Every culture has good points and bad points. Black culture is no different.

We can debate good points and bad points, but pointing out bad ones and looking for ways to fix them is not being racist.

But no, to you guys to point these things out is to be tired old outsider race traitor and we should just blame the white man for oppression and do nothing to fix our own back yard. Come on. Get real.

There’s a difference between losing popularity and being seen as a race traitor.

Fryer’s research also talks about the environment in black circles where learning is looked down upon.

He also found them not nearly as prevalent as conventional rhetoric would have it. In fact, he undermined Ogbu’s research.

Never argue with people who can read, Oliver…especially when you start with a lie. We will catch it.

By golly, I think we might be getting somewhere! We’ve moved from the falsely labeled “black American culture” to the more narrowed black circles where learning is looked down on.

Okay, well maybe not so much progress:

Don’t you think there’s something wrong that the idols are rappers and basketball players? It’s very wrong. It’s very sick.

What in the world is wrong with you? Since there have been stars - entertainment, sports, movie, what have you - there have been kids, teens and even adults idolizing them, and wanting to be them, when they grow up. How many have ever done that? How many have even held on to that after they reach a certain maturity? Are they all “wrong” and “sick”, or just the little black children who idolize the figures most familiar to them? What is more wrong and sick about wanting to be Jay Z than wanting to be Britney Spears?

Kids also often want to keep horses and tigers in their back yards - is this an acceptable fantasy or is it too “sick and wrong”?

I’ve spent too much time on this as it is, so I’m sure no one will miss me if I bow out here and don’t bother with it anymore. You don’t want to identify any problems, otherwise you’d stop trying to take the easy way out and concentrate on doing just that hard work… identifying what the issues are instead of trying to take a blanket and cover them all under “black problems” and “sick” and “wrong” children - you just want them to GO AWAY so that they won’t reflect on you, I suspect.

This nonsense is way too LaShawn Barber for me.

It’s the minority of kids that are succeeding. I want it to be a majority, and for that somehow I’m you guy’s enemy for daring to point out a problem. Come on.

The phenomena of “acting white” doesn’t exist to you guys,

Roland Fryer, star economist at Harvard, did an extensive analysis of “acting white.” One most interesting finding was that in the elite private schools the white kids lost popularity as their grades got above a C. Is that what you’re talking about?

black kids aren’t preocuppied with being rappers and basketball players

They aspire after the most obvious examples of success in American terms.

And if you want to know the truth, it makes no sense for all of us to aspire to leadership. There’s only so many spots at the top of the pyramid.

every time someone points out these issues, you accuse them of engaging in stereotype or worse.

Only you, Oliver. Because you’re clumsy and wrong about it, accuse and never actually deal with the response, and just repeat rhetoric that everyone expects to hear.

I can’t quite recall where I said that - no doubt you’ll point it out to me, though.

My mother is visually ‘white’. And, probably, some would say culturally ‘white’, although she is black. My father is Nigerian (and returned there after my parents divorced when I was a baby). In my early years we lived in a primarily black and Mexican neighborhood but there was more classical music in my house than motown (there was that too, though, and we kids never missed Famous on um… American Bandstand, I think it was). I was reading and doing math before I ever started school, top of my classes, skipped a grade (which awful thing they used to do to children, at least in my area, before they started with the advanced classes thing… I hope they’ve discontinued that practice, for the most part), have always been quiet, soft spoken and bookish. We moved around a lot when I was young, so I was “the new kid” fairly often, in segregated (by neighborhood, if not by law) schools, as well as mixed ones and primarily white ones.

Being new is difficult enough, add to the above being light skinned, with a mother who looks white, speaking with good US approved diction - sounding “white” enough that it’s only after I arrive at a job interview in person that I discover that the “job has been filled” in the 5 or 10 minutes it took me to end the confirming conversation with someone excited by my resume and appear for the interview - (and, unlike many black folks, not speaking one way with black people and another with white, as I’d only learned one way of speaking - mom made sure of that), making friends of people of all cultures and colors, often being favored by teachers, and you know… I’d say I know just a little bit about this “acting white” stuff, at least at that point in time, as it’s something I went through every time I started a new school.

Here is what I found (and still find today) - at base, (most) black kids didn’t really care what my grades were, how I spoke, who my friends were, what music I listened to, and so on, as long as I didn’t separate myself out (”I’m not like you”), or allow teachers (”You’re not like them”) or even the kids themselves (”You’re not like us”) to separate me out from the herd, so to speak, then things were mostly fine.

Have any of you been a black kid recently?

I know some. In mixed schools, high achievers (and not so high achievers), family members and no, various economic circumstances… you want stories? Probably not… they don’t seem to have a clue about being a “black American problem”, especially as they seem to have the apparently astonishing ability to get good grades, plan for a future AND dream of bling.

gatamala - I’ve been “the only one” in many places, but thankfully not in middle school, which is tough enough as it is. There is an article in I think the NY Times today, about how kids often basically just fall apart in those years.

@Nanette
“because I was wondering if I was the only one whose experience with the “acting white” was that it was not something that particularly meant getting good grades, or getting a good education and so on, but was more applied to “acting like you are not one of us”, which is something (sometimes) entirely different.”

In my experience, it was a combination of: courses (advanced-I was often the only one), class participation, grades, DICTION, neighborhood, class, clothing…I must note that I experienced this in middle school (a flawed system in and of itself) and from FEMALES (attn from guys is at play).

Have any of you been a black kid recently? I graduated from high school 13 years ago this June, and the problem was bad. Yes, it varies based on region and an area with a larger black middle class like Maryland is surely better in dealing with the problem than Southern Florida. But I don’t understand why you guys just don’t want to admit that there’s a problem?

Fixing an educational system only goes so far when a kid goes home and his family doesn’t care about academics versus surface issues. And then when people point out this disparity, they’re supposedly a hater engaging in stereotype and the problem festers on.

And certainly not specific to black culture, or to American culture, for that matter. Other cultures may not use that exact term (especially not poor white cultures) but whatever the term used, it effectively means the same thing… acting as if you are better, not one of us, you don’t want to know us, embarrassed to be considered part of our culture, family, town etc, etc.

A PBS special on Appalachia (sp?) showed their term was “getting beyond your raising.”

We continue to have a value system - specific to black American culture - that tells kids that bling is the highest value, and that to be into academics is to be negative and “acting white”. (emphasis added)

Well! At least that’s better than saying liking watermelon and fried chicken - although not much better, as I believe it all comes from the same source. Right wing tropes that, while they may have some basis in reality, among some sets of kids and adults (who, by the way, are not all black) are being used, by you, as being indicative of all “black American culture”.

The reason you can’t give real specifics, in my view, is because once you actually attempt to do so you’ll necessarily have to come to the realization that there is no such thing as a standard “black American culture”. Black Americans, and various cultural enclaves, beliefs, traditions, etc, are quite varied.

In your previous post on this, you mentioned the lack of interest in learning and academic excellence among the black kids in high school, and then almost immediately qualified it with something like “well, not at the one in Maryland, but look at the ones in DC!” (all this being lots of paraphrasing, no direct quotes.) Reminds me of those folks who sometimes will go on and on about how black people are this, and black people are that, and black people never do this or think this other thing… and then they realize that you, black person, are standing there in front of them, obviously not any of the things they’ve been moaning on about… and they say “Oh! Well I didn’t mean you [you're one of the good ones]“.

Now, about the specifics you did mention:

black American culture - that tells kids that bling is the highest value

Sadly, I must admit (and I hope no one takes away my member of black American culture card because of it), I still have an imperfect understanding of what, exactly, bling is. I first heard the term when my mother was watching The View a while back, and Lisa Ling (who I thought was Chinese, but who I now realize must be black) was going on and on about her and others “bling”, showing this picture and that picture of people of all sorts… the only thing they all had in common was jewelry, so I came to the conclusion that bling was jewelry. But it seems that it’s also money? But what makes it bling, as opposed to money or jewelry or ostentation, besides the word choice? Is bling specifically from unearned income, or something? Surely, whatever it is, it can’t be from earned income, as ostentatious display of the fruits of that is The American Way. Are beemers bling?

that to be into academics is to be negative and “acting white

I’m glad P6 teased this out a bit up above, because I was wondering if I was the only one whose experience with the “acting white” was that it was not something that particularly meant getting good grades, or getting a good education and so on, but was more applied to “acting like you are not one of us“, which is something (sometimes) entirely different. And certainly not specific to black culture, or to American culture, for that matter. Other cultures may not use that exact term (especially not poor white cultures) but whatever the term used, it effectively means the same thing… acting as if you are better, not one of us, you don’t want to know us, embarrassed to be considered part of our culture, family, town etc, etc.

This is not to say that anti-intellectualism does not exist among some, especially younger, black people by the way. Or that unrealistic expectations for the future (becoming an entertainment mogul or rap star or sports figure, without hard work, so on) do not exist. Or may of the other problems plaguing society… I’m just trying to get to the details of what is specific to “black American culture” that can be worked on by dealing with that exclusively, as opposed to overall societal issues.

By the way, in that Florida high school you mention from time to time… how many of the black American kids graduated with your class? And where are they now?

P6, every time I’ve noted this issue, you link to stats on the black middle class as if to say because the black middle exists there isn’t any problem to address.

Make that the last lie, Oliver. You’re already accused me ot that. I’ve already asked where you say me say that.

I don’t do “as if.”

P6, your argument is that some black people in America are succeeding, so these problems don’t exist.

I never made such an argument.

My argument is that the part you pick out and call a Black problem are actually parts of a larger issue, and you can’t address “the Black problem” independently.

Find anywhere on the net I’ve EVER made the argument you claim I have. Show me what I’ve written.

Do not lie about my statements. It’s in print both here and on the previous thread that you refuse to link.

You should stop talking about “the internal problem” because there’s a HUGE amount of discussion about it. You just have to be up on what the really progressive Black folks are talking about.

Or better, answer Nannette’s question. Give us examples that meet your own definition of “Black culture.”

And all this education discussion…do you think there’s a chance in hell of any program specific to Black folks being approved? Not if you’ve been paying any attention at all. So you MUST approach it in unitary fashion. Any other approach is guaranteed to fail for political reason (hell with morality, eh?) and so is an immense waste of time.

More, you’ve already admitted the problems are universal but affect Black people more severely. So you work on Black folks…and the society keeps generating the same crap issues…and YOU blame Black folks for its reappearance. Again, the approach MUST be universal or it WILL fail.

When you pull these pieces together and call it “The Black Problem” you’re like a kid who finished a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle and threw away the extra pieces.

But I think there ARE people writing about it, it’s called the failure of the American Family. It’s not simpy a Black problem (yes, caps intended).

I say again, fixing schools is NOT going to make parents raise their children responsibly. It’s not even going to come close to comphensating for it either.

I know that. I can read. You are saying that if someone complains about a culture than values material goods over an education, that means they want socialism. Again, what the hell is wrong with you?

“You’re getting that “When Frank makes a remark, there must be something wrong with it”"

That’s because when Frank makes a remark, there is usualy something wrong with it.

The problem is it isn’t just an education problem. There are others who have it much worse than black American kids do, but succeed more because they have a culture that doesn’t raise the superficial higher than it should be. We continue to have a value system - specific to black American culture - that tells kids that bling is the highest value, and that to be into academics is to be negative and “acting white”.

Like I’ve noted various times, there are thousands of positive aspects to black culture (the high value placed on family, for one) but these other issues cloud them and people are not willing to address them. Those of us who do bring them up are regularly derided as either race traitors, outsiders, or rich folks who don’t “understand” the plight of the poor as if it’s an excuse.

I’m speaking from my personal experience on this. I certainly didn’t grow up rich, and I’m not rich. I’m a black American, but I didn’t grow up in a traditional black American household.

I think there are tons of external issues and pressures on black people, and want those fixed as well, but they could all be taken away tomorrow and the internal problems would still be there because people won’t acknowledge them and lash out at people who dare to point them out.

Imagine if someone is an alcoholic, and the response is that beer companies should quit making and marketing alcohol without addressing why it is the addict craves alcohol in the first place?

That’s not where the thread started. It’s the thread that maybe should have been the topic in the first place.

Now, if we saying the social process, education, is the way to address “The Black Problem,” is the problem Black people or the education process?

Relativity of perception, right?

No, skip that…just tell me where you hallucinated my saying there’s no problem because some Black people succeed.

Wow, now you have problems deciphering language? “Them” was referring to the problems (”I’m going to continue to talk about them”

No, it could have easily been either.

Meanwhile, tell me where I said what you accused me of saying or admit to the error.