witnessed many students give up their education because of problems at home and criticism by others that create a sense of worthlessness. Obama’s message is clear. African Americans have potential to be great leaders in any field. We just need to set priorities and stick to them. Our parents have to back us in every way possible. Even though there are financial constraints in some families, there still must be a drive by students and family to succeed in a nation with limitless opportunities. However there are environmental constraints that people just can’t control. Gang violence, separated parents, pressure, discrimination and prejudice. All these factors have an effect on the minds of African Americans. But an African American child must learn how to differentiate between right and wrong. They must learn this from good and supportive parents. Supportive teachers and faculty, and most importantly, supportive friends that have a positive outlook on their future. Just my 2 cents.</p>

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<p>I find Obama’s speech troublesome. It illustrates just how out of touch he is with the African American community, particularly poor inner-city blacks. </p>

<p>The problem of African-American youth, particularly the young men, isn’t that they all aspire to be Lebron James and Lil’ Wayne. The problem is that Lebron James and Lil’ Wayne, as well as other athletes and rappers, are their only truly visible models of success. They can aspire to be like them because it seems perfectly possible to actually become a pro athlete player or rapper despite poverty. Plenty of athletes and rappers have done it. A basketball court is free and it doesn’t cost a dime to rhyme. </p>

<p>Becoming a doctor or lawyer or engineer is a different story. There are African-Americans at the top of all three of those professions, out right superstars. Ben Carson is the world best neurosurgeon. Obama graduated manga cum laude, taught law and became president. Mark Dean owns three of the original nine IBM patents, is an IBM Fellow and current Vice President of the company. But how many poor African-American males know about these figures? Few if any. How many poor African-American males know a doctor, lawyer or engineer on a personal level? Very few.</p>

<p>The problem of poor African-American male underachievement has a lot to do with prejudice and a dearth of resources. But it is exacerbated by a lack of representation and visibility of African-American males in the professions. A lot of African American males just don’t know that they can aspire to great things outside of the realm of athletics and entertainment. Their environment does nothing to enlighten them. </p>

<p>They go to their schools and see that most of their teachers are black women, white women and white men. Their teachers have a prejudice against them from the get-go. New and experienced teachers expect less from black males. They’re quick to be labeled as problem children and held back. Many teachers give up on them altogether. A lot of the African-American students, sensing their teacher’s prejudice and the hostility of the school system, give up on education altogether</p>

<p>They come home to neighborhoods without any black male professionals. They turn on the TV and they see black male athletes and entertainers. They go outside and that the other black males are under or unemployed, some dealing drugs. The ones that deal drugs have money.</p>

<p>And so the problem really isn’t that all the young black men are aspiring to be athletes and rappers. The problem is that they don’t know they’re capable of aspiring to be anything else and their immediate environment does nothing to combat that belief.</p>

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<p>I don’t think it’s the lack of black male role models that keeps young black males from achieving success. Women didn’t have female role models in business and industry, and have nevertheless managed great inroads in male dominated professions. Gender and race are fair comparisons, because both are visible traits. </p>

<p>I think young black males who are successful outside of ballin’ and rappin’ tend to come from families where education is highly valued, where discipline is enforced, and where self-respect and respect for others is expected of them. Parents who demand these things of their kids, who monitor their children’s lives to ensure that these values are being honored, tend to have adult children who achieve success. Low achieving people of every race and gender tend to be the children of parents who are unable or unwilling to impart these necessary values for success.</p>

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<p>“How many poor African-American males know a doctor, lawyer or engineer on a personal level? Very few.”</p>

<p>One of the most memorable comments I ever heard as a kid; after saying I wanted to be a doctor, Black friend says “no one get’s to be a doctor”. !?!?</p>

<p>Other most memorable; Classmate asks my class rank. I had NO idea of the implications when I was in HS ( in fact, until I came to CC for my daughter !). White classmate says “That’s good. … for you”!</p>

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<p>Gender and race are not fair comparisons. Women aren’t, on average, born into a lower socioeconomic level. Many aren’t born in all female ghettos where they don’t see other successful women. </p>

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<p>If that’s the case then why do African-American women academically outperform African-American men at every socioeconomic level? It’s not a matter of discipline or self-respect. It’s a matter of representation. There are plenty of young black women that escape the ghetto. Far more than African-American males. Even within families you’ll notice that the young women consistently fare better than their brothers. That’s because the women will see plenty of women that are employed and educated. Their teachers will be black women. The secretaries at school will be black women. The majority of the few educated individuals they will come to know will be women. More so than men.</p>

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<p>“Even within families you’ll notice that the young women consistently fare better than their brothers. That’s because the women will see plenty of women that are employed and educated.”</p>

<p>You sound so certain. It sounds so simple. I think it is more complicated then that.</p>

<p>Is it possible that there are temperamental differences between the majority of males and females that help females succeed in traditional academic and work settings? Is it possible these differences are exaggerated under certain circumstances?</p>

<p>The former was true for both my brother and son, but they also had some resources and role models.</p>

<p>I am a Physician, my sister a lawyer, my brother …a film director with a grammy nom (and NOT for rap music!)</p>

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<p>I don’t think their is a lack of rolemodels for African American males. I live in a town where the median income is high and for the most part, African American males tend to wander and do poorly in school. Their priorities aren’t straight at all. The problem I think is in the home and what the media portrays. African American parents as a whole need to do a better job in educating their children. Everything starts from the home. In low income families there is a high rate of drug dealing and abuse. African American males do look up to Rappers and Ballers because they seem to be the only ones who have lived their lifestyle and “made it.” However their is a point missing. The media portrays African American males as abusive, worthless individuals. Socio-economic status has pretty much everything to do with success among blacks. Even though there are a few outliers, most low income African American families tend to deal drugs and join gang related activity, rather than be good rolemodels for other African Americans. Obama is partially out of touch with the African American community because his case was different than what most African Americans deal with in their every day lives. He can’t use his unique experience to make a generalization about the African American community as a whole. The United States has made progress with programs like Affirmative Action, but there is still a long way to go. African Americans deal with so many problems that attack their outlook on what makes someone successful. Prejudice, Discrimination and Abuse(verbal or physical).</p>

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<p>So you live in a high income area with a lot of professional African-American men and their sons tend to wander and do poor in school? I live in a high income, majority black suburb, and the young men tend to trail the young women academically as well. However, the gender disparity in academic achievement is far smaller than that of the ghetto.</p>

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<p>That is the same in my school. Young men tend to trail the young women. I don’t know why that is. Could someone give a possible explanation for that. I have a few theories, but I can’t really string them together. I agree that difference in academic achievement is way smaller than that of the ghetto. That is why I think Obama can’t really use his experience and his childhood as a generalization of what unemployed low income families that live in the ghettos are experiencing. Even though he used to live on food-stamps when he lived with his mother. As soon as he left and grew up with his grandparents In Hawaii, things changed. His grandparents weren’t poor. I think his situation and the guidance of his grandparents is different than the guidance that struggling African Americans parents express to their children.</p>

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<p>“Young men tend to trail the young women. I don’t know why that is.Could someone give a possible explanation for that.”</p>

<p>I’ll repeat my theory…</p>

<p>Is it possible that there are temperamental differences (restlessness, poor frustrating tolerance and impulse control, easily bored) between the majority of males and females that help females succeed in traditional academic and work settings? Is it possible these differences are exaggerated under certain circumstances?</p>

<p>Some of these “temperamental differences” are also considered symptoms of ADHD. I do not want to suggest we pathologize these differences, but in my experience they are viewed very differently in different families. For example, even among middle class Blacks and Hispanics, it seems important that " boys be boys". It seems a bigger priority then making academic success easier through the use of medication.</p>

<p>Under the best circumstances, these temperamental qualities may mean achieving less them family members. Under the worst circumstances, these qualities place you at risk for “Conduct disorder”.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.aacap.org/cs/root/facts_for_families/conduct_disorder[/url]”>http://www.aacap.org/cs/root/facts_for_families/conduct_disorder&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>It’s a combination of a lot of factors. Many African-American men were raised by women and television. It takes a man to raise a man.</p>

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<p>And this is one of the bigger problems. We might not like to talk about it, but African-Americans seem to care quite a bit more about the performative aspect of masculinity than most other men. Unfortunately, acting out doesn’t lead to good outcomes for African-American men, especially under the duress of prejudice and stereotypes regarding black violence and criminality. You only have to slip up once as an African-American male to find yourself on the road to failure. Small mistakes snow ball easily.</p>

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<p>There is a lack of father figures in the African American household. I can talk about my life and how my father played a minimal role in my academic success. My mother practically used all her resources to make sure that I had attained a good education. She is a pediatrician and now, coincidentally, I want to be a doctor, specifically a surgeon when I grow up. Parents, meaning a father and mother, play an integral part in how successful an African American child can be. The post above is also true. Getting a job as an African American male with a criminal record is next to impossible. African American males use physical violence rather than words. That is how we are trained in a sense. Especially if you have grown up in dysfunctional families. A high percentage of African Americans that commit crimes are males. The incarceration rate among males is also high, due to many factors such as profiling, prejudice, discrimination and re-occuring stereotypes. The perception of African American males may never change.</p>

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<p>^ I don’t disagree. But my brother was raised along with my sister and I, by two professional parents. Same is true for my son. They still took longer to… “mature” into their academic skills then their sisters.</p>

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<p>Acting out doesn’t lead to good outcomes for people of any color, and AA males do not find themselves failing because of a single “slip up,” but blaming one’s shortcomings on “others” inevitably leads to failure.</p>

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<p>You’re right and wrong: Acting out doesn’t lead to good outcomes for anyone. However, we should look at the facts of the African-American males situation:</p>

<p>[The</a> majority of African-Americans prisoners are behind bars for nonviolent crimes, mostly drug charges.](<a href=“http://www.justicepolicy.org/images/upload/99-03_REP_OneMillionNonviolentPrisoners_AC.pdf]The”>http://www.justicepolicy.org/images/upload/99-03_REP_OneMillionNonviolentPrisoners_AC.pdf) </p>

<p>[African-American</a> males are 10 times more likely to be convicted for a drug charge.](<a href=“Decades of Disparity: Drug Arrests and Race in the United States | HRW”>Decades of Disparity: Drug Arrests and Race in the United States | HRW) </p>

<p>[An</a> African-American without a criminal record has a harder time finding work than a white male ex con all things being equal](<a href=“http://lsnc.net/equity/category/employment/]An”>http://lsnc.net/equity/category/employment/). An African-American with a record is almost precluded from entering the workforce entirely. </p>

<p>So what we’re left with is the following situation: A lot, if not the majority, of African-American males are forced to attend vastly inferior schools by no fault of their own. Despite needing more programs to keep them from falling victim to the allure of the street they get far less. They are less likely to get hired even with the same objective qualifications of a white male. If they can’t find work and resort to selling drugs they are banned from the workforce forever – which isn’t the story for white ex-cons. If they use drugs – and I highly doubt that they use drugs much more often than whites – they are far more likely to go to jail. And if they go to jail…well you get the picture.</p>

<p>I don’t think we should discount these factors and blame African-American males for their situation entirely. There are plenty of white guys that should be in jail for selling and consuming drugs like marijuana but got off because Joe the cop lives next door and doesn’t think he’ll do it again. No such luck for black guy.</p>

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<p>Blaming the quality of the schools only works if the schools fail to educate the majority, but among all black kids who attend crappy schools, a relatively small percentage choose to be criminals. The same is true for white kids, hispanic kids, mixed race kids, etc.</p>

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<p>The VAST majority of people in prison are white, so your “Joe the cop” is arresting more people who share his skin color than people of other colors. Also, the percentage of black officers in large cities is on average 20% of the total number of officers, yet blacks only account for on average 12.7% of the population. A disproportionate percentage of black criminals are incarcerated, but a disproportionate number of black police officers arrested them.</p>

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<p>I think it’s fair to blame the crappy schools that a lot of poor black men are forced to attend. Consider than it 2001, 10% of all black men ages 25-29 was in jail. Now also consider that those inmates are disproportionately poor (as are all prisoners). Would you like to guess what percentage of poor, black men from underperforming schools are incarcerated? I can’t find any, but I’m willing to guess it’s over 10%. It may be as high as 20%.</p>

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<p>The majority of prisoners are black: [In</a> fact in 2006, Black males made up 38 percent of all male inmates, while White males made up 34 percent and Hispanic inmates made up 21 percent.](<a href=“http://www.ocjs.state.oh.us/research/prisoners%20in%202006.pdf]In”>http://www.ocjs.state.oh.us/research/prisoners%20in%202006.pdf)</p>

<p>The majority of inmates are in for nonviolent crimes. [The</a> estimate is around 70%.](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisons_in_the_United_States]The”>Incarceration in the United States - Wikipedia)</p>

<p>The majority of of the 249,400 state prison inmates serving time for drug offenses at yearend 2004, 112,500 (45.1%) were black, 51,800 (20.8%) were Hispanic, and 65,900 (26.4%) were white.</p>

<p>Source: Sabol, William J., PhD, Couture, Heather, and Harrison, Paige M., Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prisoners in 2006 (Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, December 2007), NCJ219416, p. 24, Appendix Table 9.</p>

<p>There’s something wrong with the system when 13% of the population comprises the nearly half of inmates serving time for drug offenses – [especially</a> when the majority is more likely to use drugs.](<a href=“http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-1051223.html]especially”>http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-1051223.html)</p>

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<p>That looks like a good statistic until you realize that the majority of large cities has a black population that is much higher than 20%. There are over 30 cities with black populations of at least 30% or higher. Half of those cities are over 50% black. There are also 60 metropolitan areas with black populations over 30%. America’s black population is concentrated in urban areas.</p>

<p>[List</a> of U.S. cities with large African American populations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._cities_with_large_African_American_populations]List”>List of U.S. cities with large Black populations - Wikipedia)</p>

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<p>I disagree with a number of points, but I have to say you are preaching to the choir about incarceration for drug offenses. I think all drugs should be legally obtainable by adults, just like alcohol. America has been fighting the war on drugs for over a quarter of a century, and our illicit drug problem has only been getting worse. Making drugs legal will virtually eliminate the criminal underworld associated with drugs (as evidenced by the complete lack of criminal underworld in the alcohol arena), and young people will be less likely to view drug use as a rebellious rite of passage (as evidenced by the lack of hordes of young people quaffing martinis or knocking back beer every evening.)</p>

<p>I think all drugs, including those that are currently illicit or only available by prescription, should be available to any adult to purchase at will, and adults should be held responsible for their drug procurement and use decisions. I think it is inappropriate for elected government bureaucrats, or our neighbors in voting booths, or expensive doctors, to dictate what we are and are not allowed to consume. If we want opinions from any of those people we will ask for them, and if we don’t ask, they should not have any control over our consumption habits. If our habits infringe on the rights of others, then we should be punished for those infringements, but I resent other people assuming they know what’s best for me, and limiting my freedoms to only those choices with which their values agree.</p>