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Ken Sinclair's avatar

I'm a high school teacher and I can tell you that black teenagers who are eager to succeed do extremely well, often winning awards. However, those who are afraid to be labeled, "school boys," by other black students are the ones who purposely stop doing their work, eventually get shifted off to the alternative high school where they meet the drug dealers and then disappear into crime. It has nothing to do with race & everything to do with a mindset.

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Jim's avatar

Thank you as always for your well articulated thoughts. This topic is so complicated that it needs our best thinking. Unfortunately, for personal and political gain, it receives mostly our most shallow thinking (if it can even be called thinking) and shortest sound bites.

Although I doubt anyone will read and consider seriously what I have to say, in this one instance I’m going to share it anyway.

I’m an older white man who grew up in the south. As a child I witnessed the end of the most overt social racism. In my early years I saw a couple of restroom doors where “colored” had been painted over a few years earlier. The word was sometimes still visible through the thin coat. But I also knew and interacted with black adults. Black men and women tended to hold the more menial jobs in our schools and businesses, but they were there, and their jobs were important. They were kind folks by and large. Kids know authentic kindness and caring. Sure, I picked up but osmosis some racist attitudes, but they were always in stark tension with my face-to-face experiences with the elevator operator in the office building where my dad worked and the well loved janitor (Cecil) in my elementary school. Cecil was probably the most popular adult in the school.

The civil rights movement swept through the south during my junior high and early high school years. I know it must’ve been extraordinarily difficult for younger black men to accept Martin Luther King‘s non-violent tactics, but those tactics converted all of us over time. We saw redneck police officers beating well dressed peaceful marchers, and we couldn’t help but side with the latter.

As the decades marched by, the integration of the races became old hat. I’m sure it seemed a lot slower from the other side of the race divide, but white kids of my generation Very soon quit paying attention to race. We came to adore Black heroes in music, sports, acting, and especially comedy. All in the Family and Blazing Saddles showed us how silly it was to judge a man or a woman by her color. Of course I knew that these people were black, but I didn’t give a rat’s ass. People loved Muhammad Ali because he was the Greatest. The same was true of Tiger and MJ. Nobody cared whether they were black, white, or green.

Since finishing school in 1978, I have lived in Washington DC for three years and Atlanta Georgia for the rest. In Atlanta 52% of the population within the city limits is black. Not people of color. Black. We have had a black mayor since 1976, I believe. Over 1/3 of businesses here are owned by blacks. I had black law partners who could run circles around me, and were compensated accordingly. I would never have had it any other way. Most of black America (and certainly Black Atlanta) has arrived in the middle class as well as at the pinnacles of certain fields of endeavor, such as professional sports. Sure I joke that we need affirmative action in the NBA because there is systemic racism against white guys being exercised by billionaire white guys, but it’s a joke. People get good at what they work at. And black Americans have worked at sports, acting, music, far harder than whites have. They deserve every success when they do so. I fear, however, that too many young blacks pursue these long shot venues to the exclusion of other fields we are more people can succeed.

As a society, we are now down to the hard part! Few people seem to notice that there is a hard-core underclass of white citizens in Appalachia. Similarly, there is a hard-core underclass of mostly black citizens in some of our urban areas. Unfortunately, many of these people are not going to be helped by broad brush social programs. Many of them lack the family support and support of institutions, such as churches, that can be the most help. Disproportionate numbers of these kids look for belonging on the streets with gangs. Let’s stigmatize that lifestyle, rather than romanticize it. Disproportionate numbers of these unfortunate souls commit violent crime far beyond the representative slice of the population. Let’s stigmatize that too, rather than excuse it. Some of these people may do this for the thrill and macho image. others probably do it because they need the money and have few life skills. But crying racism, systemic, individual, or imaginary, will not help these people. In my very limited experience, these people are only reachable through very close and committed personal relationships with dedicated individuals who work in their communities.

I think about how hard it is to raise children. I have raised three and helped in raising two more. It is hard if you have taught kids good values from the time they were babies, read to them every night, and have choices about what schools might benefit them the most. I can’t imagine the teenage single mom Who herself has few skills trying to accomplish child rearing in the absence of an extended family structure, a stable work situation, and an institution such as a church with invested third parties.

Unfortunately, I fear that the government can only do so much and in many cases does exactly the wrong thing. These kids need to learn that although life is difficult, they can make good choices, work hard, and achieve a satisfying life. The last thing they need to be taught is that they are victims of everyone else in society and have no reason to try. Do they face racism? Sure. But they also face far worse.

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