Clarence Page is finally making some sense. He comments on liberal Harvard types whining about black immigrants outperforming black Americans. This column, I can deal with.
You probably read about this a few weeks ago in the New York Times (registration req.). Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates and others are facing the unintended consequences of their precious skin color preferences. It seems that immigrant blacks outnumber American blacks at Harvard. Gates wants to know why and plans to “study” this phenomenon. What is the secret of black immigrant achievement? Rocket scientists, get ready!
“We need to learn what the immigrants’ kids have so we can bottle it and sell it, because many members of the African-American community, particularly among the chronically poor, have lost that sense of purpose and values which produced our generation,” Gates said.
Why he needs a study for this, I don’t know. Isn’t it common sense? Doesn’t it go without saying? Isn’t the question rhetorical? Clarence Page writes:
I was not surprised by those findings. Like many other African-Americans, I have been noticing for years how the children of black immigrant families tend to be much better represented among high school honor-roll achievers than their native-American black counterparts are….
A bigger question to me is this: Why are black students whose families have been in America for generations being left behind by newcomers, including black newcomers from other countries?
Gates plans to organize a study group around that question. I can offer the group one easy possibility, no charge: Immigrant kids work harder.
They work harder, in part, because their parents work harder – and their parents work harder because of their relentless optimism: Where others might see a dead-end job, immigrants of all colors see an entry-level opportunity.
There you have it. Plain, old-fashioned optimism and hard work from freedom-loving people. Maybe such information coming from someone other than a conservative (like me) will have a positive impact on liberals who just can’t make up their minds which dogma they want to use to justify race discrimination: an elusive, amorphous definition of “diversity” or the making-up-for-past-injustices scheme.
If they wanted skin color diversity at Harvard, they got skin color diversity at Harvard. As for “past injustices”, I’d like to hear from black, middle class American-born-and-bred college-bound 18 year-olds who’ve suffered from the effects of slavery or Jim Crow. Please, feel free to comment on this blog.
Clarence Page had better watch his step or he’s going to earn a reputation as……………..a conservative! Eat your heart out, Bill Cosby.
{ 5 comments }
Crazy statements from Harvard! These guys have been teaching for so long that they are quite removed from reality. Somehow they missed the fact that immigrants, especially first and second generations, strives for excellence. They go the extra (fifty) mile(s). Most immigrants arrived knowing that America can provide, if they are willing to DO!
icepick….pointy and sharp
Good Afternoon,
I applaud our black counterparts who seem to do so well. I think one of the problems African-Americans face is how we view ourselves. There’s a lot of hate towards ourselves that have been deeply rooted from the times of slavery. We had to learn how to survive in a country who taught us to hate ourselves. From generation to generation we past on these internal issues to our children. How can you love yourself and not know who you are. Not knowing your true history.
You have to realize the depth of slavery and the affects that we are still dealing with. What a perfect plan. Erase there history, teach hate against their own people, then in about 3 hundred years we’ll give them freedom and see how they respond. It’s been planned out from the beginning. Don’t forget that the whites who settled this country centuries ago were not the brightest people. Often hating themselves. Once slavery was abolished, blacks stayed in the country that taught them to hate themselves. We didn’t migrate out the country so we stayed and started to mimmick our white counterparts. Thinking that the way we looked was ugly. We need to unite with our black counterparts from the Caribbean and Africa since they have an internal sense of love for themselves and there culture which is also our culture. Let’s set up programs for our kids to take frequent trips to Africa to have some sort of pride for themselves. I’m not talking about Martin Luther King or Malcom X history, I’m talking about taking this back to Cush(Africa). We have the strongest power in this world compared to other blacks to make a difference and to make a change in our communities across this globe. This is a new century. Time to make real changes that has to start with the children.
I don’t put THAT much importance on history. As a matter of fact, my family history can begin with me. It doesn’t matter what was – it matters what will be. Too many descendent’s from slavery HAVE made great strides to say we can’t because we were slaves 300 plus years ago.
“We need to unite with our black counterparts from the Caribbean and Africa since they have an internal sense of love for themselves and there culture which is also our culture.”
Hold up? I’ve been reading about how those
folks have an internal sense of love for themselves . . . brings to mind the love of Rwanda . . . Haiti . . . Jamaica too! How about Sudan . . . now there’s love.
I’m NOT going to teach my kids that they are victims of what happened long ago. People will dislike people no matter what color their skin. THAT’s life.
What I’ll tell them is ‘What you make of your life is what will matter! – What will history say about YOU’
Peace and Love to you.
african immigrants are like asain immigrants. RACE does not matter to them. Culture does
Well said, Adey and african.
Comments on this entry are closed.