Re: The Portrayal of Blacks in Popular Media

Aidan wrote:

It does take a village to raise a child, but if the village doesn't care about or embrace certain children, they might not have the opportunity to be raised quite as comfortably as others. Which village do you think is being "lazy"? Because I think that's where we're differing here.

One of the few things that Bill Cosby and Spike Lee have in common (that I can see) is their candor in addressing the mixed messages black youth often receive from the "village" voices. All "villages" are comprised of individuals and both Cosby and Lee have voiced their frustrations with those in the village that don't take their responsibilities seriously.

With Cosby, it's the "family" (certainly part of the village) whom he often sees as not pushing their kids to see the importance of education as part of their future.

Lee, on the other hand, often vents his frustration with the media and racial stereotyping that affects black youth and their attitudes. A few years ago, while addressing an audience on racial stereotyping in media, literature and art, he pointed out that when he was a child he and those in his neighborhood looked up to intelligent people (including athletes) as role-models. Now, says Lee, "You have to be ghetto. Ignorance is king. We [now] have young black kids that are failing class on purpose because of peer pressure.".

Neither Bill Cosby nor Spike Lee think that black youth are intellectually inferior to any other ethnic group, yet each have been painfully honest when addressing just what it is that contributes to their substandard academic achievements. Cosby thinks it's a lack of motivation by the parents (it distresses him to see parents buying their kids expensive sneakers instead of educational aids) and Spike Lee worries about the self-destructive messages those in black pop-culture (part of the village) are sending. He criticizes NBA stars like Allen Iverson by saying, "You can be one of the best players in the league, but unless you have that USDA ghetto stamp, you're not anything."

The only reason Asians surpass any group academically is to be found in their work ethics. They simply study more. They also don't have that overwhelming pressure (within the village) to conform to the image(according to Spike Lee) that "If you're intelligent, you're called a white guy or girl."

I think they're both on the right track.

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JW, Then the obvious question is "where does the work ethic come from?"

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c.i. - I don't know. I think, though, that as long as there are people out there that actually believe the myth that black people are innately incapable of achievement, we need to explore those ideas offered by people such as Bill Cosby and Spike Lee...and Thomas Sowell. They're part of the "village".

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JW, It would seem that the subject of motivation would be the right place to start in trying to figure out why some children fail in school.

Having come out from a very modest background (a single mother with four children), I'm not sure why my siblings were motivated (the work ethic) to do well in school.

It may sound funny, but I believe my work ethic started when I joined the US Air Force in my early twenties - having barely graduated from high school. I believe it had something to do with the treatment I received from the officers and enlisted men that started a pattern of self-worth and respect - then accomplishments. In the late fifties, I was promoted to E4 grade withing 18 months of my enlistment - not common even back then.

I think there's a message there that is important for children to learn early in their life. Mine was a bit late, but it's better late than never.

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ralpheb wrote:

kuvasz,
you made a point about saying immigrants could change their name to fit in with the dominant white population. I am second generation Italian-"American." When my parents married there was such hatered between Italians and Irish. My mother's parents didn't want her to marry that greasyWOP and my Father's parents didn't want him to marry that "Irish whore." There was more discrimination going on than you could possibly imagine. Being raised in the northeast in a coal mining community I saw first hand how far discrimination goes. Our towns are set up by ethnicity, and the neighborhoods are further broken down by religious preference. ie Irish catholics do not associate with Irish Protestants.
From what I see you are from Georgia. The south does not have that type of discrimination. In the south it is a black/white issue or a north/south issue. In the north there is no north/south issue. You will find some black/white issues but mostly it is an Irish/Italian/Polish/German/fill in what ever nationality you want issue. This was how the mine owners controled the people who worked for them. Changing your name did not change your ethnic features.
That was Pa history 100.5. We didn't even get to the 101 level yet.

Since I was born and raised in the Little Italy section of South Philly I can tell you that there were numerous Italians who dropped off the vowel at the end of their name or changed it completely to assimilate in the main culture. Same for the poles, and Jews who dropped their suffixes-steins, and -bergs. Your reference to a static population in a small town is not really germane since the assimilation of a white ethnic minority into the main white culture can easily come about by moving from one community to another where no one knows what your background was.

As to "ethnic features": there is a greater variation of physical features within a single ethnic group than between different ones. All Jews do not have hook noses, all Italians are not swarthy, and all Irish do not have red hair and freckles.

I dare say that 100 years ago, and even 50 years ago, one hailing from Hazleton, Pa who changed his name from Mancini to Johnson when moving to Wilkes-Barre, Pa allowed for greater assimilation into the main culture than a black man named Johnson hailing from Mississippi who kept his last name when he moved to Chicago.

And if you think there isn't ethnic discrimination in the south you are misinformed. I quit a $100K plus job several years ago when my ignorant Alabama-raised red neck boss called me a dago in public. I walked right into the president of the company's office and told him what his vice president had said to me and if I ever heard something like that again from the man I would to beat the shitt out of both of them with a tire iron, then I quit on the spot. A week or so before, that same company refused to let me hire two PhD chemists to work for me because they were black. I was told that they did not want blacks in the front offices or labs.

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kuvasz, I think you already know this, but my nephew married a Italian woman. Their name used to be Battistoni, but changed it during the war to Battistone.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

JW, Then the obvious question is "where does the work ethic come from?"

Some interesting comments previous to, and around, this question.

I have no idea, but this issue is facsinating to me. Every thesis I attempt is wrecked by the enslavement by the Jews and their astronomical successes.

I thought it may center on enslavement by another race in another land (and the hopelessness that may engender)--but the Jews excel everywhere they go.

Anybody have any ideas?

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cicerone imposter wrote:

JW, It would seem that the subject of motivation would be the right place to start in trying to figure out why some children fail in school.

Having come out from a very modest background (a single mother with four children), I'm not sure why my siblings were motivated (the work ethic) to do well in school.

It may sound funny, but I believe my work ethic started when I joined the US Air Force in my early twenties - having barely graduated from high school. I believe it had something to do with the treatment I received from the officers and enlisted men that started a pattern of self-worth and respect - then accomplishments. In the late fifties, I was promoted to E4 grade withing 18 months of my enlistment - not common even back then.

I think there's a message there that is important for children to learn early in their life. Mine was a bit late, but it's better late than never.

Motivation is only part of the equation, though. Put yourself in the shoes of a teacher faced with trying to teach youngsters who have decided it's "uncool to be smart". If even a fraction of the best and brightest of black youth succumb to the pressure to conform to this image and are failing out of fear of being ridiculed, the impact is stunning. No amount of motivation or pouring resources into education is going to produce results as long as some in the "village" are sending out messages that being intelligent isn't "keeping it real". That needs to be turned around as soon as possible and can probably only be accomplished by people speaking out ... not only Spike Lee and Bill Cosby, but all leaders in the black community.

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JW, I agree that peer group pressures are tremendous. That's the reason why I believe in early intervention like preschool and after class activties sponsored by the community.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

JW, I agree that peer group pressures are tremendous. That's the reason why I believe in early intervention like preschool and after class activties sponsored by the community.

Except that it's usually a bit later (pre-teen and teenage years) when kids start looking to emulate their role-models...that crucial time when they're most vulnerable to conforming to the overwhelming peer pressure of which Lee speaks.

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I still believe early intervention is the key. By the time they are teenagers, it's too late.

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I am glad you believe that, CI, but do you have evidence to show that it is true?

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Where does the work ethic come from?

Dr. Thomas Sowell gives a stunning answer to this question throughout his classic-"Race and Culture". Part of his thesis is included in the following:

quote:

"Environment cannot be confined to immediate surroundings, whether home, school or neighborhood. Immigrant youngsters from various racial and cultural backgrounds, living in the same American neighborhoods and sitting side by side in the same schools, have had group IQ differences as great as those between residentially and educationally segregated blacks and whites in the Southern United States. To salvage the environmental theory of IQ differences would require a MUCH BROADER CONCEPTION OF ENVRIONMENT, INCLUDING CULTURAL ORIENTATIONS AND VALUES GOING FAR BACK INTO HISTORY.

This broader conception of enviroment, reaching well beyond immediate circumstances, offers correspondingly less hope of substantial change by social engineering, SUCH AS REMEDIAL PROGRAMS OR THE RACIAL INTEGRATION OF SCHOOLS,"

END OF QUOTE

Dr. Sowell shows throughout his book that the culture that is found in five and ten generations past is not expunged entirely but lives on in many groups as a substratum.

Ernest VanDenHaag posits an interesting theory in his book, The Jewish Mystique, which may show how the distant past, indeed, influences the present.

VanDenHaag comments

Among the Jews, literally for millenia, the brightest became Rabbis. The Rabbis had the chance to marry the "best"(healthiest?) woman in the shetl. Large families were encouraged.

Sowell's comment about CULTURAL ORIENTATIONS AND VALUES G0ING FAR BACK INTO HISTORY MAY WELL BE OPERATIVE IN Van Den Haag's example.

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Sounds more like mystic than science.

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There were many false messiahs who led many Jews to even more misery after Bar Kochbar.

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Mystical?

The book received great reviews. I do not remember any that classed it as mystical but I will quote one of the reviewers-

Myron Weiner- Professor of Political Science- Massachusetts Institute of Technology

quote

"Alongside Gary Becker's and Theodore Schultz's conception of human capital, we should add Thomas Sowell's NOTION OF CULTURAL CAPITAL. IN AN IMPRESSIVE USE OF MATERIALS DRAWN FROM AROUND THE WORLD, SOWELL DESCRIBES THE ENORMOUS IMPACT OF CULTURAL CAPITAL IN EMPLOYMENT, EDUCATION, MIGRATION AND POLITICS. One finishes reading this book awed with Sowell's capacity to bring together so much material in such a readable fashion."

Mystical????

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Mystical, yes. Mr Sowell seems to paint with a broad brush without providing the back ground details. I question such rhetoric whether it comes from PhDs or teenagers.

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Dr. Sowell does a great job of backing up his theories with evidence. Checkout his latest book: Black Rednecks & White Liberals... lots of good stuff in there.

Re: The Portrayal of Blacks in Popular Media

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