Fear of a Black President

When I say nothing is holding is holding black people back, I mean just that.

There is nothing legally that says as a black person you can not ___fill in the blank___

A fatherless family ( for an example) does not stop people from bettering themselves.
You dont have to have a father to go to public school and do your homework, practice your lessons , and other wise do what is required of you.

You dont have to have a father to apply for college and thanks to laws and ruleslike affirmative action, colleges have to ( to a certain extent) allow minorities in . Having a father does not stop people from attempting this.

There are even a certain amount of race specific grants, loans and scholarships out there that someone can apply for...again.. dont require a father to do that.

There is nothing legally stopping a black person from bettering themselves in this society.
Social rules and behaviors can be changed if the person wants to change them. But that is only something you can change for you and in your own world.

But, I wont split hairs about this.
This is my opinion and as I said before based on my experiences alone and not based on fact.

Mame has said exactly what I have been trying to say , but in a much shorter posts and much more to the point

I lost my father when I was two years old.

CI, you're a prime example of what shewolf's talking about. Look at what you've done with your life.

We didn't have a dad, either, if it's any consolation. We were and are a very matriarchical family.

We can start a NO DAD club.

Do you think your life was less than?

eh. I mostly agree with shewolf. People do it, this is true. They rise above their circumstances. But, there is a certain amount of knowledge necessary to get out of the hole, or a means of finding the knowledge you need. It starts young. So, while a person can get themselves out, they need some sort of support. That support may be a parent or two, or maybe an older sibling. It could be a spiritual leader, or neighbor...... the seed needs to be there, the seed that tells a person to study hard, to stay away from thugs, to look outside the box. I doubt very many self-propelled people had that seed without a gardener there to plant and water it.

Who, me? No, not at all. It was just a fact of life. Could have been worse - he could have been an abuser of some type. We are 8 women in my family and everyone is very strong. And close. So, no, no loss.

I met him years later and I didn't think much of him. He may be bright but he's not warm, loving, caring, supportive - all the things I care about. So, meh, feh, bleh.

I disagree with this, littlek... no offense. But I think individuals can and do it on their own. It's just uncommon, perhaps, rather than the norm. But it is possible.

Actually, I came back in here to ask shewolf the same question she asked...do you feel your life was less than?

actually she has a point. And I agree.

If there is no one around to show you differently, how would you know to BE different?

If you are born in a family that.. does not smoke for example.. odds are , you will not smoke.

So take that same idea and apply it to poor families no matter the race.
If no one is there to show you it is possible to BE something other then poor, your chances of being what you are raised in is extremely high.

Mame, certainly there are some who have done it. So?

As you say, they are the exception. Some people are self-seeders...

Eh, there are role models all around you.

You also may have such a dislike/distaste for your current environment that that could be your incentive.

Not saying it's the way it always happens, but it does.

Anyway, we're pretty much on the same page about this, overall.

So, do you feel your life was less than not having a dad?

that is a loaded question to me.

Would I have been a different person with a dad?
Yes. I may have been an alcoholic on a steady up hill battle.

My father is still alive my family just learned not too long ago.
Such an alcoholic (still at approx 65) that he can almost no longer walk.

I can not imagine what my life would have been WITH him.

I can say that if he were around there would have been a few things that would not have happened to me, but it would be trading one bad thing for another ya know..

But not having him around.. did not stop me.
I still made my choices and still did the things I picked to do.

I'd have to say Mame, that your comprehension of the significance of environment is pretty damned shallow. "Role models," apart from being genuinely scared in poor neighborhoods, don't supply certain aspects of middle class life which are ingrained, and without which, one constantly advertises their essential difference. How you speak the language, how unconsciously you would use the proper utensils in the proper manner at the dinner table, how you respond to others in your immediate environment, how you wear your clothes and which clothing you choose to wear, your use of and response to literary and cinematic allusions--these are all part and parcel of being a native member of the dominant culture, and they are all things which the children of the middle class absorb without thought. They are also all things which poor children are very unlikely to absorb, consciously or otherwise, and things which mark them out as the other in any situation in which they encounter the middle class.

When i speak to any native speaker of English in North America, i immediately identify myself as a child of the middle class, without making any effort to do so. The children of the poor would have to make an extraordinary effort over the course of years not to immediately identify themselves as the children of poverty.

What makes you think one would aspire to be middle-class, Setanta? That is certainly not my desire.

But thanks for your pithy assessment.

It is not a matter of aspiring to be middle class, Mame, and the "pissy" response is as appreciated as was the pithy assessment.

Escaping poverty is more than a matter of having a "role model," and i consider your statement to have been shallow and ill-considered. One is "branded" by the environment in which one has been raised, and having a role model won't overcome that. Being ordinarily educated won't overcome that.

Your snotty and shallow comment about whether or not one aspires to be a member of the middle class sounds very much to as though you are denying your own antecedents, and are making comments about poverty while remaining ignorant of how poor people live, and the barriers they face in overcoming and escaping their poverty.

I attended a high school in the midwest where most everyone was middle class or below. It was about 50/50 split black and white. If there ever was a fight or riot, it was black on black or white on white... usually over a girl. (That seems universal, no?)

Most of the kids went on to be middle class or below whether black or white. There didn't seem to be the attitude or mindset of "the white man is holding me down" that I have adjusted to in the south.

Some in the south would say the blacks in the midwest were "Tomming."

I say "Hey, they made a decent life for themselves and their families despite being a minority."

Environment may play a role, but I don't find it an acceptable excuse. Here in the south, that seems to be what it is.

Coming home from doing an all night party for recent high school grads in one of the worst racially divisive towns in North Carolina, Bear said "Half or two thirds of those kids are going to prison."

That broke my heart. I had just spent 12 hours throwing them a party to celebrate their graduation, and while some were having sex on the slide, giving hand jobs behind the basketball goal, or aggrivating the police by playing with the light dimmers, most were well behaved (or at least no worse behaved than at any other graduation night we had done.) So, maybe 1000 of the 3000 were going to prison? 2000 of the 3000?

It was 8 o'clock in the morning and i had been up since 8 o'clock the morning before. Still, sleep deprived or not, I wanted to weep.

And, I really want Bear to be wrong.

Please don't even deign to talk about me or my life; you have absolutely no idea where I've been or what I've lived through. You can take your negative attitude elsewhere. I am up for all kinds of discussions with all kinds of people, but not with those who pre-judge.

edit: and my comments were not said in a snotty tone. It's merely where I'm coming from. I don't aspire to be middle-class or any other label.

I gotta agree with Squinney a bit here. I am Kansas raised, and USA traveled, but the Southeast is still lagging WAY behind in attitudes, and educational equality.

RH

I invite you to look in on an old thread of mine. If you want to understand the nature of poverty.

http://www.able2know.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=86511&start=30&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

Are you referring to the formal educational system?

This may not be a popular statement, but it is for me, absolutely true....

The formal education system has done almost nothing to "get me out of the hole" I was in.

Well, except that at one point in life they provided me with a piece of paper, a college degree, that made other people think I was worthy of getting a job with them.

Yes, I'm white, and I did not have some "hole" of abject poverty to crawl out of "neither does every black person.

However, it was assumed that I had acquired some degree of "available knowledge" that would enable me to, well, I'm not really sure what other people thought this available knowledge was supposed to enable me to do.

I was a total drunk during my college days, the last year and a half especially was an absolute joke. However, I got all A's and B's because I just did what I was required to do, and was rewarded with a piece of paper.

Knowledge? I grew up pre-internet days, but I knew where the library was. I knew how to go up to someone doing something I was interested in, and ask questions. I didn't know this because I was white. I knew it because every person know where a library is, or know someone who knows how to do something cool.

In school, I had to pay a lot of money for books to read, that were, IMO mostly mediocre. I was "talked to" by people teaching, who even if they were excited by what they did, were not people I particularly wasn't to ask questions of, because they didn't have what I wanted.

When this new fangled computer age came around, for reasons I won't go into, I simply did not "get it" for a while. Fact is, no one was exhibiting to me anything I either wanted to do on one of these things, or, if I asked, would get explanations that didn't answer questions, or instruction that was wither condescending or done so quickly or badly it was worthless.

Finally, when I couldn't take it any longer, after someone basically let me know I had to be pretty dense to not just "get it" I went down to the B&N and bought a "excel for dummies" book, asked someone where I was working if I could use a computer during lunch or after hours, or fooled around on a friends, and by God above, I learned it. Armed with that knowledge, I went on an adventure of touching every button, trying every commend and generally knowing there wasn't anything I couldn't learn about this thing.

That excel for dummies sits on a bookshelf in my office, gathering dust. Over the years, I have loaned it to more than a dozen people, giving them the available knowledge, and telling them other resources to get them started. Of these people all of whom had access to learning, i.e. a computer, I think only 1 paid any attention, preferring not to crawl out of their hole. One of these people, to this day, cannot perform the simplest function, and when asked about her skills, will say "I need to take some computer classes" This person has had the company pay for 3 or 4 series of glasses, teaching things she could have read herself, or had been shown to her by me multiple times.

If you want the knowledge on any subject, it is available in a big building where all knowledge is free, or at the click of an index finger.

What? Someone can't crawl out their hole because they're black? They can't ask an older relative about something they see that person doing? Are they living in such extreme poverty 24 hours a day that an hour can't be found here or there to go to the library?

Sorry to all teachers out there, but school is hardly the only place knowledge can be obtained. The door to knowledge opens just as easily to all people. It might be a longer road for some, but anyone can get on it.

What I do for a living an make good money at? Nothing I was taught in school?

The odd/quirky things I love to do, that have come in handle only about a million times in my life? Not offered on any curriculum.

Sure there are specialized fields, drs. lawyers, etc...but these fields and all others, are avaiable to all, if they want it.

Here's the deal....you're a young black girl that want to make something of herself, and want to know how to work in X.
How to accomplish....keep men's penises out of your vagina, so you don't have a baby that will get in the way when you're far too young to have one. Take a bus or walk to the library during some of the time you would have been diapering/feeding, walk around until something catches your eye, makes no difference what, and sit down and crack it open.

Knowledge surrounds us, but have to actually shut our eyes and our ears for it not to creep in.