Update III (5/23): I am SHOCKED that this piece made it into a newspaper. It’s the ugly, barely-reported truth. 
Update II: I forgot to mention a study that showed black students from intact “religious” families perform better in school than their counterparts.
Also, choice is key. Libertarian Andrew Coulson notes that “the school system itself affects parents’ and students’ attitudes towards education. The current system gives parents no power, no control, no responsibilities. When parents can choose their kids’ schools – better yet, when they HAVE to choose their kids’ schools – they become more savvy and more involved.”
See his post at Cato-at-liberty on poor and marginally educated parents choosing schools for their kids. I reviewed a book of essays about the late libertarian Milton Friedman. One essay discussed private schools in Third World countries. I wrote:
The existence of private schools for the poor [in Third World countries] tends to weaken the argument against school vouchers that poor parents are unable or unwilling to pay for their children’s schooling. [James] Tooley proposes that, in the absence of government intervention, “grass-roots privatization of education†might possibly spring up in the United States as it has in developing countries.
Also see Measuring Catholic school performance.
———————————————————————————————————–
Sometimes, the truth needs to be uttered by one of your “own” before you believe it or act on it.
A group called Policy Bridge, a non-profit organization in Ohio, released “The Rap on Culture” (PDF), a 16-page report on “anti-education” in the black subculture. Perhaps the report and subsequent discussions finally will convince blacks with children that they’ve got serious issues to deal with, and white guilt-tripping, taxpayers’ money, and government intervention will get you only so far.
[Although the study focused on black students in the Cleveland, Ohio, area, the findings apply to black students all over the country. Given the disparities in graduation rates, test scores, etc., it's not difficult to extrapolate from the data.]
“The Rap on Culture” focuses on a huge contributing factor in black student underachievement: destructive elements in the subculture, namely, a virulent “anti-intellectual†strain that all but guarantees the academic achievement will never close and may end up increasing as black children grow up to be adults who can’t compete in a global economy.
Yes, It’s All About Race
Whenever I say that underachievement, criminality, illegitimacy, generational poverty, and a tendency toward government dependency (and not just welfare; an entitlement mentality also is a form of dependency) are caused by something within black subculture, somebody somewhere calls me a self-hater.
(The researchers and many others use the word “culture†to describe the black community. I use “subculture†because we are part of the overall American culture. Black Americans are not a unique culture; we are uniquely Americans, and characteristics and features developed through the years and/or retained through oral tradition are subcultural, not cultural.)
But when black liberals say it, preferably backed by numbers and cold hard facts, suddenly it takes on new meaning. Perhaps it’s the way I say it, or that I say it, or that I say it in public space. Who knows, who cares. The kids — and not ignorant adults — are my main concern.
“The Rap on Culture,” which proposes the cause and cure for black student underachievement, begins on the right note:
The furor over radio talk-show host Don Imus’ slurs aimed at the Rutgers women’s basketball team sparked a national discussion of the racist and sexist language and imagery that pervade hip-hop and rap music and the urban culture. What seems to have been largely ignored in this debate are the anti-education messages that have led so many African-American youth away from the academic achievements exemplified by the talented Rutgers women. It’s interesting that this uproar over urban culture has erupted at a time when Congress prepares to debate whether to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act, which was enacted in 2002 to improve educational opportunity and accountability. In pushing his plan for education reform in 2001, President Bush spoke of the need to end the “soft bigotry of low expectations.†What if those “low expectations†not only refer to schools and teachers who fail to hold minority students to high standards of academic achievement, but also describe a devalued view of education in the black community itself? What if something about the culture enveloping black students, particularly those in low-income, urban environments, impedes academic progress?
Of course, the “what if†propositions are rhetorical. There is a devalued view of education in the black community. There is something about the subculture that works against excellence in education. It fosters a strain of “anti-intellectualism†or “anti-education,†a term used by the researchers. Blaming poverty or white racism or discrimination is easier and less embarrassing, but it is futile. Even poor students of other races outperform black students from upper-income households.
The researchers are honest enough to admit the issue is race, not class or poverty. They write:
“Talking about social class is much easier in this country than talking about race; it doesn’t pick at a scab covering centuries of pain,†they write. “Defining the achievement gap in largely economic terms may make for an easier discussion, but it may have contributed to a sense of hopelessness when it comes to education reform: If you want to ensure that all children achieve academically, then it would seem that you first need to eliminate the challenges of poverty. That view, without a doubt, is outside the ability of schools to fix and contributes to a sense that the problem of low educational attainment is intractable.â€
As the researchers note, trying to “fix†poverty is a waste of time if the goal is to narrow the achievement gap. It is not the government’s job nor does it have the power to fix poverty. Some people are and will remain poor because they refuse to do any better. Unfortunately, such people continue to procreate, dooming children to at least a childhood of poverty. (As adults, they can overcome it.) What in the world can the government do to motivate people to get off their butts and go to work or stop making babies if they’re unmarried and don’t have jobs? Not much.
Poverty is correlated with academic underachievement, but the relationship between underachievement and a subculture of “anti-education†is much stronger. For more information on anti-intellectualism, see John McWhorter’s excellent book, Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America (which the researchers also cited in the study). McWhorter is a black college professor who works with all races of students and has observed concrete differences between black students and everyone else. I won’t rehash or summarize it here. Buy the book.
Recommendations
Among the proposed solutions to the subcultural problem of anti-education are these:
- Creating a distinct category under No Child Left Behind for black boys
- Extending the school day and school year in “distressed communitiesâ€
- Attracting more black male teachers to serve as “role models†with incentives
- Setting aside funds for programs designed to keep black boys from dropping out of school
(Potential problems with these recs: Civil Rights Act violations. Will the funding be set aside for racially exclusive programs, or will policymakers use code words like “underserved” and “underrepresented”?)
And finally, in the second set of recommendations, the researchers get to what’s really important:
- Parents (and teachers) need to raise expectations
- Parents need to be more involved with their children’s education
- Turn off that darn TV!
Is this necessary:
- Teachers need to be free to come up with creative approaches to teaching black boys
Perhaps. And even further down in the recommendations, although it should have been at #1:
- Schools must set and insist on high standards of conduct in the classroom. Students must be orderly and respectful. (See Self-Regulation Skills and the Academic Achievement Gap)
Because the majority of black kids in this country are born to illegitimacy and grow up in homes and neighborhoods without residential fathers, a necessary parental element is lacking. Because of this subcultural slackness, the government, once again, has to step up as savior to black people. When will it end?
I suppose that in the end, it doesn’t matter who is doing the saving as long as kids are saved.
Post-Civil Rights Pessimism
I can’t say that I’m hopeful about blacks turning inward to deal with these issues. With at least two generations of blacks having come of age since the Civil Rights era, re-educating and training people to rely on themselves and clean up their own messes is an insurmountable task. Government, especially the federal government, is perceived to be fixer of all ills. Despite what people say in public, it’s strongly believed behind closed doors.
How does one convey to a entire generation of blacks that they must look to the government to do no more than keep law and order, clean the streets, pick up trash, make sure contracts are honored…that sort of thing? How does one teach people to develop a healthy distrust of government intervention and involvement in their lives when they’ve been weaned on it as if it were a lactating mother?
In a society where the stigma against a big belly and no ring has disappeared like so much vapor, how does one convince young people to stop fornicating and making babies while unmarried? Or to build stable families, when their parents and grandparents weren’t married? Instead of passing down the kind of values that will push their kids to success, they’ve passed down a plethora of pathologies that require them to play catch-up for the rest of their lives.
Mini-Lecture
Family is where it begins and ends, not government programs. Men and women – individuals who make babies with no intentions of getting married – bear a huge portion of the blame. Such negligent and slothful behavior sets up the unfortunate children for a lifetime of deprivation. And I’m not talking about lack of food or lack of clothing. Without a father in the house, children are practically sitting ducks for all kind of ills: criminality, drug use, incarceration, academic underachievement, and on and on. Without a stable, intact family, these children have no nest, so to speak, in which to grow and develop and learn the values that will help them become people who in turn value marriage and education.
Black people have only themselves to blame, not the white man who enslaved their forefathers, not the white sales clerks who look at them “funny†in stores, not Republicans, nor any other white person who lives today or who has ever lived.
I focus so much on family instability because I believe it is the most pressing issue facing black Americans today. Almost every racial disparity is linked to it in some way. It is the height of hypocrisy for black people to demand anything from anybody when they don’t give their own children what they need.
Addendum: Typos? I’ll correct them this afternoon. Gotta jet…
Update (1:03 p.m.): A commenter writes:
“I came across your blog a few months ago and have become a faithful reader because I finally found someone “like me†who believes as I do. I am a young(31), Christian, black teacher of 1st graders (majority black also), who is in the rare minority of women of my race who are both married and waited until after marriage to have my first child.
“I have very strong views on this topic. I agree that it is sad that blacks want government to do everything for their kids except have the sex for them to conceive them. I’m very fired up, but I’ll try to be brief! On a daily basis, I see kids in my school cursing, talking loud, not prepared with basic school resources such as pencils and homework, and showing a general lack of self worth. I also see many angry parents cussing out staff on a weekly basis. Saying all that, we have 5 parents in our PTO, but we have a school of over 400 kids. Parents, not government, have to make the change; but they don’t want to. We also have a government office in our school because so many of our parents and the community are on assistance. Any hour of the day, I can look outside my classroom door and see young girls, with strollers, going to an appointment.”
{ 2 trackbacks }
{ 81 comments }
I’ve been saying this for years, but not being “one of your own” was ignored – though being Greek, I can lay claim that “my own” pointed out the impact of art and music on culture in their ‘Doctrine of Ethos’ a coupla thousand years ago.
Excellent piece, La Shawn.
You have thoroughly torpedoed the relevance of guilt-ridden white liberal “fixers” of the sort represented by poster boy Teddy Kennedy. To those misguided souls I would simply say, “Sit down, shut up, and let clearer heads get on with things.”
The Great Society (what a horribly ironic name) has been a huge failure, and has worsened the very problems that LBJ and the other clueless liberals claimed to want to fix.
We had a young man working for us for about a year, until we finally had to let him go. This was a tragedy, in more ways than one. He was bright, curious, an excellent worker, liked by everyone, a guy with the basic skill set to get ahead in life. However, he simply could not adjust to the requirement that he show up for work each of the 5 days in the week. Eventually, and after countless “coaching” sessions and 3 written warnings, this absenteeism became so much of a problem that we had to let him go. Very sad, indeed.
My take on his situation was that the pull and currency of the life in which he was raised outweighed the future promise of self-sufficiency and success which the free market offered. This was his first job, at age 25. He never knew his father. His mother had been, for her whole life, as she put it to me one day without any hesitation, “on the government.” All our man knew, prior to working for us, was an alphabet soup of government agencies offering checks. He knew no permanence, either; when asked for his address, he would tellingly say, “I stay at ………” rather than “I live at …….”
So thank you, all you meddling hand-wringing liberals, for suppressing a fine young man’s initiative, and doing all you could to make sure he never emerges from dependency. He may still make it, but in spite of your efforts, not because of them.
I wonder if the late John Ogbu was a part of this think tank? He’s the Nigerian guy who did a study on black kids in Shaker Heights in Ohio. Their parents were wondering why their kids weren’t doing well, even though they were going to a good school.
Ogbu found that the kids spent more time watching TV and less time studying, and didn’t always turn in their homework.
Their parents had taken this illogical cargo cult attitude about their children’s education, in that on the one hand they thought their kids simply had to be in the school and the teachers would shoulder the rest, but on the other hand, they also thought they couldn’t trust the teachers. For whatever reason this “other hand” failed to spur them into taking a more hands-on approach.
I wonder if the reason some parents fall down on the job is because they don’t realize what they need to do to get their children to succeed. A while back one of the edubloggers highlighted a story about a Chinese kid who wrote an editorial re: the academic gap between Asians and Hispanics in his high school. The principal was half Chinese, half-Hispanic, so he could see both sides. His Hispanic father would tell him to do his best, but his Chinese mother would go further, make him buckle down and work, and would insist he get A’s.
I don’t think the other parents didn’t care, I think they were like that principal’s father, not realizing that they needed to set expectations and revolve their children around those expectations. Others have written time and again that high achieving students had parents who would bring the hammer down if they got B’s, while the lower achievers had parents who waited until they got C’s or D’s.
LaShawn is right that family is the key, but given the illegitimacy rate amongst blacks, I hope those fallback suggestions from this new think tank can work out.
LaShawn, lack of family stability is one (if not the) leading symptoms in America today for all races. Perhaps the black subculture is the greatest immediate problem, but the white subculture is rapidly moving in that direction.
Of course the greatest problem in America is that we are denying the authority of God in our lives. All other problems flow from that. All of the social programs won’t fix this, it requires a national repentance.
Creating a distinct category under No Child Left Behind for black boys
This is the problem, not the solution.
We already HAVE a disctinct category for Black boys – EXPECT UNDERACHIEVEMENT.
“He knew no permanence, either; when asked for his address, he would tellingly say, “I stay at ………†rather than “I live at …….—
This is a common idiom that I use all the time, despite being a homeowner, and have heard black executives and lawyers use as well. It’s not that telling.
Why blame liberals for a bad employee? Yeesh.
A big concern that I have is the desire by white kids to emulate their “black subculture”. I’m afraid this will simply “pull down” the “white subculture”. I often hear horrible rap music blasted quite loudly at stop lights and gas stations and notice it is a group of white or mixed race students. The music is often laced with profanity and explicit sexual references.
When I was growing up, most of the illegitimate births in high school were from black couples. Now I am seeing a large number of black male-white female couples producing illegitimate babies.
I am certainly glad to see more interaction between the races. However, I am concerned that it is leading to more white kids throwing off their “whiteness” by becoming more “anti-education” and more accepting of illegitimacy and “anti-family”.
La Shawn,
I came across your blog a few months ago and have become a faithful reader because I finally found someone “like me” who believes as I do. I am a young(31), Christian, black teacher of 1st graders (majority black also), who is in the rare minority of women of my race who are both married and waited until after marriage to have my first child.
I have very strong views on this topic. I agree that it is sad that blacks want goverment to do everything for their kids except have the sex for them to conceive them. I’m very fired up, but I’ll try to be brief! On a daily basis, I see kids in my school cursing, talking loud, not prepared with basic school resources such as pencils and homework, and showing a general lack of self worth. I also see many angry parents cussing out staff on a weekly basis. Saying all that, we have 5 parents in our PTO, but we have a school of over 400 kids. Parents, not goverment, have to make the change; but they don’t want to. We also have a government office in our school because so many of our parents and the community are on assistance. Any hour of the day, I can look outside my classroom door and see young girls, with stollers, going to an appointment. We are also under the No Child Left Behind Act, but honestly I dislike the processes of it, while liking the desired outcome. The problems with it include too much testing, which almost forces educators to teach to the test; holding the learning disabled and other special education students to the same requirements as the rest; assigning a reading curriculum where teachers literally read lessons word-for-word and can not add any proven supplemental material or creativity; and no parent accountability component. In our district parents don’t have to do anything because we feed breakfast, lunch and dinner (for the kids in the after school program, which is just a babysitter), give MEDS, buy all the materials, teach manners, build character and provide the only field trips many kids take; all the while leaving God out of the picture.
Having said all that, many look at me strange when I state that I’ve decided to become a stay at home mom, with a home-based business and future plans to send my soon-to-be 2 year-old to a Christian School.
TVD, I DO blame liberals for many of our social problems. They invented “the soft racism of low expectations.”
I agree with the other commenters here who have pointed out that white society is headed downward as well. As a community, we have nowhere near the problem that the black community has, but standards are deteriorating so rapidly and the family is being destroyed so thoroughly across the board that it’s very frightening for our future as a nation.
Wow Twill, I can honestly say I’ve never heard of anything like that in our schools here. It must be tough. So sorry a school like that has to lose a teacher like you.
Tom, I’ve seen the same thing. Rap is pervasive. You know that when a rap song wins an Academy Award, not just black kids are listening to it. Somehow, the back gangsta “culture” has become cool for kids of all colors. And the “Girls Gone Wild” attitude toward women and girls and by women and girls themselves has also become cool.
My kids attend upper-middle class schools and pregnancy is a big problem. These are white kids – the girl at 13 pregnant with twins, the honors student who dropped out of school pregnant, the girl in choir with a “bump”. The other girl in choir with a 2-year-old, the supposed Christian girl who asked my daughter for a condom to celebrate Valentine’s Day with her boyfriend (my daughter would never have such a thing!). Quite frightening. I remember when my brother was in high school (mid-80s) and the school allowed girls to have their senior pictures taken with their children and placed in the yearbook. Our mother had a fit and ripped the school up one side and down the other. The pregnancy stigma disappeared long ago.
Have you noticed all of the celebrity pregnancies that refer to the boyfriend or fiance? What happened to husband? If you’re engaged, can’t you get married before the baby comes?
Twill, the public school system will lose a valuable asset when you go, but I can’t say I blame you one bit. There comes a point when you just have to accept that you alone are not going to be able to fix the problem and you have to save yourself rather than become a sacrifice for people who wouldn’t appreciate it anyway.
I don’t have a teaching license but I did get certification as an ESL teacher so that I could teach English in Israel. The school system here is so desperate for native English speakers that they will hire non-teachers initially and pay for them to get a teaching degree and license, and in fact, I even started one such program. After three visits to the local schools, I realized that the system is so horribly broken that I wanted NO part of it. The ultra-Orthodox and hasidic schools have a much nicer, more orderly, respectful atmosphere (children stand when the teacher enters the room) but they prefer to hire members of their own community as teachers for their children. The Israeli secular school system originated in socialism, and is mired in multiple problems: large classes, teacher/student egalitarianism which translates into no respect for authority, no respect for fellow students, no sense of order, violence, impulsiveness, entitlement. One mother told me that at a PTA meeting, a parent complained that some children were bringing in fruit yogurt for lunch and that wasn’t fair since she couldn’t afford anything but plain yogurt for her kids. She thought it would be good to ban lunch items unless ALL children could afford them. There’s your socialism! Instead of telling her to shut the blank up and moving onto important issues, the group discussed this topic for a full 45 minutes. Another father said that he was raising his child not to hear the word “no” and that he forbid the teachers to say the word to his kid (true story). When I first heard that young students call their teachers by their first names, I knew there was going to be a larger problem. (I guess I’m old-fashioned that way.) And I was right. Now I tutor children in a private home setting and I have all the control. I also teach small groups, so that I can enjoy that dynamic (and it is helpful for some children as well).
Anyway . . . it is sad that so many good teachers are making an exodus but ultimately that may spur the necessary social changes. Sorry I got a bit off topic. Maybe all needy black children need to be homeschooled in normative private homes so that they can not only get an education, but also see what a functional family and healthy home environment is like. Good luck to you!
To me, this problem is so uniquely American that as soon as we figure it out, myriad other issues will probably be solved as well.
What we have is the black community being critiqued by some black and white intellectuals about the entertainment options given them by white business men. The greatest defenders of Rap are white liberals who would claim to be “pro-black”, but in this case find it more important that they become anti-censorship. The business of Rap is largely white, and the market for Rap music is 80% white. Rap is a white problem, with black consequences.
Some say that homophobia is the last bastion of bigotry in this country; I disagree. I think that white people paying a few token blacks to act out our fantasies of violence and stupidity is more insidious and damaging than homophobia.
Tvd, the reason I assumed the “I stay at” thing to be reflective of his impermanence is that he moved 3 times in one year. If this was coincidental, I stand corrected.
The “teaching to the test” isn’t dictated by NCLB. Even within a single district, what schools do to prepare students for the standardized tests varies. In my student teaching assignment last fall, we lost an entire day of instruction to practice testing for the 3rd grade reading test (given in February). I’m sure that it continued this spring with practice tests for the 3rd grade math test (given in April).
However, in subbing in other schools within the same district this semester, that months-long practice testing regime is not done at other schools. I’m sure it has a lot to do with parental involvement and parental educational level. My student teaching was in a high-percentage low socio-economic status school. The kids who performed better on the practice tests from the start are the kids whose parents are involved (generally speaking). That school is doing what they have to do to get the kids to pass, otherwise the school will be penalized. Not sure how much the kids are truly learning, beyond “how to take a multiple choice test”…
Awesome piece Miss La Shawn. I sat in church on Sunday as the Pastor from Ebenezer Baptist Church here in Atlanta came to my church and preached about the White man being the reason for all of our problems.
It was very disturbing to hear an older liberal who was obviously part of the Civil Rights Movement to say that. This type of thinking is passed down to the next generation. So to hear this message, the idea of blaming “the man” validates the dependency on government, the replacing of the Black father with a government check, the big belly and no ring mentality and the non-embracing of education.
I guess we can be our own worst enemies at times. But those of us who break away from traditional liberal Democratic thinking are called Uncle Toms or sell-outs. But those same name-callers continue to embrace the ideologies that has created a new type of slavery.
LaShawn,
Thank you for posting this. As a future teacher this is a subject that is near and dear to my heart. I’ve always suspected that there was an element that believed that an education would make you less black but I finally have a fire to go with the smoke I’ve been seeing. I’ll read that report with interest.
Miss Ladybug, I’m not saying that “teaching to the test” is dictated by NCLB. What I am getting at is the pressure from it. At our school we have to turn in weekly “progress monitoring” scores to see if our scores are rising enough to be able to pass. Testing is 1-on-1, timed and scored by me, while I am still expected to carry out all of my other duties. Individual classroom scores are also recorded and teachers can be reprimanded if scores are too low. One year my scores were lower and I was humilated at an all district meeting where scores were analyzed and teachers names were included. This year my scores are really high and I am praised; I also have a really high acheiving group in all areas this year and more involved parents, versus that other year, where almost 90% of the class had no father in the house, an average of 5-6 brothers and sisters and parents who never bothered to read my newsletters, and were on the system (I know this because we are giving a list of all the students whose parents receive services).
At meetings I’ve raised the issue of parents getting involved, but I’ve constantly been told that we can’t do anything about the parents, we can only control what happens at school. However it is true that what happens at home plays the greatest role in what happens at school.
I won’t get started, because I won’t be able to stop.
1.) Vouchers for the parents with kids “trapped” in the public school cauldron are a “must do” first step. There are parents who want their kids to succeed and jump at the chance to make it happen.
2.) Some of my worst foul-mouthed, deceitful, sinning students were just pillars of admiration in church on Sunday. Are people really that bind or just stupid?
3.) I used to cringe at getting more parents “involved in education.” No teacher needs more parents screaming at him for problems that can only be fixed at home. No teacher needs to warp the curriculum to the fantasies of superiority of a parent without the personal investment of time and guidance to make it happen.
4.) Public schools are measured against the moral relativity of secular progressives. Since the moral relativity of secular progressives is like trying to Scotch Tape Jell-O to the fins of a goldfish, public schools have no reliable standards of conduct or expectation. The schools are more susceptible to “oink” and “squeal” than “mannered orderliness” and “educational excellence.†The “oink†and “squeal†are measured by loudness, while “mannered orderliness†and educational excellence†create winners and losers, and we have all learned that is forbidden.
5.) Students are the product of their homes and their environment. A school is a building down the street where a group comes together for a few hours a day in a mission to learn and grow. If the school is to be the vaunted village that raises the child, then some certain number of the kids will have to be taken out of their homes and environment where the real damage takes place.
Since the moral relativity of secular progressives is like trying to Scotch Tape Jell-O to the fins of a goldfish, ….-Helio
Oh my, in the midst of a rant, you have managed to delight with this imagery.
re #14
I am trying to figure out if your entire response to Lashawn’s piece is that this is all really just a nefarious case of “white men foisting evil rap upon black society” and of white men who are indulging in that “last bastion of insiduous bigotry of white people paying a few token blacks to act out our fantasies of violence and stupidity.”
Did you mean to reference #13, Jan?
#13
Oh yes, the ’sly, evil white man’ and the ‘dumb useful black man’ story, chapter 27, verse 4:
Evil ‘whites’ are manipulating ‘blacks’, because a ‘black’ person who is successful in the music business has to be a ‘token black’ under the manipulative control of ‘whites’, right?
Yes I see ‘bigotry’ in your story, but probably not where you see it.
Regards,
JohnD
I think you all are looking at the problem backwards. What is said and talked about in Rap music is the outcome of the society that we live in. If you change what is put into the equation, you will have a different outcome that will be reflected in what is rapped about and the images that are shown. Rap music doesn’t come out of a vacuum; it is a reflection of what’s going on. You are trying to treat the cough without getting rid of the cold.
#13,
Not trying to pile on here.
Diddy, Msster P, Jay Z, Russel Simmons, are all producers.
Please list at least four “white business men” in the rap business, that are as famous as those I just listed.
Just want to make sure that we realize this isn’t a black or white issue. It is an issue of degrading morals and values (which have no color or ethnicity). To try to put this on any group is why we can never get beyond our petty differences. Also, I refuse to blame anything on rap, or movies or any other entertainment that we “choose” to listen and watch.
Just my two cents, hope they were well spent.
Paul then how do you explain the WantaBees. Their culture is White they want to be part of the Black culture because they think it’s Cool. The major thing they SEE of the Black Culture is Rap. Rap is the Problem. When the music makes it Cool to call women Hos and Bitches it doesn’t matter if their were a few people doing it before the Rap. The Rap will make sure there are thousands doing it.
Do you really think that propaganda like Rap listened to all the time will not warp people?
Sex, Violence, and anti-establishment sells to teenagers. Sex, drugs and rock and roll was bad enough in the 60’s. Rap is worse.
#25
Jerry Heller
Jim Iovine
Well, that sums it up for west coast gangsta rap.
#24 Paul,
If I read your comment correctly, you are saying that Rap is only revealing the culture around it. If you change the culture, Rap will follow and switch to revealing that changed culture.
But is Rap that benign? Does it not highlight and popularize parts of the culture around it? Are there any positive aspects of the culture that Rap highlights and popularizes, thus “lifting” the culture?
I am not at all tuned into the genre. I suppose there is Christian Rap, but it is not what I hear from the car next to me at the traffic light.
This is somewhat off topic (more fitting with the previous that allowed comments..) but I thought I would comment on the “name game”. Studies have apparently shown different responses between White sounding and Black sounding names when applying for employment. I wonder why they didn’t throw in names like Juan, Remberto, Srini, Raj, Ying, or Hoa (or for that matter, how about last names that would identify someone as likely being born in African such as Nyerere, Annan or Banda …)? Latinos are now the largest minority in the US (and obviously growing as a percentage of the population..) Also people of Asian Indian and Northeast Asian decent (both foreign and native born..) are over represented in the IT field by a large percentage. I have a feeling that Jorge Cruz may be more likely to get a response for a construction or landscaping position than Joshua Blair or Tyrone Jackson. Likewise David Wong or Srini Doraiswamy may have an edge for an IT position over David Barton or Antoine Johnson. When I see studies that just compare Whites and Blacks I get the impression there is a skewed adgenda or that the researchers don’t understand anything about the demographic shifts that have occured in the US in the past 45 years.
David #29,
I made that argument before. I strongly believe that these name disadvantage studies truly are skewed, that they leave out too many other variants like Srinivasan and Cho, etc. I do not believe any study excluding those variations, among others, are worth the paper they’re written on.
Redbeard;
Yup. #13 t’was. My bad!
I instinctively agree with Gecko’s argument, because I’ve heard all my life that movies and video games and toys supposed to turn me or my peers into stone cold killers or ruin our self-esteem. Ain’t happened yet. I believe the rap is reflective and not causative of problems. A symptom.
Yes, some people are easily led—monkey see, monkey do, as my uncle says. But that’s where parents come in, to lower the boom, and to instill values to ensure that though the kid listens/watches/plays something, he won’t go and emulate it.
If Walmart makes a point of not selling certain toys, if housewives (IIRC) could effectivly protest Nordstrom’s selling skanky clothes to preteens, then it seems that the community values could prevail with respect to rap music, too.
I was dismayed that R. Kelly was not run out of town after he urinated over a teenaged girl he had sex with before hand. I was thinking he should get the Roman Polanski treatment at least. Community values means stations playing him should have faced a backlash from their customers. Grown men preying on teenage girls would have been ostracized back in the day, but now?
Oh, and yes, there is a subculture of white youth that listen to “hate the world, kill everyone music”—vampiric looking goths, punkers, etc. The difference is those kids embracing that are seen as dangerous or disturbed. They get regular reinforcement that this is not going to work for them.
I still crack up when I remember a classmate with facial piercings who realized she could not get a job if she looked that way. Kids like her aren’t facing the same myriad of problems talked about in the report; for one thing she has margin for error and a safety net.
If black kids were not constantly lagging behind, going to prison, having kids before finishing high school, etc., then we could be dismissive and blase about what’s influencing them. The facts being what they are, dismissal and deflection are not the responsible options.
Helio, there is indeed Christian rap.
And no Snoop Dog is not part of that genre…
The problem is this. There is a large segment of the inner city that views getting an education as betraying your race. Why? Don’t know. Maybe because they believe that ‘Honkey McCracker’runs the education system and wants them to fail. Maybe they think that life is better on the dole. But we need to as a society counter this perception or were going to be in deep doo doo indeed…
Is rap simply a manifestation of our culture, or is it a fulcrum for degeneracy….Hmmmm
For the sake of argument, just cuz it’s fun…. Paris Hilton is considered destructive to young girls. Menawhile, Paris Hilton grew up in the same culture so how can one say that young girls are a product of a degraded culture and thus damaged without also acknowledging that Hilton would be vulnerable as well.
So, is Hilton merely a manifestation or the cause?
First, this was Cleveland, not country wide.
There are basic contradictions that I see happening.
When private vouchers are offered, Black parents take advantage to the point where there are more applicants than vouchers.
It is Black parents who are flocking to charter schools where they are available. D.C. and Philly are great examples.
The number, and percentage, of Blacks attending college is rising. If there is an “anti-intellectualism” so prevalent as some claim, the numbers would show up there.
When I tutored in D.C., there were BUS LOADS of kids coming after hours to the “study hall.” Quite frankly, I was shocked.
Concerning rap, to date I can’t name 3 rap songs that promoted “anti-intellectualism”.
In this link here, a recent “Acting White” study is mentioned. It links to the study and a previous study.
With findings as potentially controversial as these, one wants to be sure that they rest on a solid base. In this regard, I am fortunate that the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Adhealth) provides information on the friendship patterns of a nationally representative sample of more than 90,000 students, from 175 schools in 80 communities, who entered grades 7 through 12 in the 1994 school year. With this database, it is possible to move beyond both the more narrowly focused ethnographic studies and the potentially misleading national studies based on self-reported indicators of popularity that have so far guided the discussion of acting white.
…
The patterns described thus far essentially characterize social dynamics of public-school students, who constitute 94 percent of the students in the Adhealth sample. For the small percentage of black and Hispanic students who attend private school, however, I find no evidence of a trade-off between popularity and achievement (see Figure 2). Surprisingly, white private-school students with the highest grades are not as popular as their lower-achieving peers. The most-popular white students in private schools have a GPA of roughly 2.0, a C average.
…
I also find that acting white is unique to those schools where black students comprise less than 80 percent of the student population. In predominantly black schools, I find no evidence at all that getting good grades adversely affects students’ popularity.
…
However plausible it sounds, the oppositional culture theory cannot explain why the acting-white problem is greatest in integrated settings. If Fordham and Ogbu were correct, the social sanctions for acting white should be most severe in places like the segregated school, where opportunities are most limited. The results of my studies, of course, point in precisely the opposite direction.
The notion that acting white is simply attributable to self-sabotage is even less persuasive. According to its proponents, black and Hispanic cultures are dysfunctional, punishing successful members of their group rather than rewarding their success. That theory is more a judgment than an explanation. A universal, it cannot explain the kinds of variations from one school setting to another that are so apparent in the data I have explored.
Am I saying there are no problems? No.
I’m also not making excuses although some will claim I am. Nor am I in denial though some claim I am.
Paris Hilton is the result of over indulgent, privileged, and bad parenting.
Jan,
I myself tend to blame parenting and upbringing first and foremost. I’ve been operating on the assumption that Paris Hilton’s parents enabled or neglected her to the point where she became what she has. I saw her on a talk show once with her mother, and she said how she would sneak out to go to parties. I have no memory of her mother replying about what she did to keep Paris in line or to limit negative influences. Not that my memory is definitive or anything, so take that with a grain of salt. She’s on her own now, but I have hope that jail will do for her what no one else has so far.
I believe rap is an annoyance, but hardly destructive, to fully functioning parents who do right by their children. I’m basing this on my own experience. I heard the rap, saw the movies, played the video games. One Christmas my parents bought us several Dungeon’s and Dragon’s games (gold box edition for the nerdier folks reading). My dad remarked that some kids killed themselves or each other after playing those games, and my mother replied that we (my brother and I) had more sense than that. She would know; she and my dad had raised us to have more sense than that.
I do not believe Paris is destructive to girls who have been girded with solid values, but I do believe she would not be as popular if she wasn’t reflecting what they can see around them, and I guess where she could influence them is to make them think that what they see in their everyday life has a happy ending. Well, before her arrest, anyway.
When (this is based on what I’ve noticed on my job) girls act trashy and sleep around, they don’t cite celebrities as their reason why, it’s always peer pressure, or trying to find what they can’t get at home like affection, approval, validation.
So yeah—she’s a manifestation, not a cause.
So, you say that Hilton is the result of bad parenting (which may or may not be true -I know very little about her parenting), but that does not answer the whole question that is posed.
And, if it all comes down to parenting, then why are rap and “Paris” blamed for the “youth” of today?
Another question – Last night, I was awake all night as kids drove down my street with thundering boomboxes that made my house shake.
Though the police intervened several times, this low-life travesty of community goes on. So, wouldn’t you say that so called “disadvantaged” kids in my hood who have flashy clothes, cars to drive, and souped up stereos are overly privileged?
They apparently don’t even work for their livings, unlike Paris who probably puts in more than full time hours judging by all of the irons she has in the fire.
Furthermore, every policeman that I interviewed said that it is quite common for these kids to have lengthy rap sheets while never serving a day in jail. Wouldn’t you say that makes them more privileged than Paris?
What do we mean by “privileged”? Compared to the men that I worked with overseas, getting to sleep in a bed and eat meat were extraordinary privileges.
Isn’t “privilege” merely a relative state that has little significance in and of itself?
Tyrian;
My last post was to Darkstar and I appreciate your thoughtfull response. Let me ponder it a moment.
Tyrian Purple–
Honey, sweetie, darling–pull your head out of the sand. You can blame “parenting” all you want, but the sad fact is that these days most children don’t have parents. They either have a mother and father (egg- and sperm-donor, more accurate terms) who are working all the time and visit them occasionally, or they have “single” parents who are never there, and visiting egg- and sperm-donors who spend occasional time with them.
Rap is hurting these children to the heart and soul. Yes, the “parenting” situation is inhuman. Yes, it must change. No, that does NOT excuse the people in other arenas from being responsible.
I am at this time a Christian housewife and mother of an almost-teen. I come from an intact family with a full-time mother. I grew up in the sixties, and I will tell you straight out that in spite of the wonderful parenting I had, I suffered badly from the influence of the media. I’m not certain I’ve fully recovered.
So Tyr, I’m sorry, but you’re dead wrong.
Tyrian;
If it is true, that Paris suffered from a lack of parenting, why is there such glee that she is going to jail (Tyrian: I am not talking about you, and the question is somewhat rhetorical)? I just don’t get this attitude that so many seem to have.
Ultimately, I think that we have headed down a trajectory of envy towards the rich and I see this played out in attitudes across the spectrum, whether it is the city of Durham voting for a DA apparently simply because he was skewering “rich white boys” or glee that Paris was getting what she deserved.
Meanwhile, in the last few days, I heard about three of the intended terrorists who had 54 suspended licenses between them, a would-be-rapist in a church who had seven felony convictions before he spent a day in jail, and a drunk driver who was charged with three counts of public cocaine abuse while on probation who had not served a day in jail. This is more common than not, and I have interviewed three policeman just this week about the sheer number of offenses that “poor” people routinely have before spending a day in jail.
So, I guess my question is why we are harsher upon the rich, when even the disadvantaged in our society are obese and overindulged. To me, it would be one thing if there were folks who had to steal to eat, but that just isn’t the case, no matter how much liberals would like to paint it that way.
And, if it all comes down to parenting, then why are rap and “Paris†blamed for the “youth†of today?
Because people want simple solutions instead of going deeper into the problem.
So, wouldn’t you say that so called “disadvantaged†kids in my hood who have flashy clothes, cars to drive, and souped up stereos are overly privileged?
Yes.
Furthermore, every policeman that I interviewed said that it is quite common for these kids to have lengthy rap sheets while never serving a day in jail. Wouldn’t you say that makes them more privileged than Paris?
No. They have rap sheets. Dollars to dough nuts, Paris record will be expunged.
So, I guess my question is why we are harsher upon the rich, when even the disadvantaged in our society are obese and overindulged.
That is not true. Just ask any defense attorney. If you have money, chances are even if you are convicted, you will get less time, reduced time, reduced sentences, or an expunged record.
I have family who are in social services and to a person, when they compare the things wealthy individuals got away with vs. those who depended on public defendants for the same charges, they say money matters.
Hi Trish,
Can you work on your reading comprehension, please? When I said that rap and such are not destructive to kids with parents, that means parents who do their jobs (real parents) don’t have to worry about it. I am basing that on my own experience and observation, and you’ll get no apology for it.
When I say real parents don’t have to worry, I thought it was obvious that parents who don’t do their job are the ones who do have to worry. That actually covers what you said in regards to neglectful DNA donors, because those would be the parents who don’t do their jobs. It never occurred to me I would have to spell that out, but if you need me to, consider it done. Please believe I’m trying to be polite here. Can you try it, too?
That covers your first paragraph. Your last, that you had good parenting but nevertheless fell for whatever it was that came your way: doesn’t negate my last point about the origin of the Paris-types. I stand by it.
Here’s why I stand by it: every day at work I have to audit the testimonies of people who must tell their life stories. Day in and day out, the women who reported a wild, Paris Hilton-style past are not the ones with the best upbringing. Some may have been taught right from wrong, but what I said about approval, validation, and attention applies here. They didn’t get it from home.
You may doubt it. But not one of them (okay, five cases a day, five days a week, three years running, you do the math) finger the media. Not one. Ever. They were trying to fit in. They were seeking approval, they did not believe their opinions or feelings were valid, so they caved when pressured. They were trying to bind someone to them. They thought (typically because they were made fun of at home) that no one else would want them, so they better do what it takes to please the sleazy losers they were with.
Are you getting the picture now? Girls taught their own worth don’t seek it by flashing their bare bottoms to the whole world. Who teaches them their worth? Their parents first. They (include men here, too) often marry the people who remind them of the parent who hurt them the most. It’s sad how predictable that is, but there you go.
And yes, some people can do the best they can and their kids can still go wrong. No question. But on average? What I said stands. The media is simply not co-equal to a good parent. The destructiveness is more of a worry to those who lack one. I believe you also said this, (about the DNA donors), so I trust I won’t need to say any more about it.
No. They have rap sheets. Dollars to dough nuts, Paris record will be expunged.Dark star
Bottom line; Paris is still going to jail for a crime that few kids in my area will go to jail for doing. In fact, the kids in my area will have rap sheets the size of novels and still be on the prowl for victims.
If you have money, chances are even if you are convicted, you will get less time, reduced time, reduced sentences, or an expunged record. -Dark Star
Not true…The reality is that every single policeman I interviewed says that they underpolice urban/minority areas and that the average criminal has a rap sheet the size of a novel before they do the time. This is why, in the largest recidivsm study ever done in the US, 200,000 criminals had over 4 million previous convictions.
I just read something very interesting on the Dallas blog about the subject of the achievement gap:
“Not only was living this subculture immensely fulfilling, the boys said, it also brought them a great deal of respect from white youths. This also explains the otherwise puzzling finding by social psychologists that young black men and women tend to have the highest levels of self esteem of all ethnic groups, and that their self-image is independent of how badly they were doing in school.”
http://www.dallasblog.com/caroline-walker/its-the-culture-stupid..html
I find this quite interesting as it squares up with a thought that I have been puzzling over for some time. Contrary to what many would have us think, white kids seem to feel that their culture is not vibrant, not worth highlighting, and only noted for its historical degradations, and thus these kids emerge from school feeling a sense of shame. I remember my duaghter telling me once that the teacher asked the white kids in the class to describe their culture and they were at a total loss, yet each of them wa able to prattle on about the “cool” minority cultures.
It was only much later that I realized that my children had actually been taught to demean their own culture.
I find this enormously sad. In an effort to make black kids prefer black dolls, so to speak, adults decided that the best way would be to demean the culture of whites.
It’s that zero sum scenario that redbeard talks about. How appalling!
>>Paris Hilton is the result of over indulgent, privileged, and bad parenting.>>
DS!!! We agree on something!!!
>>If it is true, that Paris suffered from a lack of parenting, why is there such glee that she is going to jail>>
I’m not sure, but I think it has to do with the fact that _we_ all have to obey rules. Paris has not had to. She does what she wants – this is what I personally mean by being “spoiled”. Hollywood and the very rich have become the US royalty, and I think we both envy them and despise them for their air of privilege – their attitude that the laws don’t apply to them as they do to the rest of us commoners. Paris will spend a very short time having to obey the rules – whether she likes it or not – and mommy and daddy won’t be able to intervene. She _will_ have to obey rules like everybody else – I think that’s why there’s the glee.
I hope it’s a beneficial learning experience for her. I suspect it will be too short, but we’ll see.
Ok, I’ll be the curmudgeon
and disagree with the “privileged” part. Having a pile of money doesn’t turn people into idiots like Paris Hilton.
I’ve known some absolutely filthy rich people who are, as we would say as a compliment back in Indiana, “as common as dirt.”
On the other hand, I’ve known some poor folks who were as self-centered, selfish, ill-mannered, immoral and sleazy as Paris Hilton. The difference is that Hilton does her stuff at 5 star resorts, and the ones I’m talking about do it at Motel 6.
I’ve been thinking about the rap music thing and wondered about it as an influence. Think about music. Think about the song/tune that you hear either actually, or just a few bars, or even just hear the title and you can’t get the darn thing out of your head all day. Maybe it’s one of those seven styles of learning things, but I think music is much more powerful than we are giving it credit for. We aren’t teaching kids church music, or patriotic music – they’re learning the garbage popular music that has words that teach them unacceptable social behavior and we risking the possibility that _this_ is what keeps running through their minds. I think that rap should be banned because it may be harmful to the health of society. jmo.
#43 –
Actually, this sounds like media influence. The media helps create the culture that the person was trying to “fit in” with, and suggests what types of people get peer approval.
Parents are, of course, the protection against the media influence, but just because parents can lessen the damage done by media doesn’t make media blameless. I think it is obvious that listening to the violent misogynist rantings of a whole genre of rap is harmful indirectly as well as directly.
Suek:
“I think that rap should be banned because it may be harmful to the health of society.”
Let’s go along with this for a second…and these are very real questions:
1. Who is going to enforce the ban and by what criteria?
2. Will music be filtered through a point system?
a. Is it Christian enough? (yes . not sure . no )
b. Is it Patriotic enough? (yes . not sure . no )
Or would music just be banned outright if it included rhyming lyrics or references to sex, drugs, disaffection, improper politics, etc?
Regards,
JohnD
Banned by common decency, with record studios refusing to produce vile and misogynistic garbage, and radio stations and stores refusing to play it or sell it. That’s how it worked when I was young, back when there was such a thing as common decency.
Redbeard’s got it.
Sorry you don’t, John D.
By the way…here’s a totally unrelated link. Well, only related in the sense of regulated speech…
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2007/05/modest-ambitions-of-your-friend-google.html
#53
“banned by common decency”
Surely we are talking about choice there, not banning? The choice of a producer to produce or not, or the choice of the buyer to buy or not?
I’m all for people making consensual choices to buy or not to buy. One’s morals/ethics is central to how one lives. I try to make ethical choices about everything I buy, whether or not I get ridiculed by other consumers who buy whatever is cheapest/returns the most bang for buck/sensation per second.
So yes, i guess at a semantic push, ‘mass-consensus’ (choice not to buy) would be a type of ‘ban’.
I was not aware that was Suek’s point, so I guess my questions are invalid.
Not wanting to get entrenched into semantics, but I guess many people can only see the misogynistic/gangster elements of rap music, like the fundamentalists, the most obnoxious ones get all the coverage/fame.
But music is one of the world’s greatest healers, and the best music is music that brings people together. The worst music is arguably the TYPE of popular music that is produced to make money, fast, lots. Just like cheap exports, there is a whole iceberg under the tip of the glossy brochures that no-one would be buying into if they had a conscience.
Regards,
John
“Sorry you don’t, John D.”
No worries Suek.
‘ban’ generally means something different than ‘choice’ in old Blighty, as our censors have actually banned records for lyrical content before now.
Apologies for appearing a dolt.
John
I think that rap should be banned because it may be harmful to the health of society.
What about heavy metal? Lyrics about mutilation, satanism, torture, rape, necrophelia, etc. aren’t very healthy.
And why should performers like Lupe Fiasco be banned?
#40 Trish
I’m with you on this, Trish. I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s and my TV and movie watching was monitored somewhat, but even so, it was nothing like the utter filth that is common nowadays. Even television commercials are filthy, sexually suggestive, and use bad language as a matter of course. Children do NOT need a steady diet of this crap going into their impressionable minds, I don’t care how much effort their parents put into “counter-influence” activities. Once an image goes into your memory, there’s no getting rid of it. There are just some things I don’t want slinking across my brain, much less that of my innocent child. We don’t have a television anymore, as it is typical in our religious community not to have one, and I carefully select DVD’s for watching. Obviously, we don’t listen to filth music and regardless of the content, I simply do not like rap. I don’t even consider it music. I don’t care who disagrees with me on that point because it’s not important, it’s just my preference. There are other areas I consider “grey areas” and if we had young children, I’d probably play these CDs or DVDs in the privacy of my bedroom but allow my children to grow up untarnished, never having developed a taste for such things. I’m thinking of Robert Cray, who is an oustanding musician and lyricist, but almost all his songs are about adultery and messin’ around. Do I want children growing up listening to that and forming their ideas of love and romance from his lyrics? (Practically gospel music compared to rap.) I love Seinfeld for its genius comedy, but do I want my children laughing at Elaine’s recruitment of “spongeworthy” boyfriends? Sigh. I’ve cleaned up my tastes pretty well but not completely, hence Cray and Seinfeld will remain; but why not just protect my future (G-d willing) children from developing a taste in those things from the get go? They just don’t need the trash. There is so much in the world of music and art and literature that is worthwhile, why let them idle in the sewer?
Shade…
Yeech. I never listened to heavy metal, and somehow it didn’t impress itself on my consciousness. If what you say is true, then I’d ban it as well! If I were king…! Don’t know Lupe Fiasco…
Is “fiasco” _really_ his name?
Oh…in the interest of openess and transparency, I should probably confess – the only time I listen to Rap, Heavy Metal or any related “music” is when it pulls up behind me or alongside me at a traffic light. I listen to talk radio and classical music. Period. KMZRT used to be my station of choice until advertisers decided that their market was to the 35-55 yr old market, and listeners of KMZRT were mostly over 60, so they pulled their advertising. With a loss of 80% of advertising in one year, KMZRT shut down the classical side of its bandwidth and went to country. Now 105.5 is KGO or something like that. I guess you could say that advertisers “banned” classical music. We still have the SCU station, but I preferred KMZRT. Oh well.
I could still listen to it if I had an HD radio that splits the stations, but I’m still trying to figure out just exactly what an HD radio is, what it costs, and if I really want to buy one for my car.
Tom,
Okay, look, let’s suppose two extremes here. Suppose you have kids attending a school run by nuns. The prevailing culture of that school is that Paris Hilton-types get ostracized, not emulated or admired. Those who act like her are looked down upon, and kids are strongly encouraged to behave in the opposite manner. In that instance, watching Paris is not going to be much of a problem, because what they were taught, combined with what their peers will say, will tend to cancel her out.
Suppose you have another school that has a day-care for teenage mothers, and boys casually mention the two or three baby-mama’s they have. In that instance, Paris might be looked up to because there’s little or no counter-influence. There’s no shame in being like her at that school. There is no one to tell them to be better and act better. Even if there’s no Paris, they’ve still got their peers. That’s why I say she’s a reflection, not a cause.
Batyah, you brought up watching Seinfeld with your kids. I have a question: suppose they did see that episode with you about Elaine and her spongeworthy boyfriend?
I saw that episode as a teenager, and I kept thinking there was something wrong with Elaine for not being choosier before the sponge shortage. Yet, if my mother were to react with approval at Elaine’s “test,†I might have questioned my judgment (In my family we make sarcastic remarks at the programs). I somehow can’t picture you shouting, “You go girl!†at Elaine in that episode while your kids are around.
Part of the reason I don’t see the media as threatening is because my folks never hesitated to let us know where they stand when we heard something or watched something with them. “See, that’s what happens when you do_______!†Or, “Real people have more sense than that, what’s wrong with him?†They’d comment like that all the time when we watched something.
Their habit gave me another lens to evaluate what I was seeing. No matter what it was we saw, whether a horror movie or a sitcom, it always reinforced their values because of what they said about it. Sometimes a show sparked debates or discussions. Is my family so unusual? (this is a rhetorical question).
>>Suppose you have kids attending a school run by nuns. The prevailing culture of that school is that Paris Hilton-types get ostracized, not emulated or admired.>>
I have attended schools run by nuns. The Paris Hilton-types either conform to the rules or they get expelled.
“And why should performers like Lupe Fiasco be banned?”
Er, because it’s rap music?
Just a guess
>>No matter what it was we saw, whether a horror movie or a sitcom, it always reinforced their values because of what they said about it. Sometimes a show sparked debates or discussions.>>
You raise a good point. We used to be shown movies at our school on occasion that were used as discussion movies. We were told beforehand that the movie was to going to be discussed afterward. I still remember one of them – “Knock on Any Door”. Starring Sal Mineo – yes…that old! I still think about it, because we still face the same problem – that is, that sometimes people commit crimes because they just haven’t been raised right.(very short version) The question is, are we justified in giving them the death penalty? The old “it’s not his fault” issue. I’ve come to the conclusion that society has a right to defend itself, and _is_ justified in having the death penalty. I believe in God and an afterlife, and I’m content to let God make the final decision on whether the person is fully morally responsible for his actions or not, but here in _this_ life, he broke the law, and we have a right to demand justice for that action.
So yes – objectionable material can be turned to good purpose. On the other hand, I never allowed my kids to have TVs in their bedrooms, and never allowed the soaps – I told the kids that the soaps caused corrosion in my TVs tubes. That covered a few other shows as well. “Not on _my_ TV” was the rule.
It’s funny – even now my (adult) kids won’t bring us an R rated movie “because Mom won’t want to see it”. They always thought I was _so_ strict. Ha. Two have children and guess what! DVDs only (except for sports)!
Yes Sue K,
And I want to make clear, I don’t think you or Batyah and anyone else is out of line for restricting what your kids watch—that seems like a normal thing for parents to do (that’s why I keep harping on the point about the parents). Dad was careful to make sure we didn’t see that scene in Coming to America where some woman bathes Eddie Murphy’s nether regions, for example. We did have TV’s in our rooms, but my parents had it easy because we only wanted to see Nick at Nite, which meant the “Donna Reed Show,†“The Patty Duke Show,†and “Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp.â€
I simply don’t think Paris Hilton or rap is going to send kids down the path to ruin when they have a strong counter-force in their parents, and their environment. I know old women who make a point of humiliating youths who wear their pants hanging off their butts. No matter what those guys see in the videos, they know that those women aren’t having it and dress accordingly around them.
I was actually thinking that point might be reassuring, since I know good parents do get stressed about what their kids see and hear. Have more faith in yourselves. I don’t have kids, but I came from that generation that was supposed to be warped and ruined by the trifecta of media influences, and it just didn’t happen that way because of the parent factor. I can get behind protesting to enforce community standards, as I said about R. Kelly. It’s just that I don’t see it as a given that R. Kelly’s music is going to ruin kids unless certain factors apply.
I can relate to your kids. When my mother is in my car, I still avoid certain songs or stations because I was sure she wouldn’t want to hear it. Imagine my surprise when she knew the words to Rod Stewart’s “Do You Think I’m Sexy?” song.
Not true…The reality is that every single policeman I interviewed says that they underpolice urban/minority areas and that the average criminal has a rap sheet the size of a novel before they do the time. This is why, in the largest recidivsm study ever done in the US, 200,000 criminals had over 4 million previous convictions.
1. Your area isn’t the entire U.S.
2. Your police are not doing their job and if you know it and don’t report them, you are part of the problem.
3. There are national studies that show the disparities in juvenile justice. When criminal background and crime committed are taken into account, it’s the urban kids who get the harsher sentences.
This is why, in the largest recidivsm study ever done in the US, 200,000 criminals had over 4 million previous convictions.
That’s a faulty conclusion on your part. Under policing isn’t the cause of recidivism, it’s light jail sentences.
I find this enormously sad. In an effort to make black kids prefer black dolls, so to speak, adults decided that the best way would be to demean the culture of whites.
Another faulty conclusion. The Black doll studies focused on Black kids. The result of the study was to get more Black images in the media. The result did demean white people. If you knew about the study, you wouldn’t have written what you did.
That’s a faulty conclusion on your part. Under policing isn’t the cause of recidivism, it’s light jail sentences.darkstar
I never said that underpolicing “causes” recidivism and I am baffled that you took it that way.
The result did [I think you meant did not] demean white people.-Darkstar
I used the phrase “In an effort to make black kids prefer black dolls, so to speak,” as a METAPHOR. OBVIOUSLY, the result of the doll study did not demean white people, and, in fact, the doll study was not even being discussed.
I am totally on board with encouraging children to find beauty in themselves.
The ONLY point I was making is that far too many people think that the way to lift up one group is to deman another.
To me, it was a pretty simple concept and, once again, I am staggered at the way that you interpret what I write.
It’s as if you filter everything that I say through a distorted/pre-conceived lens that has little to do with what I wrote.
It’s as if you filter everything that I say through a distorted/pre-conceived lens that has little to do with what I wrote.
I read only what you write. The filter is yours.
Darkstar;
You may read what I write, but you obviously don’t understand it.
Let’s run this by others.
I said in #45: It was only much later that I realized that my children had actually been taught to demean their own culture. I find this enormously sad. In an effort to make black kids prefer black dolls, so to speak, adults decided that the best way would be to demean the culture of whites.
Here is Darkstar’s response:Another faulty conclusion. The Black doll studies focused on Black kids. The result of the study was to get more Black images in the media. The result did demean white people. If you knew about the study, you wouldn’t have written what you did.
I throw it out there and I have to wonder if you guys think that Darkstar’s response indicated that he misunderstood what I wrote.
I know of several studies involving black dolls. Each had different control groups and each was testing a separate premise. However, in reading jan’s comment, I see no reference to the any study, so color me perplexed.
At any rate, it is not something I care to get cranky over.
Helio;
Thanks for taking a moment. While this may seem somewhat trivial, I think that the dynamic extrapolates into a much larger issue.
Is “fiasco†_really_ his name?
Stage name. He’s one of a group of rappers who have achieved some popularity without promoting street thuggery and disrespect of women.
I can see what Jan is saying about her kids. There is Black History Month and (in Texas, at least) celebrations for Cinco de Mayo (which actually commemorates a Mexican military victory over the French…) and “dieciseis” – September 16th (Mexican Independence Day) in public schools. And (being a newly minted teacher), I’m sure they have also done studies of other foreign cultures. But what have they been asked to do to celebrate their own family’s individual culture and traditions? Use white folk all seemed to be lumped together when, if you look back at our ancestry, come from many different cultural/ethnic backgrounds. Myself, I know I have German, Irish, Norwegian, and English ancestry for sure. Except for the fact that my father was in the Army and we actually lived in Germany, I don’t know what I would know about that part of my family’s heritage. There is no such thing as “White History Month”, and, depending on where you live in the US, you might be exposed to Italian-American/German-American/Irish-American/whatever-else-white-American celebrations, but I really don’t think it’s the norm.
I just want to say that I’m so glad that I was directed to this blogsite. It is hard to find other blacks, who for the most part, feel the same as me about blacks. I do get tired of being called stuck up, a sellout, are just not black enough.
This is a very interesting topic to me. I think that it does start with parenting. Banning rap music is not going to solve the problem. What needs to happen, is we as a whole need to stop supporting those who supports rap music.
As far as the topic from jan and darkstar, I think the both of you make valid points, but at the same time you are both closed minded. It’s not always one way or the other. I didn’t see where jan made a reference to any particular study, but I could see what darkstar was saying.
Black History Month, and Cinco De Mayo, can be excepted by all. The media plays a role in which holidays are actually made into big events. Black history month has been around for years, it has only recently made it mainstream. There are holidays that were more for white culture, that everyone has just embraced as their own. Saint Patricks Day is one. Everyone thinks they are Irish for a day. Just embrace the days and make it your own.
Contrary to what all has said above, the media as well as parents equally has faults in what is happening to our society. Parents do need to be parents, and the media, well what can I say, they just need to stop trying to find the controversial stories to report. There are far more things that happen in this country that can have a positive impact on the kids.
#75
“There is no such thing as “White History Month”
Why not?
JohnD, be careful. The mere asking of that question, in earnest or tongue-in-cheek, will have you branded a racist bigot by the PC Brigade.
Of course, the idea of a history curriculum based upon race, any race, is inconsistent with a scholarly study of history. This is America, and a proper study of our history comprises all races.
It would be ridiculous, for instance, to study the Battle of New Orleans through the tiny prism of any one race. In that battle, whites, blacks, and indians were united as Americans, along with volunteers from every walk of life.
It seems that we, as a society, are in many ways backing up rather than advancing. Self-segregation is one primary symptom.
Trust me when I say that we don’t want a “white history” month.
But I will take a neutral paragraph in a history book about George Washington rather than the two ugly comments that I saw in one textbook that I was reviewing. Meanwhile, the book had four glowing pages about DuBois.
In another book, native Indians were painted as all good and the Pilgrims were painted as all bad, even evil. It was taught that the Pilgrims were disgusting racists who purposely engaged in genocide.
In virtually every book, slavery was painted as somehing only white men do and capitalism was painted as simply a tool for white men to continue to oppress the suffering innocent noble poor of the world.
The big problem is that many of the books we reviewed were written with an ideologically liberal slant rather than simply being a vehicle for factual reportage.
#78
I agree with much that you say,Redbeard. In order to overcome the race-game, then all ’sides’ have to completely give it up, even wipe history clean.
The first step would be to deny and disown any historical or current effects of ‘white’ political, social and media dominance.
Additionally, the ‘PC brigade’ is hollering on both ’sides’.
The Left for endless discussion and redressing of the wrongs done to ‘blacks’ in America, and the Right for complete cessation or denial of any discussion of the obstacles that American ‘blacks’ have faced, or still face.
In short (taking Jan’s ‘black doll’ thing as an example:
- It is politically correct to certain leftists to dislike the ‘white’ doll.
- It is politically correct for certain rightists to dislike the existence of a ‘black’ doll
- It is politically correct for certain rightists to blame ‘black dolls’ for children’s highest percentage negative response to black dolls.
- It is politically correct for certain leftists to think that ‘brown’ dolls would help ‘brown’ kids feel less alienated in a ‘white’ world, even if the ‘brown’ kids where the majority in their own neighbourhood.
Etc.
John, I have to disagree with your “centrist” view of the PC agenda. It is clearly a creation of, and a tool of, the political left.
Your assertion that the right is “for complete cessation or denial of any discussion of the obstacles that American ‘blacks’ have faced, or still face” is not accurate. Conservatives do not want to cover up or deny anything. As Jan indicated, all we would like to do is to remove the spin, the distortions, the flagrant political agenda.
And at the core, while we do clearly understand the historical wrongs done to minorities and understand the need to teach the truth, we simply believe it’s time to stop wallowing in past injustice and allow all races together to start getting on with things. The line is “we shall overcome” not “we shall whine and wring our hands.”
Don’t knw what happened to my last comment, so –
The last thing that I want is a “white history” month.
I WOULD be happy to see textbooks that didn’t have such an ideologically liberal stance.
When I was firt invited to do a textbook preview, I was actually shocked by what I read. One tiny example: Book after book had two negative sentences about George Washington and glowing page after page about DuBois.
I think that parents would be stunned to view the totality of what their children are taught from Middle School on.
Native Indians -All good. Pilgrims – genocidal greedy monsters. White men – Capitalist pigs, slave masters, privileged, oppressors. Minorities – vibrant, family oriented, loving, long suffering…
There is a lack of balance and white achievements are trivialized and often ignored while the achievements of minorities are given disproportionate attention. Ben Franklin – WHO?
I think that this is often done with good intentions, but after countless interviews with kids, they emerge from the system with a negative view of white men. Kids have a hard time sifting through years and years of indoctrination and emerging with an even view.
As I noted from another blog:
“This also explains the otherwise puzzling finding by social psychologists that young black men and women tend to have the highest levels of self esteem of all ethnic groups.”
http://www.dallasblog.com/caroline-walker/its-the-culture-stupid..html
That finding should not be surprising given the way that educators have decided to deal with racial identity in America.
JohnD;
I am sorry that I ever used the “doll” study as a metaphor because the study has little to do with what I am talking about.
It was how society decided to deal with the results of that study and others like it that has proven problematic. In order to lift up one segment of society, a distrubingly large group of people resort to bashing another segment –
The “doll” study is not what is being discussed. I would venture to say that most folks understand that kids would benefit from and enjoy dolls that look like them (Though my kids always preferred dolls with costumes from other countries and the more exotic, the better). To me, this is such a no-brainer that it is not particularly of interest.
Comments on this entry are closed.