After yesterday’s discussion–in the comments–I wondered exactly how we can make getting and education, taking personal responsibility for your actions, fiscal responsibility, and pride in self, family, community, and country the hotness. SonnyRedd said we should flip the script on leaning back and walking wit’ it. But how exactly do we make the fourth grade boy not lose interest in his school work? How can we make the fifth grade girl not lose interest in math and science? It’s easy to say, “Make it cool…Make them see the value in it.” But I ask how exactly?
Every since we’ve been able to legally read and vote, seems things have changed. Seems that by giving (after we begged and rioted) us ‘opportunities’ to better our predicament, anything that looks like a step away from our opportunityless ‘norm’ we shy away from. And by ‘we’ I mean Blacks as a whole–not the ‘us’ v. ‘them’ from yesterday. My mother says they need to start charging parents for books like they did when she was coming up. Back then, her parents knew if she didn’t bring home and/or use a book they paid for. But to her I ask, “How easy is it to take something away from people who have been told it’s their right?”
Do we grab a kid to mentor?? And what about the ones who are left behind?? The ones whose parents don’t put them mentoring programs? Or the ones whose parents tell them that getting an education, or even learning a trade, is a waste of time? Thing is, can we really inspire everyone? Can everyone see the benefits of what some of ‘us’ are doing?
What’s so wrong with how ‘they’ are living?? And who are we to say that they need to be like ‘us’? We’re assuming that our lives are so great that given the choice, they will choose to live like ‘us’. Not so much. I bet we all know people who went to college, got a look at how the ‘us’ live, walked across the stage, picked up their piece of paper and couldn’t wait to get back and be the baby’s momma/daddy dropping trash on the ground and trying to find ways to get over.
Do whites even have these types of discussions? Is there some blog somewhere where whites are trying to figure out how to improve the condition and mindset of their trailer park brethren? Sure there’s crime and disease. Sure there are broken homes. But isn’t there always going to be layers and levels in society? Don’t we need some people to not ‘act right’? Ha! Doesn’t their unwillingness to ‘act right’ inspire some?? Doesn’t their frivilous spending help the economy?? I mean really, how would liquior store owners put their kids through college if there wasn’t a need for their product–liquior? *eyeroll*
Do those of us who’ve knighted ourselves or been labeled The Talented Tenth (TTT) just start with working on our homestead first? Funny thing is, we have less kids than Furonda nem and we have them later in life. Assuming all of our offspring turns out ten times better than the Black son on Black.White, we still won’t produce enough offspring to out-weigh Shawtricia’s offspring. Maybe the key is for TTT to have more kids and take parenting them seriously.
Again, what about the ones left behind? We all have that one cousin, friend, etc. that we grew up with. And they’re either where we left them or worse off. What about them?? How far do we extend ourselves to help them?? Do we try to show them the way? I have a friend who is a VP at a large bank. Not a bank branch. There’s a segment of the Black population that, upon hearing what she does, would immediately snap into hustle mode. Their only reason for dealing with her would be to try to get a hook up for one of their low-level criminal adventures. So is she wrong for being super hesitant to take someone under her wing?? Hell, isn’t it natural for her to try to protect all she has accomplished?
So again, how do we make mainstream values the hotness? How do we not leave anyone behind?
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