> As far as the 'Caribbean education' thread goes, as I
>said earlier, it was just an idea. I wasn't offering it as
>some kind of cure-all panacea for our problems in the U.S.
>Bascially, it just seems to me that it would be an idea that
>might interest some sociologist somewhere to the point that
>they would seek funding in order to do a study on the
>differences in the groups' respective approaches to the US
>educational system.
If this kind of research was done, the results might
>provide some interesting insights that could be applied more
>broady. That is really all I was saying--it's not a major
>part of my thinking on this issue. It just strikes me as an
>interesting phenomenon, and I would like more details on how
>it works than just saying "Well, they succeed because their
>culture is different--they're not Americans."

There's been some work done on it. Mary C. Waters has done some identity development work on Carribean American teens, which does incorporate some of the academic identity things we have beeen discussing. If I recall correctly (haven't looked at that study in a while) she speaks to parental work ethic and expectations, discipline, etc. There is also a degree of self-segregaation from american blacks as well. These are all common for involuntary minorities who come to the US for economic gain.
To that end, I don't know how much more research needs to be done, since we pretty much get the gist of the cultural differences already. I think dialogue is now in order, recognizing each other and sharing ideas to redefine black america for the modern era.

One thing I didn't say last time was that I do think an exchange program is a great idea. I think that would go a long way for a lot of our younger brothers and sisters, so that they can have a more comprehensive understanding of the black experience and look beyond 106 and Park.

> As far as the discussion of the whole
>oppositional/defiant issue amongst our people, I can
>definitely acknowledge the validity of your point of view,
>given that you are down in the trenches on this. I have
>personally seen (and to some extent have dealt with) a
>goodly amount of behavior that I can only describe as
>disrespectful to the point where it becomes almost absurd.
>The same goes for the weird, ambivalent attitudes towards
>education and learning. If you say that this is not a major
>issue in your judgement, I'm glad to hear it.

I beleive I said that the more radical defiance that you and others deescribe is not the norm, and a more nuanced oppositional culture exists. Ambivilance is certainly a part of that. Let me give an example:

I had a young black male student who was pretty much a D student across the board (I had him for 11th grade English). When he failed a reading quiz one time I met with him to question him on his dedication to his work. I asked him if he wanted to go to college, and he said yes. I asked him where, and he said Duke! Clearly, this student had no sense of what he had to do to really gain entrance to Duke; he did even know that he was already out of the running, at least in the immediate future. Was he ambivilant? Well, school wasn't as much of a priority for him as was work or play, but he also clearly lacked much guidance in academic matters. I garantee that had he been at an elite private institution he would have been on pace to attend, at least, a state school. Thus, I think the ambivilance that I've seen is fairly common, but is symptomatic of poor guidance in the educational sphere. Educational achievement is just not culturally relevant to many youth, but I distiguish this from outright resistance to educational achievement.

Here we see where actual research needs to be done. What are the mechanics of oppositional culture? What techniques can educators use to combat that, even for students whose parents are not helping, to put it mildly? This type of research can help us develop adequate strategies to address the cultural issues that Cosby described, at least as they pertain to education.

But also, I would be careful not to say that black youth are ambivilent towards learning, in general. They certainly are interested in identifying and retaining the information they feel is relevant to their lives, but, in generalities, it may not be the learning we want them to do.

> However, I continue to think that these issues have
>cultural/historical roots that are specific to us, above and
>beyond any general American trends--I've just seen way too
>much of it, from too many different types of black folks, to
>believe otherwise.

I agree, don't think I refuted that.

> What I will say, however, is that I think that there
>definitely is a problem in terms of black people
>prioritizing educational issues as one of the top two or
>three issues that we need to deal with in the *political*
>arena. While there are certainly black people who are
>fighting this battle in most of our major cities, I don't
>think that it comes close to being a top-priority political
>issue for us as a group.

Certainly should be.

> Here's where things get sticky. You have made the
>point that we don't have the kind of leadership necessary to
>address many of the complexities of our current situation.
>This is true. However, the *reasons* for this are complex,
>as I have alluded to in my post #139. The black
>'leadership' in this country, is, to a large degree, 'owned'
>and controlled by white elites, be they liberal or
>conservative. I don't believe that we will see any of these
>'black leaders' mounting a truly agressive campaign to
>advocate for more funding for the schools, for example,
>because their white sponsors don't really want them to do
>this.

I think you know a lot more about political infrastructures than me, but in this week of the DNC and criticism of the lack of federal funding behind the No Child Left behind Act, there are certainly people screaming for more aid on the left side of the isle. Wasn't that Bebe Winan with a "help is on the way" sign (LOL)? Anyway, I see your point in the activist realm. Them dudes still got the tag hangin' off there latte's.

> All that these sponsors really want these 'leaders' to
>do is come out of the woodwork during an election year and
>rouse up the Negroes to vote for the Democrats--you know,
>get up and deliver a speech that gets the crowd all hot and
>bothered at the Democratic National Convention, participate
>in the 'hip-hop' political convention, etc.. All of this
>stuff is just designed to get black people to think that
>their concerns are really going to be addressed. However,
>this is just a ruse--they just want your vote in the
>election year, and they will go right back to ignoring you
>as soon as it is over.

Well, I don't know. A lot of the dems actually want more money for schools, social programs, etc. Not that this is the ultimate solution, of course.

> It is important to realize that a militant political
>campaign to critique the school system in this country
>specifically as it relates to blacks is going to run into
>problems immediately, because you are going to have to get
>into a criticism of the *systemic* problems in
>education--and that means that your argument is going to be
>perceived as coming from a 'blame whitey' position. It will
>be seen that way even if it is not explicitly stated as
>such.

Yeah, whatever happened to the good ol' activist, huh? The guy or gal that would stick it to the man and say what needed to be said to bring attention to the issue! I do think that a fine line can be drawn here and the race issue can be avoided if you make that some of those arguements along class lines, as John Edwards seems to be trying to do.

> It has been said that the 'blame whitey' trip is not
>really that prevalent amongst blacks, but people need to
>understand that when we start talking about the
>systemic/structural component as being *the* key to
>understanding these issues, we are seen as implicitly
>blaming our problems on 'the white man'--because ultimately
>that is who controls and maintains the system. The problem
>with this is that most white people in 2004 are not really
>trying to hear that--many of them believe that we are our
>*own* worst enemy, and that 'the system' is ultimately not
>to blame for our condition.

I agree. Especially when you can point to the success of foreign born blacks.

> The reason why this is important is that talking about
>any kind of broad systemic change in education (or any other
>area where discrimination is taking place) is going to
>necessarily involve political advocacy aimed at convincing a
>large number of whites of the validity of this position,
>given that they are the majority in this country.

True.

> People forget that the Civil Rights Movement was
>successful to the extent that the leaders of the movement
>portrayed the struggle of blacks as a *moral* issue. Blacks
>were clearly the victims in that dynamic, and the leaders of
>the movement exploited this to place the segregationists in
>a bad light politically, as well as in the court of public
>opinion.

True. John Edwards was trying to use the moral card in his speech to, said shit was just the right thing to do, to help the poor.

> In the course of this discussion there have been many
>people who have taken issue with Cosby's denunciation of the
>portrayal of blacks in the media. Many people today seem to
>see the extraordinarily negative images of blacks that are
>so prevalent in the media today as being 'just
>entertainment', trivial, and not something that should be
>criticized.

They're dead wrong, and obviously don't understand adolescents.

> I understand that many people, particularly if they
>are younger than about 25 or 30, are not personally familiar
>with anything other than the current media image of blacks
>that exists today. It is understandable that such people
>would tend to identify with much of the current
>entertainment fare, and view it as innoccuous. It is also
>easy to see why they would take great exception to Cosby's
>comments--they view it as a personal attack on their
>culture. However, people who take this position are making
>a big mistake, in my opinion, because this image of black
>people as thugs, criminals, ignorant people, etc. has been
>*used* politically in a way that goes far beyond the world
>of entertainment. I think that many people fail to
>understand the way that this 'ignorant' type of
>entertainment has been used against us.
> Let me state the issue bluntly: there is no way in
>*hell* that most white Americans in 2004 are going to
>entertain the idea that modern-day blacks are victims, given
>the popular media image of black people as happy-go-lucky,
>ignorant, criminally inclined, violent individuals. In this
>case, when I say 'media', I mean entertainment *and* news
>media. This is significant, because any kind of militant
>attack on systematic/institutionalized racism in this
>country today is going to be dismissed as being an example
>of 'blame whitey'-ism, given the dominant public image of
>blacks today.

Yeah, the "thug next door" phenomenon.

> Once an issue gets put into this category, most whites
>are simply going to tune it out--most of them really don't
>want to hear this kind of stuff anymore. If the majority of
>the country is unsympathetic to our situation, this means
>that broad systemic change is all but impossible--because
>systemic change by definition involves politics.

Yup.

> Why do you think that there are 1 Million black men in
>prison in this country--and that this is not considered an
>urgent or pressing issue by most white Americans? Or that
>there is 50% black male unemployment in New York City--and
>that this is not considered a pressing issue by most white
>New Yorkers? Our public image has taken such a beating
>(thanks largely to the media) that these horrendous
>statistics do not do anything to create concern or alarm
>amongst most whites (other than concern and alarm for their
>own personal safety from us).

Is this indifference a new phenomenon? is the media today less sympathetic to these problems than they were 20, 30 50 years ago? Really asking here.

> Many people miss the fact that our portrayal in the
>media is a *key* factor in this shift in the way that we are
>perceived by whites, and that this dynamic has crippled us
>in terms of any kind of *moral* argument aimed at reforming
>systemic/structural racism. It is important to remember
>that, for many whites, their primary image of us is through
>the media--not through direct personal relationships with
>actual black people.

Very true.

> I think that this is one reason why Cosby has had such
>an angry tone in his statements. He is from the Civil
>Rights generation, and he understands that the *moral*
>aspect was the key to the success of that movement. He can
>also see that in 2004, black people have clearly lost the
>moral high ground on these issues, largely due to ability of
>the media to portray and spin information about us in a
>specific way. He also sees that many of our people have
>actually *embraced* this distorted portrayal of who we
>are--and this is where his rage comes from (at least in
>part), in my opinion. I am sure he feels that we have shot
>ourselves in the foot by celebrating these sorts of
>portrayals--and I'm not sure that he is wrong about this.

Have the media images had that profound an affect on policy and politics? On thing I would point out is that this exploitation of damaging black stereotypes by blacks and whites alike is no new phenomenon. Minstrel shows, which eventually began featuring blacks in charicatures of themselves, were the number 1 for of entretainment in America prior to the unveiling of the motion picture early this century. Why's it so different today?

> I think that this is why his most recent comments have
>been directed at the music industry. It is going to get
>real funky if and when prominent blacks start to make this
>connection, and begin to strongly criticize and target the
>individuals and corporations within the entertainment
>industry who have reaped massive profits as the result of
>the defamation of blacks that passes for entertainment
>nowadays.

I would love to see some strong leaders do that, but who? Which leaders are gonna get on borad do you think? And hopefully they won't just jump on the artists.

> People who don't understand why I identify this 'black
>entertainment' as defamatory need to realize that if black
>people were using the entertaiment industry to portray any
>other ethnic group in this country in the way that we are
>currently being portrayed, they would literally declare open
>war on us--no questions asked.

> We are one of the only groups of people in this country
>who do not understand that you cannot allow your public
>image to be dragged through the mud in the media, if you
>have any hopes of realizing your long-term social and
>political goals.

Truth hurts, man. But again, I think our leadership is freakin' asleep at the wheel.

> The fact that there are black people *inside* the
>entertainment industry who profit from this defamation (on
>an individual level) makes the situation even more complex.
>Many of these people will fight any attempt to examine these
>issues tooth and nail, because the dynamic that serves to
>defame us (and hamstring us politically in the society at
>large) is the selfsame one that puts food on their table.
>Kinda similar to the position and role of the 'black
>leaders' in the political arena, isn't it?
> There is a lot more I could say about this, but this
>is enough for now. Suffice it to say that there are a lot
>more fingers that are going to have to be pointed, and many
>more individuals who will have to be called out, before we
>will be able to address many of the cultural and systemic
>problems we face. It's not going to be pretty.

Word.

"Don't hang up on Karl Malone!"

"Don't hang up on Karl
Malone!"