Tannette Johnson-Elie writes about immigrants and the entrepreneurial drive, something largely absent among black Americans in inner cities:
Porter’s research, along with other recent studies, show that immigrants bring something you can’t get from a government program: work ethic and job-creation skills, and ambition coupled with the resolve to make the most of the investment others have made in them.
“They engage in businesses that most of us don’t want to engage in, like Laundromats and dry cleaners. They have a dogged determination to succeed,” said Keenan Grenell, associate provost for diversity at Marquette University.
Instead of complaining about how immigrants come here and take jobs or how they set up shops in black neighborhoods that they often don’t understand, let’s applaud them for their ambition and their willingness to do the things to help the economy that we wouldn’t do.
I’ve often marveled at the fact that immigrants are willing to venture into some of the most dangerous locales where few others would go and create successful businesses. I know few people, myself included, who are willing to take such risks or who have the motivation to work the horrendous hours – 12 to 16 hours a day – that many immigrants often put in to nourish and build their businesses.
For many decades, black folks here and across the nation have watched immigrants quietly come into our neighborhoods and dominate niches, such as dry-cleaning shops and gas stations. (Source)
Also read Johnson-Elie’s recent feature article, Immigrants create a new land of opportunity. I assume many of you know immigrants who came to America with very little but managed to achieve the American dream. And I’m sure many of you are as baffled as I am that people born and raised in this great country really believe their skin color prevents them from doing the same.
Despite my posturing and sometimes deliberately puffed-up pontificating, I’m nothing special.
I’ve worked hard to build up this blog and my consulting business. I’m always looking out for ways to market myself and learn new things. For example, I’m as frightened of public speaking as anyone else, but I force myself to do it and to get better at it because it provides both a challenge and exposure. Challenges build character and marketable skills whether or not you overcome the challenges. It is the struggle that’s important and what stimulates me.
Embracing the struggle and overcoming challenges are part of my personality. It’s why I’m so critical of what I consider wasted opportunity and people who don’t want to struggle. But I often fail to consider that some people’s struggles are overwhelmingly debilitating.
Not everyone can make the same decisions and take the same path I took. Not everyone grows up in a decent home or with a father or with a father who is an entrepreneur. Some grow up mired in what’s called a “cycle of poverty,” an attitude passed down from generation to generation. Broadly defined (there are exceptions), this cycle perpetuates underemployment, illegitimacy, substance abuse, and criminality. Typically, these are characteristics of the “underclass,” a sub-group that functionally lives outside the mainstream.
I know people who are members of the underclass. They are in my own family. Some were friends growing up. I pass them on the streets of Washington, D.C., (as I’ve done in Philadelphia), and sit beside them on the subway. I see their lifestyles glorified on TV and in movies. I’ve watched liberals pander to them, promising more government perks and blame-shifting. I’ve worked on gang trials and had to look at their remorseless faces all day, five days a week and listened to testimony of their murderous deeds and collated bloody crime scene and autopsy photos of people murdered because they were witnesses.
(Criminals come from all social classes, so I’m not implying that only the underclass produces criminals or that all members are criminals.)
I have yet to meet a white liberal who can attest to the same or anything close to it. I had an interesting conversation at CPAC with a white conservative on this topic. She’s had some experience with the underclass, and her naivety about what works is gone. More important, though, is what she said about liberals who push social programs that keep them locked in the cycle.
“Is this all liberals want for them? Handouts? Don’t they believe people can do better and should expect more than what liberals think they should have? I’ve seen it up close, and I know those social programs do not work.” (paraphrased)
I didn’t have an answer for her.
This may sound mean-spirited (it’s not), but I believe some people want nothing more than to exist and engage in every vice imaginable. They have no regard for others, not even the children they sired. To me, that ought to be criminal. They don’t care what you or I think of them, they have so sense of pride or conscience, and they’re only out for themselves. (That’s fine when you’re earning your own way, but when you’re living on my tax dollars…) When convenient and/or profitable, they’ll blame others for their lot: racist Republicans, Democrats who aren’t doing enough for “black people,” their probation officers (!), their own family…
This may sound unrealistic (it’s not), but I believe people who want to improve their lives find a way to do it, whether they sign up for classes or job training or seek out others who’re successful. Even if they live in the most blighted of neighborhoods with no decent role models whatsoever, they can better their lives.
And this is where I can close the circle. I need to make an effort to seek out such people. Individuals have different motivations, varied levels of talent, skill, and drive, and different levels of exposure to opportunity. I certainly didn’t come this far on my own. I have a supportive family, encouraging friends, influential acquaintances, a drive to be ambitious and different, and most of all, a relationship with the living God.
To righteously criticize bums and social parasites of all colors isn’t unbiblical; to offer no hope definitely is. I try to do that on this blog, but the people who need to hear and read the words the most probably don’t read blogs.
Nothing touches me more than to see people willing to struggle. The whole world may be against them, but they are bound and determined to make something of themselves when no one has faith in them. The cycle of poverty and failure can be broken. I must be willing to help those who want to break it but don’t know how any way I can.
One thing is certain: hope doesn’t cost money, and I’ve got plenty of it to share.
Update:
- Listen to my interview with Lores Rizkalla last week and the one with Captain Ed on Saturday live from CPAC.
- Part III of the Intelligence series will be posted this week. I may add a fourth post. Lots of info. See The Last Taboo (Part I) and Some Research (Part II).
- Lost in the shuffle: CPAC wrap up.
- Blogging Brit Clive Davis reviews John McWhorter’s new book, Winning the Race: Beyond the Crises in Black America. That’s what I’m talking about, naysayers…who inexplicably read my blog although they hate it. Human nature is weird!
