Updated
I have been in somewhat of a reflective mood these days. Here are three personal stories that came to mind:
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I was in second grade and as through most of my schooling days, I was a straight-up class clown. My explanation was quite simple–I wanted people to like me. Although this may have sounded like a sensible reason, it was far from being practical as my grades began to tank. I remember during that school year my parents came home from one of those scary parent/teacher conferences. My parents told me that my teacher was recommending that I be moved into a class for “slow learners”. My parents then told me that they would be seriously regulating things like afterschool play time with my friends, TV-watching time, and other extra-curricular activities until my grades improved. The key here was that my parents would not accept the classification of their son as a “slow-learner” because they knew I had great potential if I stopped with the clowning and did my school work.
I never entered the slow-learner’s class thanks to my parents expectations of me.
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I guess it was about the 8th or 9th grade and I was enrolled into our school’s music program. My instrument of choice was the trumpet. Because I always had a love for music, practice was not one of those things that I needed encouragement to do. Although the drive was there to learn the trumpet, my skills needed sharpening. So one day my music teacher sat me down to basically tell me that I was not fit for playing the trumpet. He told me that because I had big lips (he was white), the trumpet would no doubt will always be a difficult instrument for me to play. Not really knowing the rich history of black Americans who became legendary for playing the trumpet and similar instruments, I simply gave up. I figured that if he didn’t think that I could ever play the trumpet well, then why should I continue to fool myself.
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Although my grades did improve throughout middle school, the clowning never stopped once I entered high school. Once again, my grades began to tank and once again my parents were called in for a parent/teacher’s conference. The guidance counselor told my parents that I was not college material and that I would never make it in college. Of course my parents would not accept this as an option for me so once again the garnishment of extra-curricular activities was set in place. My grades improved and I graduated with a B+ average.
I went on to college immediately starting with my first semester worked my way up to Dean’s list.
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I think one of the main reasons why we see black American children under performing in school in comparison to other racial counterparts is because in many ways we do not expect much from them.
Some of you might be thinking “Well that is easy for you to say because you had two parents that were there for you. What about the kids who do not have a dad home as you did?” Although it is very true that kids born into single-parented homes are given a huge disadvantage, this does not mean that our expectancy for them to achieve should adjust accordingly.
I can give you story after story of young people who turned out to be achievers because they had someone in their life that would not accept anything less that the best out of them.
What we have done as a society is to allow our sympathy to dictate standards for those who do not have that someone in their lives to push them. This is one of the major reasons why our kids lag behind in math and sciences…
American high school students have a poorer mastery of basic math concepts than their counterparts in most other leading industrialized nations…
“We have downplayed arithmetic…By and large, American students don’t know how to work with fractions very well and don’t know how to work with decimals. This handicaps their performance internationally.” (more…)
I guess the reason behind this particular posting is my never-ending frustration with our dual identity syndrome—when we are the victims, we associate our condition with slavery. Outside of victimhood, we are the “sons and daughters of kings and queens.” I just don’t get it.
Congressional Black Caucus’s Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif., provided a good example this week of what I am saying by describing those who were victims of hurricane Katrina as “sons and daughters of slaves.” (i.e. “America, these are your ‘new’ slaves, take care of them!”)
Instead of encouraging our black brothas and sistahs to “conjure up” that inner-strength that we so eloquently talk about when discussing black history, it appears that we as a people collectively have completely sold ourselves out as helpless victims (in less than a week) whose ultimate survival is based on what government can or cannot do. Although the black community has given to the relief effort in almost record numbers, what is our overall expectancy for them? Are we giving with a hope that these individuals will use the money as an opportunity to escape poverty or do we just expect them to “continue where they left off?” Although life has given these people a serious blow, it has also given them a wonderful opportunity to change the damming habits that has kept them in a perpetual state of poverty. In addition to providing counselors that will help these survivors emotionally, I say fill these shelters with financial counselors–individuals who will show them how to get out of poverty.
I was so moved by the attitudes of the Vietnamese people also located in the Gulf region who also lost just about everything from the storm. These people didn’t trip because the media called them “refugees” (because many of them have already been called refugees during the Vietnam war era—BTW, for those of you that do have a problem with Americans being called “refugees”, no need to argue that here because I think the issue may be a valid one. My point here is that we have been called worse and we still moved forward). They pretty much made up in their minds (the Vietnamese mentioned in the posting) that they were going to be in their current predicament for a short time, and they were already making plans to rebuild their houses and businesses. I didn’t get the feeling that their plans were predicated on what the government could do to help them.
Here is another related article
Blacks who have been displaced from their homes are going to need this same type of resiliently But with a poverty rate of close to 30% of the city of New Orleans alone, not to mention the fact that the large amount of blacks who opted not to evacuate in fears of not getting their government check (yes, that did happen), their resiliently may have already been compromised. Only time will tell.
It is time for the kings and queens to rise to the occasion on all fronts.
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