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I have a very good friend who I've known for 20 years now, named Alan. Just so you know, Alan is black and I'm white, and about a year into our friendship (hanging out about once a month or so) we were at my place toasting to my deceased mothers birthday, and before we knew it, the tequila kicked in. The subject of why blacks aren't achieving much success came up and Alan said to me "I want your honest opinion of why there aren't many successful blacks, and why there aren't many opportunities for them." I knew by his expression that he knew the answer, and got the feeling this was a test of sorts to find out how I viewed black people.
My answer to him was as follows:
It isn't that black people are being singled out and discriminated against like they were in the past just because they are black. It's different now. Take a look at other minorities like Latinos and the Chinese for instance, that have been here for 3 or more generations. They don't have a problem getting good jobs like black people do and I'll tell you in my opinion why that is.
When their grandparents and great grandparents arrived here, they couldn't speak the language and didn't have many opportunities, but they came to America to give their families a better life. They chose to be in America and wanted to become American... They saw America as a blessing and knew that the only way their children would be able to live the dream, was for them to adopt every aspect of the American culture. So they demanded that their children get as much education as possible and learn to speak the English language correctly, because they knew that was their key to a prosperous life here.
The black people in America have a completely different outlook. They didn't choose to come here, their ancestors were forced here as slaves and so they never wanted to be apart of the American culture. It seems to me that black families have never let that go and whether consciously or not, have passed down from generation to generation to their children, an anger and refusal to conform to the "White mans ways". That's apparent by the way they view black men who work in "White" corporate America as sell outs or "Uncle Tom's". That viewpoint seems to me to be the crux of the problem and what needs to be changed.
What black people see as the "White man's" way, is in fact the "American" way and they need to embrace it. Their refusal to conform, refusal to give up their "blackness", refusal to demand that their children get the best education and refusal to demand that their kids speak the English language correctly, is what's holding back black people, not the color of their skin. When parents not only allow, but encourage their kids to continue speaking the ghetto language of the inner cities, and hail that as an expression of their black "culture", they are sentencing their kids to either a life of low paying jobs and government handouts, or to a life of violence and crime.
Nearly every single high paying job involves sales of some kind, whether it be a product, or just a matter of selling yourself. If you aren't capable of speaking the English language correctly, with correct diction and in an educated business manner, the only job you are ever going to get is washing dishes, digging ditches or working in the mail room for some large corporation. Other minority groups in America have been highly successful, because their parents embraced American culture and knew the only way for their children to become successful in America, was to become an American and embrace the culture.
Alan then smiled, shook my hand and congratulated me for being the first white guy in several years that had actually "Gotten it". He told me that there are still racists out there, but he only encounters them on occasion in bars or social settings, and that they didn't stand in the way of him owning his own computer store, or effect in any way the level of it's success.
After that, I mentioned how both he and his brother (who was a pilot for United Airlines for 22 years) were lucky not to have been brought up in an inner city ghetto environment, and to have had parents that obviously spoke the language well, and had a reasonable education. That was an assumption of mine because I had never heard any mention of him growing up poor, or heard any hard luck stories from his childhood, and because both Alan and his brother spoke the English language perfectly, without as much as a hint of "Ebonics"... That's when the bomb dropped!
Alan looked at me and said:
"What?". "Where did you ever get the Idea that my parents were educated and that we were raised in middle class suburbs?" He laughed and continued, "My brother and I were raised in the ghettos of Detroit, and in fact, my mother still lives there now. We were dirt poor, neither graduated high school, and if my father were alive today and I put him on the phone with you, you probably wouldn't understand a damned word he was saying."
I then asked him, if his father and mother both were uneducated and neither knew how to speak proper english... He stopped me in mid sentence and said :
My father was very poor and could never hold down a job. Even when he did hold one down for a few years, it was still never enough to get all the things the family needed. But my father understood exactly why he was never going to get ahead, and he vowed to make sure that the same thing didn't happen to us. He demanded that my brother and I get a proper education, and whenever he would hear us talking like him, or using ghetto street slang, he would smack us right across the mouth. He did this from as far back as I remember, and that's why I don't sound "Black". It just wasn't allowed in our house."
That conversation confirmed that what I had believed to be true for so many years was in fact correct... So it is my belief, that until black families and black communities understand that embracing their Ebonic "culture" and refusing to conform to the Americans culture, is the primary thing that's responsible for keeping them down and preventing them from success, nothing is ever going to change. Black families need to recognize this problem and correct it like Alan's family did, or their children and grand children's choices will be the same low paying jobs, welfare, drugs and crime, that they find themselves limited to today.
Grim17
I have a very good friend who I've known for 20 years now, named Alan. Just so you know, Alan is black and I'm white, and about a year into our friendship (hanging out about once a month or so) we were at my place toasting to my deceased mothers birthday, and before we knew it, the tequila kicked in. The subject of why blacks aren't achieving much success came up and Alan said to me "I want your honest opinion of why there aren't many successful blacks, and why there aren't many opportunities for them." I knew by his expression that he knew the answer, and got the feeling this was a test of sorts to find out how I viewed black people.
My answer to him was as follows:
It isn't that black people are being singled out and discriminated against like they were in the past just because they are black. It's different now. Take a look at other minorities like Latinos and the Chinese for instance, that have been here for 3 or more generations. They don't have a problem getting good jobs like black people do and I'll tell you in my opinion why that is.
When their grandparents and great grandparents arrived here, they couldn't speak the language and didn't have many opportunities, but they came to America to give their families a better life. They chose to be in America and wanted to become American... They saw America as a blessing and knew that the only way their children would be able to live the dream, was for them to adopt every aspect of the American culture. So they demanded that their children get as much education as possible and learn to speak the English language correctly, because they knew that was their key to a prosperous life here.
The black people in America have a completely different outlook. They didn't choose to come here, their ancestors were forced here as slaves and so they never wanted to be apart of the American culture. It seems to me that black families have never let that go and whether consciously or not, have passed down from generation to generation to their children, an anger and refusal to conform to the "White mans ways". That's apparent by the way they view black men who work in "White" corporate America as sell outs or "Uncle Tom's". That viewpoint seems to me to be the crux of the problem and what needs to be changed.
What black people see as the "White man's" way, is in fact the "American" way and they need to embrace it. Their refusal to conform, refusal to give up their "blackness", refusal to demand that their children get the best education and refusal to demand that their kids speak the English language correctly, is what's holding back black people, not the color of their skin. When parents not only allow, but encourage their kids to continue speaking the ghetto language of the inner cities, and hail that as an expression of their black "culture", they are sentencing their kids to either a life of low paying jobs and government handouts, or to a life of violence and crime.
Nearly every single high paying job involves sales of some kind, whether it be a product, or just a matter of selling yourself. If you aren't capable of speaking the English language correctly, with correct diction and in an educated business manner, the only job you are ever going to get is washing dishes, digging ditches or working in the mail room for some large corporation. Other minority groups in America have been highly successful, because their parents embraced American culture and knew the only way for their children to become successful in America, was to become an American and embrace the culture.
Alan then smiled, shook my hand and congratulated me for being the first white guy in several years that had actually "Gotten it". He told me that there are still racists out there, but he only encounters them on occasion in bars or social settings, and that they didn't stand in the way of him owning his own computer store, or effect in any way the level of it's success.
After that, I mentioned how both he and his brother (who was a pilot for United Airlines for 22 years) were lucky not to have been brought up in an inner city ghetto environment, and to have had parents that obviously spoke the language well, and had a reasonable education. That was an assumption of mine because I had never heard any mention of him growing up poor, or heard any hard luck stories from his childhood, and because both Alan and his brother spoke the English language perfectly, without as much as a hint of "Ebonics"... That's when the bomb dropped!
Alan looked at me and said:
"What?". "Where did you ever get the Idea that my parents were educated and that we were raised in middle class suburbs?" He laughed and continued, "My brother and I were raised in the ghettos of Detroit, and in fact, my mother still lives there now. We were dirt poor, neither graduated high school, and if my father were alive today and I put him on the phone with you, you probably wouldn't understand a damned word he was saying."
I then asked him, if his father and mother both were uneducated and neither knew how to speak proper english... He stopped me in mid sentence and said :
My father was very poor and could never hold down a job. Even when he did hold one down for a few years, it was still never enough to get all the things the family needed. But my father understood exactly why he was never going to get ahead, and he vowed to make sure that the same thing didn't happen to us. He demanded that my brother and I get a proper education, and whenever he would hear us talking like him, or using ghetto street slang, he would smack us right across the mouth. He did this from as far back as I remember, and that's why I don't sound "Black". It just wasn't allowed in our house."
That conversation confirmed that what I had believed to be true for so many years was in fact correct... So it is my belief, that until black families and black communities understand that embracing their Ebonic "culture" and refusing to conform to the Americans culture, is the primary thing that's responsible for keeping them down and preventing them from success, nothing is ever going to change. Black families need to recognize this problem and correct it like Alan's family did, or their children and grand children's choices will be the same low paying jobs, welfare, drugs and crime, that they find themselves limited to today.
Grim17
