Achievement Gap Divides Black/White Students

But there are blacks who are descendants of slaves that have done quite well. Look at Rev. Al Sharpton, descendant of a slave, but yet he makes more money than many of us will ever see in a lifetime. What about the black athletes, black bankers, black doctors, etc. and so forth. One's skin color and one's immigration status shouldn't dictate what their life outcome will be.

I've seen whites who come from families that were extremely wealthy have a poor outcome. They are living on their own, barely making ends meet, and have 3 kids by different daddies.

Sure opportunities for poor children are fewer because they often have to work part-time to help put food on the table, and thus academics are not of priority, but if we can find a way for these students to have a solid focus for academics despite their background then we can accomplish something.

Hopefully Obama will set the example for all blacks in this country that you don't have to be a thug to be successful.

Everyone needs to know that success happens ONLY because you work at it and you earn it. Success is not handed down.
 
C.C.Sinned said:
it is not really about races or the style of music.

that crap music glorifies a gangsta lifestyle of dealing drugs, gangs, murder, violence and so on...

the lifestyle which children, no matter which race, are trying to be a gangsta piece of crap :sure:

idiocy!!!
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dont assume all black folk believe in the bullshit. Even the artists themselves dont really believe in it. THey just wanna make money selling music to dumbass 12y/o white kids that watch mtv.
 
Doug5 said:
dont assume all black folk believe in the bullshit. Even the artists themselves dont really believe in it. THey just wanna make money selling music to dumbass 12y/o white kids that watch mtv.
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oh i don't. it is the same thing with metal. all bout the marketing and money. they may sing about satan and all kinds of weird crap, but not every band or band member belives in it...

there is a bigger difference tho, metalheads just tend to get stoned, sing along and play the air guitar... the gangsta wannabes are going out and trying to be the gangsta...

gotta laugh everythime i hear some local kid talking about how hard life is here in da 'hood... this is a nice country area not a urban ghetto... these gangsta kids are dumb
 
rockdrummer said:
What makes it seem like that to you? Just curious.
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I live in Baltimore and most black people I have encountered said that they dont care for school..they prefer to make money in the quick way, that women are hos and they are fascinated with their bling. My hubby even agrees because his 15 year old sister and her friends live their lives by the rap music they listen to and try to imitate the lifestyle. As a result, she is failing in almost in all of her classes and had to be forced to take summer school. She lives in a wealthy suburban area in a huge house and her parents are still married.

Of course there are those that arent like that but it makes me wonder if a large percentage of them are not achieving well with education because they value the lifestyle that those hip hop videos promote?
 
shel90 said:
I live in Baltimore and most black people I have encountered said that they dont care for school..they prefer to make money in the quick way, that women are hos and they are fascinated with their bling. My hubby even agrees because his 15 year old sister and her friends live their lives by the rap music they listen to and try to imitate the lifestyle. As a result, she is failing in almost in all of her classes and had to be forced to take summer school. She lives in a wealthy suburban area in a huge house and her parents are still married.

Of course there are those that arent like that but it makes me wonder if a large percentage of them are not achieving well with education because they value the lifestyle that those hip hop videos promote?
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Like you said, I tend to agree with you that culture plays a huge role in the lifestyle of the kid being educated. African americans and their culture, along with the friends they meet plays a big role in their education, JMO.


Look at this side for example: Most Americans generally associate asian children with being smart(asses) and good with school, especially math and science subjects. Right?

Is it predetermined because they were born asian that they excel at these subjects just because they have slant eyes and speak a foreign tongue?

The educated answer is no, it has to deal with the culture that asian parents force and instill onto their kids. Culturally strong asian parents living in America (or California, at least) are known to put their children in afterschool tutoring programs all day throughout the school year and their kids are getting education from ~8am to 5pm everyday nonstop while the parents are working.

Then, the rest of that 5pm-11/12am the child is expected (culturally) to have a few breaks, finish homework and eat dinner. Free time to lounge around is frowned upon.

That is the explanation to how asians can 'excel' at certain subjects so well.
 
naisho said:
Like you said, I tend to agree with you that culture plays a huge role in the lifestyle of the kid being educated. African americans and their culture, along with the friends they meet plays a big role in their education, JMO.


Look at this side for example: Most Americans generally associate asian children with being smart(asses) and good with school, especially math and science subjects. Right?

Is it predetermined because they were born asian that they excel at these subjects just because they have slant eyes and speak a foreign tongue?

The educated answer is no, it has to deal with the culture that asian parents force and instill onto their kids. Culturally strong asian parents living in America (or California, at least) are known to put their children in afterschool tutoring programs all day throughout the school year and their kids are getting education from ~8am to 5pm everyday nonstop while the parents are working.

Then, the rest of that 5pm-11/12am the child is expected (culturally) to have a few breaks, finish homework and eat dinner. Free time to lounge around is frowned upon.

That is the explanation to how asians can 'excel' at certain subjects so well.
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I lived in a predomently Asian neighborhood in Rockville and my daughter befriended many children who were of Asian descendents...she had a birthday party and invited over 10 girls. Only 4 showed up cuz the other girls had to go to Saturday school. I was in awe!
 
rockdrummer said:
If music has that much of an influence then I would blame the parents for not instilling morals, values and priorities into their children. That applies to blacks or whites or greens or yellows.
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naisho said:
The educated answer is no, it has to deal with the culture that asian parents force and instill onto their kids. Culturally strong asian parents living in America (or California, at least) are known to put their children in afterschool tutoring programs all day throughout the school year and their kids are getting education from ~8am to 5pm everyday nonstop while the parents are working.

Then, the rest of that 5pm-11/12am the child is expected (culturally) to have a few breaks, finish homework and eat dinner. Free time to lounge around is frowned upon.

That is the explanation to how asians can 'excel' at certain subjects so well.
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I agree with you guys. The parents should instill the education values in their children.
 
shel90 said:
I lived in a predomently Asian neighborhood in Rockville and my daughter befriended many children who were of Asian descendents...she had a birthday party and invited over 10 girls. Only 4 showed up cuz the other girls had to go to Saturday school. I was in awe!
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:lol: the memories.. I was forced into saturday school too as a child. I hated it all the time because I wanted to watch saturday morning cartoons just like everyone else at school. I didn't want to miss transformers or dennis the menace or whatever was on tv that day.

So little did I know what was going on back then!
 
Buffalo said:
I agree with you guys. The parents should instill the education values in their children.
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Right, so children from a single mother household are more likely not have those values instilled in them especially if the mothers were in their teens. I was very lucky that my mom valued education despite having me at 18 years old.
 
naisho said:
The educated answer is no, it has to deal with the culture that asian parents force and instill onto their kids. Culturally strong asian parents living in America (or California, at least) are known to put their children in afterschool tutoring programs all day throughout the school year and their kids are getting education from ~8am to 5pm everyday nonstop while the parents are working.

Then, the rest of that 5pm-11/12am the child is expected (culturally) to have a few breaks, finish homework and eat dinner. Free time to lounge around is frowned upon.
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I forgot to mention that I was watching this subject on tv. The young woman was talking about that and also that the parents tend to brag to one another about their child's achivement. The young woman felt she had to try to live up to her parent's bragging. Boy, what a pressure.
 
Of course parenting makes the biggest impact on a child life. Without parenting a child will eat nothing but candy and junkfood while doing nothing but watch tv and play video games.

You cant expect teachers to pick up the slack of poor parenting. A lot of these idiots having children, dont have the discpline to take care of themselves let alone a child. Then the child gets neglected and allowed to fall into bad habits and the cycle repeats itself. It should be mandatory to put teenage girls on the pill.
 
Are we just a bunch of white people (and one Asian person) sitting around speculating about the black community? I certainly don't feel competent to comment on the black community other than to say what I have observed about fewer school resources in poorer communities (not necessarily black).

Are there any black people on AD that can share their experiences? I wonder what they perceive are the main issues.
 
To be honest with ya, Sally, if that asian person was me, it might be a mistake. I think I tie myself more with the american community than I do with the oriental roots, but then again that is open to interpretation ;). I'm what they call a Twinkie; Yellow outside & white inside.

I am not sure of who on AD can comment on this.. usually in discussions we (or myself atleast) tend to look at commentaries from all sides of the perspective regardless of ethnic background. I think I'm not even sure of some of the people here.

I think shel's observations has the most merit, because she is a teacher herself and has probably seen through this for many years. You were a former teacher as you stated, do you have any impressions (they don't have to be exactly what you believe, just any hunches) of it overall?

In one of the courses during my previous degree, called social stratification - we observed racial inequalities between all sectors of races presented, and went as far as to compare minorities versus each other. From the data (data as in sociology is all statistics and theory) it was presumptuous to see that certain races are influenced by their cultures, ideas and beliefs. Of course, one culture does not define every person in it.
 
sallylou said:
Are we just a bunch of white people (and one Asian person) sitting around speculating about the black community? I certainly don't feel competent to comment on the black community other than to say what I have observed about fewer school resources in poorer communities (not necessarily black).

Are there any black people on AD that can share their experiences? I wonder what they perceive are the main issues.
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My hubby is black and that was what he has complained a lot about. That a majority of today's black children are too engrossed with living the lifestyle that hip hop artitst portray and put education on the bottom of their list.
 
There's also the drug dealing fiasco too. I don't know why exactly this is so, but one can observe the races in the drug ring on the vice/street level are often predominated by whites, blacks, and hispanics.

The black drug cartel is not one thing to be underlooked.. and the teenagers and kids involved in them.
This one book, called "The Cocaine Kids" goes through painting a picture of how these kids viewed life growing up.

And a sociological statistic to back up the presumption of race plays in the drug trafficking world:
Of the 253,300 state prison inmates serving time for drug offenses at year end 2005, 113,500 (44.8%) were black, 51,100 (20.2%) were Hispanic, and 72,300 (28.5%) were white.
Source:
Sabol, William J., PhD, and West, Heather C., Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prisoners in 2007 (Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, December 2008), NCJ224280, p. 21, Appendix Table 10.
 
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