so I was reading Angry Black Lady, as I do nearly every day, when I saw her post on this article. She was livid, and I am too. dig this:
I am not a poor black kid. I am a middle aged white guy who comes from a middle class white background. So life was easier for me. But that doesn’t mean that the prospects are impossible for those kids from the inner city. It doesn’t mean that there are no opportunities for them. Or that the 1% control the world and the rest of us have to fight over the scraps left behind. I don’t believe that. I believe that everyone in this country has a chance to succeed. Still. In 2011. Even a poor black kid in West Philadelphia.
It takes brains. It takes hard work. It takes a little luck. And a little help from others. It takes the ability and the know-how to use the resources that are available. Like technology. As a person who sells and has worked with technology all my life I also know this.
If I was a poor black kid I would first and most importantly work to make sure I got the best grades possible. I would make it my #1 priority to be able to read sufficiently. I wouldn’t care if I was a student at the worst public middle school in the worst inner city. Even the worst have their best. And the very best students, even at the worst schools, have more opportunities. Getting good grades is the key to having more options. With good grades you can choose different, better paths. If you do poorly in school, particularly in a lousy school, you’re severely limiting the limited opportunities you have.
link
yeah, real easy to say, Gene. maybe if you were a poor black kid you'd have long ago been killed by gunfire (either by other young blacks or by the cops.) maybe you'd be in jail (either by something you'd actually done or by shoddy police work.)
See, like ABL, I WASN'T a "poor Black kid" I was just a Black kid. (fun fact: me and ABL are obviously from the same area in Philly based on what she reveals in her post.) if you had to socially stratify me I'd have been at turns middle class and upper middle class, depending on the year and how much my mom was earning. like ABL, my parents were seriously involved in my education. UNLIKE her, I didn't take education very seriously until I was in college. my average grades were leavened by my extremely high test scores.
here's my point: I don't even get to say "if I'd been poor then I'd have..." because there's literally no way to know what the hell I would have become! what if my mom hadn't fostered a love of reading? what if I didn't know my dad at all? what if nobody in my family cared whether I graduated high school much less college? what if I'd had to support my household in my teens?
if even one of those things were the case, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be commenting on this site while sitting at my computer in a family business.
I wish Gene Marks realized how stupid the thrust of his article was. Either way I DO realize it. That a white middle class person has the nerve to thought experiment out what he'd do as a poor black kid pisses me off to no end. as ABL succinctly put it at the top of her post: "Dude, Naw."