If you have ever wondered why Black conservatives get so little respect from the Black community, saying things like this may have something to do with it.


Would a little time back on the plantation (or working as janitors) be the cure to Black Americans lack of a work ethic?

Sounds like a loaded question when you put it like that. Is there a lack of a work ethic in the USA? If there is, then I'd guess its due to the culture of dependency that we also see in Europe. Whats needed is a debate that asks why its no longer possible for people to find jobs that grant them a decent living, and why China has been allowed to take productivity from the western world. Suddenly, all the benefits and freedoms our forebears fought for, are costing us our jobs. How did this happen and how do we take those jobs back? Do we really have to go back to the plantation days? Is it even possible to create an economical equilibrium without some one always getting the smelly end of the stick?

As for the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson. If you vote for religious people, don't be surprised if they act irrational. They often are.

Jesse Lee has been on the Fox opinion show circuit since the late 90's. He seems to be a staple when the network wants a black face to say what some of the white folks are thinking.

That may be harsh, but I haven't seen him be anything more than a bobblehead for bad idea's. In short, he's a joke.

Sort of seems to tie into a recently surfaced draft of a Gingrich speech from 1993, which I would have expected an allegedly liberal media to be all over.

Would a little time back on the plantation (or working as janitors) be the cure to Black Americans lack of a work ethic?

No.

Probably not. What do you suggest the Black American community do to increase their relative standing in this society especially as compared to other minorities?

Would a little time back on the plantation (or working as janitors) be the cure to Black Americans lack of a work ethic?

There are undertones of slavery in that statement. Slavery, of course, does not instill a work ethic.

What instills a work ethic is reaping the rewards of one's own hard work.

What waters down work ethic is being given something that isn't earned and then that becomes seen as an expected benefit rather than a welfare payment.

Gingrich's comment about students working as janitors is not in the same vein. Students should be taught the value of work at a young age. Giving students jobs at school is a great idea.

References to plantations are not a great idea.

The original article adds a bit of context to his plantation statement. He was raised on a "plantation" (strange word to use these days, I thought the word was farm).



The article still reads like something out of the Onion. Then again, the article wasn't actually written by Peterson, but about Peterson so there might be more context that is missing. The original link says that "Peterson explains to the Huffington Post" but now that I look at the linked article that isn't the case (I read it wrong, I guess, thought it said "explains IN the Huffington Post").

Would a little time back on the plantation (or working as janitors) be the cure to Black Americans lack of a work ethic?

Sounds a little like an "Uncle Tom" to me...

I don't think that lack of a work ethic is exclusive to any ethnicity, any more than all Asians are whizzes at math, or any other stereotype actually holds water.

There is quite likely merit in everybody who can to do physical labor at least sometime in their lives. But the wages are typically substandard. In Newt Gingrich's case of having students do the work of school custodians, it might provide them with spending money, but it would deprive adults of a livelihood to feed their own children. It isn't as though there are so many jobs that minors now need to step forward to fill them. So while having students learn the work ethic sounds admirable indeed, it would be wrong, and with the substandard wage they would be paid, downright exploitative.

Like other politicians, Peterson sounds like he's playing to his audience.

What we lack in the modern American economy is any assurance that hard work yields those rewards.

Given, of course, the large majority of those on welfare are employed, most of those employed full time, and the average time spent on welfare, last I checked (which was a while ago) was two years, I'd say any effort to tie the welfare system to any perceived lack of "work ethic" is insulting and false.

The vast majority of the poor in this country are the working poor. This is also true for the majority of working black poor. The image of the "welfare queen" is one that was carefully and deliberately crafted (by the execrable Lee Atwater) to play on racial prejudice and those who fit the image are actually very rare.

This "pastor" sold his soul for publicity.

Would a little time back on the plantation (or working as janitors) be the cure to Black Americans lack of a work ethic?

A little time back on the "plantation"? Nope. Especially if it's for no pay (like it was back in the days of slavery), in which case it would actually have the opposite effect from the one envisioned by Peterson.

A little time during which poor kids (which, after all, was whom Gingrich was referring to in his "janitor" comments) would be "do[ing] light janitorial duty [like, for instance, Gingrich's daughter when she was 13], ... work[ing] in the cafeteria, ... work[ing] in the front office, ... work[ing] in the library" while "getting money, which is a good thing if you're poor", however? Yes, that would be a darn good way to get poor kids "of all backgrounds" started on the path toward "learn[ing] how to get a job, learn[ing] how to get a better job, and learn[ing] someday to own the job."




Oh, let's give it a little more time. After all, it's barely been two days since the Huffington Post first floated the story. So, it's not particularly surprising (what with the media having plenty of other "above the fold" stories to cover since then, such as the State of the Union Address and stuff) that until today, the story's just been percolating in "reality-based community" blogosphere circles (The Grio, ThinkProgress, MSNBC's Ed Schultz blog page, etc.).

Who knows, maybe Gingrich will be asked about it tomorrow night, during the Republican debate on CNN.

Not a thing. I don't believe there is any need for the Black American community to do anything to increase their relative standing in this society especially as compared to other minorities.



Yeah, that's a deliberate act on my part. Based upon my utter loathing for Arianna Huffington, I flatly refuse to directly reference or link to the Huffington Post or its subsidiary publications. It's a long story why, but I'll just say Queen Arianna's business practices rub me the wrong way as both a journalist and a freelance writer. I don't dig phony liberals and hypocritical bourgeois capitalists who cash in for millions but refuse to pay her contributors one thin dime.

While Peterson's ravings and droolings are Onion worthy material, he has no sense of humor or irony. I have no doubt if says it, he means it.



Oh, we're progressed beyond Uncle Tom, my dear Paladin Elspeth. Jesse Lee Peterson's entire schtick is straight out of The Uncle Ruckus School of How to Suck Up to White People.

My idea of a Black conservative is someone like Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell or John McWhorter whose personal politics lean toward the Republican/conservative side of the spectrum, but they don't make a spectacle of themselves by going out of their way to denigrate other Black people to flatter and ingratiate themselves with White people.

Finding new ways to kiss the butt of White folks is what Jesse Lee is all about. He goes so far to the extreme Right, there is nothing any White person can say or do that Peterson would deem racist. NOTHING.

Examples of Jesse Lee's Greatest Hits include:

“Barack Obama hates White people, especially White men”

"A majority of Whites supported Obama to prove that they’re not racists. And ninety-six percent of Blacks voted for him because of his race. More and more Americans, both Black and White are beginning to realize the truth about Obama’s massive welfare plan and his desire to punish the producers in this country. People are feeling let down by the “Messiah’ and regret voting for this supremely corrupt individual.”

"The NAACP is no different than the KKK in that the KKK harmed black Americans by their physical bodies, but the NAACP steals their hearts and minds and souls. And they kill black Americans by making black Americans or causing black Americans to hate their country, to hate what’s right, to depend on the government rather than depending on themselves."

Peterson, who appears regularly on Sean Hannity's show on Fox News has also thanked God for slavery and said conditions on a slave ship were no worse than being "on a crowded airplane."

Homey is a real piece of work. If not for the profanity feature I'd say he was a real piece of excrement.

In the interest of full disclosure, I appeared on Jesse Lee's radio program last year when he invited me on to discuss an article on Sarah Palin I wrote for The Root.com criticizing her for her "blood debt" remarks following the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and six others in Arizona. It was easily one of the stupidest wastes of an hour I've ever experienced. Speaking to Jesse Lee is just as brain cell killing an experience as reading his ridiculous remarks.

At least the man is sincere in his love for Whites and his hatred of Blacks. I must give him that.

Would a little time back on the plantation (or working as janitors) be the cure to Black Americans lack of a work ethic?

Not a chance. It would remind the forced labor what it's like to be forced into labor. Serious resentments would build; purposeful sabotage would happen; people would run from the farm like crazy in underground railways; murders would be plotted and sometimes carried out; rebellions would happen.

However, the right idea for the Information Age is to get kids working on projects that they will likely be doing as adults. For unemployed adults, working while learning and making a decent wage from the effort would be the way.

If only our economy could provide such work, but it can't and there are very good reasons for this. As a result, when the economy fails, the blame is laid on the unemployed as if it's their fault that layoffs happen. They became noncompetitive in the labor pool, a common excuse that doesn't fly for most of the jobs that pay a decent wage. Nope, the unemployed got too old, too expensive, too judgmental on foolish ideas, knew too much or just didn't fit in, according to their managers. Or, as often happens, they got laid off due to personal prejudices of management while the job performance was top notch. Orders came down from above to slash twenty percent or whatever number, so the best brown-nosers got to stay and work double or triple duty.

I've seen some odd behavior that people have tried to ensure job security. One sys admin I worked with would purposefully kill a system, and he then came out as the hero who could fix the mysterious computer thingy in a jiffy. Another worked hard to get dirt on his boss and would threaten to go public with the nasties. Then there were those who slept their way into sweet spots.

I even witnessed attempts of management to get rid of particular people by setting them up for sexual harassment charges. I think this was tried on me, but I don't respond to fake come-ons. In any event, the unemployed aren't usually incompetent; they are merely unemployed.

As for life-long welfare recipients, wasn't that fixed during Clinton's terms? I vividly recall the two-year limit. Was that law repealed without me noticing, or has the bad economy thrown a lot of hard-working people into serious trouble? Seems obvious that the latter explanation is the true one. What is wrong with this guy's perception of reality?

Do I really have to explain that? Seems obvious to me: He knows where the money's at. It's not to be found among poor people, which is true. Lack of money is the core problem. I also doubt he grew up picking cotton by hand. That's been mechanized since, well, the farm tractor. The new stuff looks like this.

Complete aside:

I was entirely tickled you invoked Uncle Ruckus, nighttimer.

Would a little time back on the plantation (or working as janitors) be the cure to Black Americans lack of a work ethic?
A part time job as a school janitor could help a young person, regardless of skin color, learn a sense of work ethic. But running plantations with people working in slave like conditions is abominable, and is the wrong way to address food security in this country. If this "minister" is serious about getting other blacks back to the farm, which I doubt is the case, he could speak about some of the issues in modern agriculture whether its the backbreaking work conditions or the cruelty towards animals in meatpacking plants.

Just finished reading an article about Peterson (about whom I knew next to nothing before this thread; so, thanks for starting it, "nighttimer"), one that provides a much more balanced perspective on the man and his endeavors than the earlier commentary in this thread pigeon-holing him as no more than an "Uncle Ruckus" who "go[es] out of [his] way to denigrate other Black people to flatter and ingratiate [himself] with White people". Some excerpts:

Link: http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_1_jess...e-peterson.html

Would a little time back on the plantation (or working as janitors) be the cure to Black Americans lack of a work ethic?

Absolutely not, but a couple of weeks doing manual labor might be beneficial for those people whose only exercise seems to be flapping their tongues - think Fox, Rush Limbaugh, and the remaining four Republican presidential candidates.


Ah, Fox again. As the late Steve Jobs told Rupert Murdoch:

From Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs, chapter 38. (Kindle location 12476)

Jesse Lee Peterson seems to be in the "best" Fox tradition of destructiveness.


Balance is in the mind of the beholder.

I dunno. Seems to me there's a Public Relations problem here for the Black American community. Here's pastor, community leader, Black American himself - agreeing with a sitting US House Speaker who's saying that the Black American community needs to get a work ethic. Clearly you're upset by all this so I have to assume you've heard this too. Meanwhile other minority groups have very different stereotypes and are growing in population while the Black American community seems endlessly mired at ~13% of the US Population.

It seems to me there should be a consideration for improvement on many fronts. It appears that _women_ of the Black American community are leading the community in nearly all facets and are being held back by the men. That sounds like pretty bad PR too.

All in all standing around complaining that Black Republicans are somehow out of touch with the reality of the perception of the Black American community seems to me to be a lot like Standing Around Waiting To Be Offended. Perhaps less mocking those you disagree with and more constructive ideas would be helpful. You're a pretty smart one, I'll bet you really do have ideas that could be useful.

The reverse of this is that there are people "standing arounnd" waiting to offend someone.

I'm glad to enrich your knowledge base, akaCG by exposing you to the Loony Tunes rants and raves of the Not-So-Right Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson. Now you can say you learned something so the day wasn't a complete waste.

Insofar as Andrew Klavan's commentary on Jivin' Jesse goes, it's not a surprise you would characterize it as "a much more balanced perspective" since Klavan is a White conservative male like you and that makes both of your butt cheeks suitable targets for smooching by Peterson.

Reasonable people don't me or Klavan to tell them what to think about Jesse Lee Peterson. They can watch his videos and listen to him! and decide for themselves if he's a help or a hindrance to racial progress.

I've dealt with the man personally. I know he's a fool. His show producer wanted me to come back on the show after President Obama's State of the Union speech last year. I declined the offer. I have no interest in playing Alan Colmes to Peterson's Sean Hannity.

Now don't get me wrong. I think White conservative men need their own mascots to tell them how wonderful they are. I'm not saying Jesse Lee doesn't serve some purpose. If being a House Negro loving his Massa is his calling in life, by all means let Peterson pursue his American dream.

Just don't expect me to stand by and applaud this sad-sack sell-out.




I mock those I disagree with because it's nicer than telling them how full of it they are. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, including Jesse Lee Peterson, but not every opinion should be considered equal. I ridicule Peterson and hold him up to contempt because I find what he says contemptible and ridiculous.

There are serious, intelligent and thoughtful Black conservatives who do have serious, intelligent and thoughtful ideas worth discussing and debating. Why should I ignore them to engage with a fool like Peterson? Peterson's minstrel show does more to discredit the cause of Black conservatism than anything I could possibly say or write. Being Black and conservative does not mean constantly denigrating all that is Black while glorifying all that is White. That's what Uncle Ruckus does in The Boondocks and that's what Jesse Lee Peterson does in real life.

I majored in journalism, not Public Relations, BaphometsAdvocate. They are two entirely different disciplines. One is about truth and the other is about image. The truth is yes, there are a lot about African-Americans that is dysfunctional and dispiriting, but if accentuate the negative instead of the positive, that's exactly what the world is going to see. I'll let the P.R. imagemakers worry about how this plays out to the rest of the world. I'll just busy myself telling the truth as best I can.

I commented about Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer scoring Oscar bids for their roles as domestics in The Help and bemoaned how Davis has been allowed few opportunities to look good and instead is often portrayed in the most drab and unattractive manner. It depresses me to no end how frequently the only images of Black women is dressed down as maids or glammed up as hoochie mamas in music videos. Maybe that's why so many sistas admire Michelle Obama for presenting Black femininity as something to be admired and emulated. Young Black women don't get to see these images very often and neither do young Black men and both have images of White women hammered into their heads as the personification of what beauty is supposed to be.

I really have more important fish to fry than worrying how you or a cackling hyena like Peterson think Black Americans have a PR problem. Don't think because Peterson's skin is Black that means his soul is. He has far more in common with you and akaCG than he ever could with be. I suspect we're both kind of happy about that.

This may be straying from the subject of the thread, but I don't agree with this at all. In my experience, blacks are underrepresented in just about every upper-middle class experience I have ever been a part of. I went to a good, private college, and there might have been a few dozen black students in the whole place. Next stop, university bio research lab: no blacks to be seen. Private sector research - same story. Grad school (bio science): one black student out of about 30, and she was quickly pulled into the med school (because they, too, had very few black students). More work in science (research hospital this time) - no black co-workers to be found, even though demand was such that there were a ton of Indian and Chinese researchers. Next stop, law school: again, just a sprinkling of black students. And finally, a law practice, where black peers are nowhere to be found (and I work in a heavily black county). And this is all despite efforts to bring up the numbers, especially in college/grad school/law school. There is simply a severe lack of qualified candidates at those levels.

You're part of the PR problem nighttimer which, frankly, is a waste of your obvious talents. You accentuate the negative. Often. Brashly. Gratingly.

With all due respect, JohnfrmCleveland, your experience is limited. Mine is as well, but in my experience I have been treated by Black doctors, had my teeth cleaned by Black dentists, had both my children delivered by Black obstetricians, taken them for their shots to Black pediatricians and my legal affairs handled by a Black attorney and had my taxes handled by a Black accountant.

Which is separate from the Black politicians, entrepreneurs, authors, artists, academics, actors, businessmen, and musicians I've interviewed over the years including a future President of the United States.

As I said before, stories of Black failure and pathology tend to predominate the way the rest of the world perceives African-Americans. Success stories don't fit the paradigm. That's one reason why even George Lucas has to struggle for 23 damn years before he can tell a story about The Tuskegee Airmen in Red Tails. That's another reason why The Cosby Show was such a big hit back in the day. Whites and Black audiences hadn't seen many shows with a Black doctor married to a Black lawyer and their house full of well-fed, healthy and mostly well-adjusted kids in designer gear.

If people are willing to believe the worst and the most exaggerated stereotypes of Blacks, why should I make it my life's work trying to disabuse them of their disinformation? All I can do is my small part along with all the other Black journalists (another group of underrepresented professionals) to bring some diversity and balance. I don't intend to be anyone's Negro Tour Guide. Been there and done that.

By the way, John? Remind me sometime to tell you how I almost ended up working for Don King. It's a funny story...




Thank you. It's a gift.

What you call accentuating the negative, I call speaking inconvenient truths. The truth is any House Negro like Jesse Lee Peterson who thinks slavery was swell and working on a plantation for nothing is a great way to deal with Black unemployment is a damn fool and I'm not going to call him a wise man to make you or anyone else happy.

Often. Brashly. Gratingly. And Repeatedly.

Funny how nobody is concerned about how someone like, say, BaphometsAdvocate is never thought of as being part of white people's PR problem...

What do you mean by standing? Are you talking about respect or wealth or socio-political power?

It seems like the race debate is a constant feature of American culture. At what point will the Black American community be allowed to deal with their issues without the constant attention and negative comparison?





Indeed, but then why start this thread?

Who are these other conservatives whose serious, intelligent and thoughtful ideas aren't being debated?

But did you have to go out of your way to find them? Picking that many black professionals at random out of the Yellow Pages, I bet that would be a $1 parlay worth millions.



It's not meant to be a story of black failure, NT, just an observation. I also think my experience is more the norm than the exception, based on the numbers. Especially in the sciences - my wife is in the business of finding funded researchers to do grant reviews for NIH (with a mandate to increase minority representation), and black Ph.D.s that fit the bill are very rare. That's nationwide. Those of us who started off wanting to be doctors understand that the ranks of biology Ph.D.s are filled largely with ex-pre-med students, so a lack of black scientists reflects a lack of depth among black students applying to med school. I can certainly understand young people not aspiring to be scientists, but doctors? No way. That's still a golden ticket, especially when you can go to med school on a schloarship.

These types of observations are pretty common, and that's why the stuff Gingrich and Peterson say gets some traction (at least, certainly, among whites). Affirmative action, quotas, and race-based admissions have been in place at least as long as I have been an adult, and you think we'd see more of an effect by now. So one obvious possible explanation is the "work ethic," or a cultural aversion to academic excellence, or whatever people want to call it - basically, that blacks in general aren't trying hard enough to succeed. Followed by pointing to the nearest Asian kid. So while the messengers are clumsy, insulting, and probably delivering the message for their own gain, that doesn't necessarily mean the message is completely invalid.



Consider this your reminder. Or, if you have written an article about it, you can point me to it. I've never heard an un-entertaining Don King story.

That's easy.

Who has time to think about BA, period?

Thanks for the substantial intellectual contribution to the thread there.

I am inclined to agree with Moif's sentiments. Why even start the thread based on the OP's thoughts on Peterson. He even states himself that intelligent and thoughtful ideas come from others.



The real reason? Low hanging fruit.(In Peterson's case, this fruit is on the ground and rotting). Picking the low hanging fruit doesn't take effort or work to engage. Although it is good for stirring up the flies and worms.

I am solidly upper-middle class and my experience has been much like JohnfromCleveland's. I went to a public university; in my electrical engineering program, I knew on black person (and she was a girl, double whammy). Another one in my biomedical engineering program at Northwestern. I can count on one hand the number of black people I have worked with thru my post-doc years and 4 jobs (an ambulance company, a pharma startup, a nonprofit pharma, and a large pharma). I currently work with 1 black man out of 100 people in my group at a national laboratory. I have a number of medical issues and have never been seen by a black doctor (or dentist) out of at least 2 dozen. I don't think I've even seen a black person in my martial arts studio. This is across 4 states over 20 years. By comparison, I can't keep track of how many white, Latino/a, Asian people counterparts I have interacted with. I'm not sure why there is such a noticeable discrepancy.

Also by way of comparison, I can probably count a dozen or two Indians I have come across in the above situations but when you factor in the contacts through family that I could use, the number of Indians I could have professional contact with would easily be the majority.

Leave it to nighttimer to start a topic that brings me back to AD

The need to increase relative standing within the community argument is one that continues to baffle me. Standing how? Are we talking about perceptions or are we talking about an actual measurable standing (and then who or what entity would be the arbiter of said standards)? Now maybe it’s just me, but I find it nearly impossible for a group of people who have continually been pigeonholed and/or labeled as lazy, ignorant good-for-nothings to have the power to change that perception all on their own. Not in a ‘the white man had to do it for me cause I’m not capable’ sort of way, but in a ‘these perceptions and misguided prejudices are so far-reaching and deep-seated that it will take more than the black community’s actions to dissuade people from believing them’ sort of way. There could be a room full of eloquent, “successful” black men and women, and the argument will, 99 times out of 100, lead back to Affirmative Action or bootstraps or the shock-and-awe reaction of “Oooh, he/she speaks so well!” or “they obviously were able to succeed, which proves everyone can” – which is all a bunch of malarkey meant to justify or excuse prejudiced beliefs.

I always find the whole notion of a lack of work ethic within the Black community fascinating. Let's see...we've got a long history of an extremely strong work ethic within the Black community that resulted in a whole lot of nothing being gained (monetarily or otherwise) in return. So where was the work ethic getting anyone? And now in semi-recent history, we've got sports and the entertainment industry basically flashing the opportunity of big money and fame – the ‘American Dream’ and then some – and kids aren’t stupid…they see the world around them and how most of the Black people (men in particular) they’ve seen being successful have done so in these two industries. So they begin to think this is what they can and should strive for…and this seems to have resulted in a skewed sense of reality. Hard work and this idea of a ‘work ethic’, for many, are just a joke. That’s not to say a healthy work ethic is ever a bad thing, just that not everyone gets to reap the tangible rewards of it. It's not about being lazy or not having a strong work ethic...it's about the fact that hard work alone does not make one successful in the traditional sense of the word and people can only take so much hard work with no results before they see it as fruitless.



I have to say, my initial reaction to the words coming out of Jesse Lee Peterson's mouth was likening him to Uncle Ruckus. The reference certainly brought out a smile and a laugh when I noticed it halfway down the post.



It's a shame that so many other "Black conservatives" feel the need or desire to make a mockery of themselves and "the black community" by this type of sucking up. What's perhaps more disheartening, though, is that it is often well-received by many in the conservative base (perhaps in a ‘told you so’ sort of way) and feeds fuel to the fire of pitting the "Black Conservative" against the greater Black community (the one viewed by the masses as dysfunctional or in need of whitey to come save them since they can’t do it for themselves). White conservatives who feel like they’ve always wanted to say these things but can’t are applauding these Black conservative figureheads for saying what they don't always feel like they can say (but they’re probably secretly laughing their heads off). It's easier for them to smile and nod and let the Black guy take the fall/heat.



And the welfare queen stereotype has continued to live on and on despite the facts because (it seems) the negative portrayals (stereotypes/prejudices) tend to be the ones that stick AND because there aren't enough people standing up saying "hey wait a second...is any of this really true?"

And as for the original debate question, a little time back on the plantation (or working as janitors) would likely do exactly the opposite of the intended result of creating a sense of work ethic and would result in a whole new kind of resentment for the 'establishment' that would allow this type of injustice to continue. Besides, anyone who suggests that blacks in some way had it 'better' or should be in some way thankful for slavery is just living in some sort of alternate universe.

Glad you liked it. It was an attempt to meet BA on his intellectual level.

Here was my main contribution.

http://www.americasdebate.com/forums/index...amp;p=100002448

This is the nub for me. Every society on Earth has a segment of its population stuck in the mire of poverty, and the 'lack of work ethic' is always shoved down their throats as being the reason why they are mired in poverty. Recently we had Chinese politicians calling Europeans 'lazy', because we don't share the 'Chinese work ethic'. You have to laugh.

With 'ethnic minorities' the arrogance of the wealthy seems to be compounded by historical and cultural differences that simply won't go away, and I wonder if the problem doesn't fundamentally lie with the whole idea of 'ethnic identity', for as long as we regard ourselves as historically and culturally seperate from each other, then we will always fall back on those differences to justify, or even defend ourselves, from each other.

There are twenty four children in my daughter's class. Three of them are Black (Somali's) and although this is my daughter's first year in school, the Black children have already been identified by most parents as the biggest problem in the class. Essentially the two boys are far more violent than any of the other children and several children have expressed outright fear of them. At the same time there is also a Danish child who is a problem, and who is violent, but who is seldom identified as such. Somali's are generally regarded as lazy and untrustworthy in Denmark. I don't know if this is racist or simply because Somali's, generally do not seem capable of adjusting well to Danish society, and Danes don't know how to tackle them. What I do know is that Somalis in Denmark are often, if not always accused of having no 'work ethic', just as I've seen and heard Black Americans described, and it seems to me that you can never share the 'work ethic', for as long as you don't share the 'ethnic identity' because people (on both sides) are always seeking to identify themselves by their historical and cultural differences. Essentially multiculture doesn't work. You have to share identity in order to belong. Standing on your differences only leads to eternal conflict.

(...and I have been seen by a Black Doctor. In the UK.)

I'm talking about becoming somewhere near 13% of the doctors, lawyers, scientists, teachers, businesspeople, college students, etc., in the country. In other words, noticeable entry into the middle class.



What do other people's beliefs have to do with this? And who cares? Does that stop someone from going to college, or becoming a scientist? That's the thing I don't understand - it seems like the opportunities are there, and the road has been smoothed over to the point where a college/career path is reachable now for more black students. Is there something else that needs to be done? Why aren't we seeing way more black kids in college, and way more black graduates in upper-middle class careers?

Well yes. Is that not kind of obviously the case? How many people have the gumption to defy society's expectations? Certainly some individuals do, but aren't those people usually considered something special?

Look at how Asian children are regarded for their dilligence and hard work. Those attributes comes from the expectations of their parents, Asian children aren't genetically superior to African children, are they? My understanding is, all human beings share the same potential for success, but the environment in to which we born, dictates who we will become.

If as KMSouthern points out, Black American children are raised to think, whats the point in a work ethic which doesn't reward you, then how many of those children will have the means to defy their nuture and become something greater than their parents expectations?

I think I can understand and empathise with this easily enough. I was expected to be an engineer because thats what most of my family are. I didn't want to be an engineer though, I wanted to be an illustrator. I never really knew how to become that though, so I've never really fulfilled my potential. If I'd had a racial expectation of failure sitting on my shoulders as well, I would most likely not have defied my fathers expectations and gone into an apprenticeship as an engineer.

I do hope you'll find the time to add something constructive to the discussion BoF. These one liners are so out of character for you. I know I certainly miss your long, boring, condescending "I'm older than you" posts you usually grace us with. Goodness what insights you must have for all of us on the relative standing of race seeing as how you were a teacher for decades. I hope you're not being limited in your responses by the ravages of age or illness. No y'all be sure and come back when you can string together more than one thought.


But when people DO defy society's expectations they are often labeled negatively. Do you remember The Fresh Prince of Bel Air? The preppy kid was a "Sell Out" "Uncle Tom"... And goodness if you don't agree with some people you're a "Race Traitor" and think "Slavery was just swell"

Remind me again who the bad guy is here?

Well, that's the point here - kids are "raised to think" in a certain way by their parents, at least primarily. If parents are raising their kids to eschew work, that's just crazy. And I don't think that's how parents operate.

As far as society's expectations, that is what affirmative action, quotas and race-based admissions are there to counteract. It should be clear to any black student who bothers to look that both the government and colleges are going to help you out with money and lowered standards of admission, and once you graduate college, employers are going to preferentially hire you to increase their diversity. That should be sufficient incentive to overcome society's expectations. That, and the desire to buy stuff. Nobody wants to be poor.

If there is an easy explanation here, I'm going with one's socioeconomic starting point. I can certainly understand how being poor and/or coming from a lousy school system makes it more difficult to get ahead. But that's not the same as not bothering to even try, per your parents' expectations.



Your parents' expectations were for you to succeed as an engineer. That's different than what is being discussed here, lack of a work ethic. Pushed to work at something, one is driven to meet or exceed expectations, as well as to make oneself happy. Had you not defied your father's expectations and become an engineer, you still would have been a success.

But if you had available to you the advantages of scholarship money, easier admission to college, and a leg up on the competition when finding a job, wouldn't that have made it easier to get out of bed in the morning and work toward a successful career?

Given the utter falsity of the above and the implied racial animus in your strawmen, I'd say the bad guy is you, individually.

Will Smith's character in Fresh Prince wasn't a "thug gangsta", he just didn't assimilate from his West Philadelphia culture into Bel-Air's culture. His two older cousins (Carlton and Hilary) were foils not because they were "sell out Uncle Toms" but because they were arrogant and self-centered. His uncle Phil, aunt Vivian and cousin Ashley were not similarly cast as foils, yet they were also assimilated into Bel-Air culture; they were also thoughtful, practical people -- and despite uncle Phil's history in the civil rights movement, he was a Reagan Republican. And then there's Geoffrey, about as far from West Philly culture as possible yet he almost got away with more shenanigans and wisecracks than Will.

Contrast, Will's best friend Jazz is very much "urban" culture and yet is also portrayed as an ill behaved dimwit.

So basically, everything you said there is a pernicious lie.


JfC,

Kindly drop the argument about "quotas." Quotas are illegal in all 50 states. Their rhetorical use is another pernicious right-wing meme.

I'm sorry, if you were just standing round waiting to be offended, but there's an old saying, "if you can't beat them join them." Yet, competing with you on the one liner front is like competing with Ronald Reagan, the master of one liners. That must be why the Republican presidential candidates can't go two sentences without getting all out of breath comparing themselves to Reagan.

http://carlton.urbanup.com/1105936
http://uncle-tom.urbanup.com/1330355

Sorry you don't approve of the word, Rap, I'm not trying to advance any pernicious, right-wing memes, it's just an easy word to use. But it's not exactly misleading, either. Quotas were in place for a while, and there should be some visible effects of that. Plus, private companies still look hard for minority hires, schools obviously want to attract minorities, the government still favors minority contractors, etc. Call it a de facto quota now. The important point is that the path has been cleared for minorities to advance through the system. And the question is, why isn't it happening the way (or to the degree) that we envisioned?

Urban dictionaries have about, um, zero credibility as far as proving a point. I could write anything I wanted in them. They are completely unsourced, not even meeting Wikipedia's minimum standard for credibility.

JfC,

I also need to amend what I said: Quotas are not illegal in very narrow circumstances, predominantly as a remedy for specific cases where active discrimination against minorities is proven. However, the general RW meme is that affirmative action = quotas, which is vastly untrue; the wide majority of affirmative action programs involve nothing more than strong outreach/recruitment strategies and equal opportunity commitments.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Uncle+Tom
Uncle Tom 
noun Disparaging and Offensive .
a black man considered by other blacks to be subservient to or to curry favor with whites.

http://bit.ly/An7igX

Google listings based on search query "is Carlton Banks an Uncle Tom"

And a lot of the results say "No." Try doing the same for the character's father, Reagan Republican Phil Banks.

And even so, you're talking about only one small part of the much larger argument about the depiction of the black characters on the show, and the much larger still argument about whether black people who adopt the trappings of "white culture" are somehow regarded as traitors.

Most people who hold opinions such as the subject of this thread do not express them on the airwaves. Many of us who have gotten older are heard saying at times that "Dad was right, Mom was right about..." etc.

The "good old days" often become the good old days because of our selective memories. It is relatively easy to choose to forget the sweat falling in rivulets down places where you wouldn't scratch while in polite company, or the thirst you would feel after working for hours in the hot sun, or the wasps that sting and the mosquitoes that would suck your blood and leave itchy welts on your skin on summer nights.

I don't think it takes hard labor in the hot sun in order to enjoy the satisfaction of doing a job well and receiving pay for it. It doesn't take working on a plantation to learn the work ethic.

While the speaker in question was apparently raised on a plantation picking cotton, it is seen as archaic and irrelevant by most people these days.

I am not African-American. I do remember my mother standing at the ironing board for hours pressing white shirts for my father who was a salesman. We even had a sleeve board so that the shirts would be perfectly pressed. She even taught me how to do it. Yes, Mom had a great work ethic, but she would have had that great work ethic whether she applied it to ironing shirts (which she hated doing) or anything else that she did. Don't think for a minute that if back in the early Sixties permanent press and the tumble dry cycle were available to her that she would still willingly engage in that onerous task. Wives were expected do to that sort of thing. How many wives would willingly do that now? Does that mean that they lack a work ethic if they think the idea tedious and unnecessary in much the same way that picking cotton in the hot sunshine would be?

Excuse me if I think that this Peterson sounded like he was "sucking up to Whitey." There is a reason for it.

And which insect are you channeling, Sleeper, as your post takes no effort or works to engage?



Oh well, why didn't you say so from the beginning? Guess that means you can't be racist if you permit a Black doctor to touch your lily-White skin or is this the Danish version of "some of my best friends are?"

I suppose I was thrown off by the sweeping generalizations you were making about Somalis in Denmark and Blacks in America.

You may not know "if this is racist" but let me help you out with that, moif. If you have to ask, it's probably racist.

Remember kids - nighttimer says - you can only identify racism if you're Black!

Interestingly Moif here in NYC it is fairly well established that Africans FROM Africa are among the hardest working people in the City.

killer rhythm too

How can you tell? Aren't you white?

So, um, upon what do you base the accusation that nighttimer believes one can only identify racism if you're black? I'm kinda curious here because I didn't see that in the thread and it sounds like an incredibly inflammatory strawman.

I don't know, dude. Do you have to be able to throw a baseball 90mph to tell that Roy Halladay is a helluva pitcher?

Other people’s beliefs have everything to do with success and one’s desire to work hard to achieve something. If you consistently see that a large percentage of your culture’s people are working hard and not getting ahead, wouldn’t it be difficult to justify continuing that same amount of hard work in perpetuity? It happens in classrooms across the country all the time. Student A’s parents tell their child they expect him to do well and try hard in school. But when he gets to school, he does poorly on standardized tests and is likely to be expected to do poorly. When the stakes of our current NCLB-driven education system require teachers to focus on the students who they think they can help (since so much is tied to students showing ‘one year’s growth’ and the number of students who exceed standards), these students are often looked over and determined to be unable to be helped. Now the parents set expectations for the child, but the system in which they are learning has different priorities. I think our society functions in much the same way. We expect less of certain groups of people and people tend to strive for those expectations but not much more. If you tell a child “I want you to get an 80% on this next test” it’s likely they’ll study hard enough to feel that they will earn an 80% - especially if this is a student who is not expected to do much better than that. The lower the expectations and the more negative the perception, the more likely these negative things will penetrate the thoughts. That is why all outside influences matter – parents are just a small piece of the puzzle.



Having a ‘leg up on the competition when finding a job’ as a result of one’s status as a minority is simply a misstatement. That’s NOT how it works at all.
Aside from that, parents are not the only influence in a child’s or young adult’s life, as stated earlier in my post. Parents may be raising their kids to think that they can do anything, but society telling them otherwise will have perhaps a greater impact that the words of the people who are supposed to tell them they are capable of greatness and can do anything if they just try. Most kids quickly realize the falsehood in those statements and it's not because their parents taught them to eschew work. I'm sure some parents do tell their kids that there's no point in trying, but I would imagine those parents to be few and far between.



I wholeheartedly agree with your stance against the untruths perpetuated about Affirmative Action. When it comes to the persistence of these myths though, I don’t think it’s limited to the RW at all – the overwhelming majority of the general population believes AA = quotas and AA = unfair advantages and AA = lowering standards when none of those are true. College AA programs may have different sets of standards (much like certain types of scholarships and alumni/legacy preferences) and I don’t have nearly as much familiarity with what goes on there as I do with federal AA (having worked as an AA consultant many years ago), but you are absolutely correct that the vast majority of AA programs are more about outreach/recruitment and making sure that companies are in compliance with federal regulations about NOT having quotas. The only field that does have quotas is the construction field (and this is to ensure that WOMEN are being given equal opportunity). Here is the exact wording from Facts on Executive Order 11246 — Affirmative Action :



I could talk about AA all day long, but I’ll spare you all since the topic at hand is somewhat far removed.



I think I get what moif is trying to say, though (or maybe I'm just reading into it)...when I lived in Belgium for 3 years, there was a definite anti-Moroccan sentiment in Belgium. For whatever reason in that culture (Belgian culture), Moroccans who emigrated to Belgium were regarded as the 'problems' of society. They were seen as violent, trouble-makers, lazy...you know the rest. Of course to me it was disappointing and wrong for an entire culture to be labeled and generalized based on the actions of some, but that was how it was and the news media of course intensified that with their stories about violent Moroccans in Brussels and Antwerp.

But I gathered from moif's post that he was saying that there is this idea of a lesser culture everywhere in the world and that the culture identified as 'lesser' varies depending on where you are. He mentioned that the Danish (white) student who was as much a ‘problem’ as the others is somehow not treated as such. And that probably does relate in some way to assimilation. I am not a big proponent of assimilating for the sake of assimilating – not in the least – but I think it does play a role in the way in which the dominant culture views the (usually) ‘ethnic’ cultures in their society. Cultures whose members tend to hold to their home culture’s ideals and practices do tend to be looked down upon in their new homes – whether it’s related to race or not, it happens and these stereotypes are very hard to break. And it seems (in my experience anyway) that there are two distinct schools of thought regarding the success of minority(ethnic and/or statistical) cultures – they are either used as an example of why everyone can succeed OR they are thought to be anomalies within the culture.