Kenny Burns of
Maryland Politics Today, July 8, 2007,
verbatim:
Here is where some people (black) might be upset…well sorry. My friend wrote, "I don’t think minorities should continue to expect handouts from the government, which is the main reason why the black community stays in this modern day "slave" mentality. Massa’ keeps providing for you so you never pick yourself up and get out of the cotton fields, this goes for all minorities (and even some ghetto ass white people) not just the black community." I agree with this statement in it’s entirety.
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I would also add that a majority in the inner city have a "crab mentality." Have you ever been to a restaurant and saw the crabs in a tank? Each time one of them tries to rise, one of the many crabs on the bottom reaches up and pulls them back down. Here is an example from the human world, someone tries to work hard, to try and lift themselves up. The crabs or the people around him pull him or her down by saying (altogether now) "Why are you acting white?" or my personal favorite "Why are you trying to be like an Uncle Tom?"
Kenny Burns promised a few days ago to put up a provocative post on the topic of race, and this post would appear to be the delivery on that promise. I will start where Kenny left off to reach some related themes.
Certainly it is extremely destructive for anyone to face, experience or internalize the concept from one's own community that success (i.e., in practice, the power of choice) is undesirable and associated only with (occasionally hostile) outsiders. I would not feel comfortable gauging to what extent that mentality in fact exists. The black high school students I have dealt with - and I have dealt with few - seem consistently to have a competitive, "We/I are/am going to find a way to own the world" mentality, which I found wonderful, both individually and in a collective sense with other black Americans. But the students I have dealt with extensively came from Largo High School in Prince George's County, which was and is one of the wealthier majority-black public school communities in the United States. The young women who interned in my office wanted to be judges or prosecutors, i.e. higher public ambitions than I myself had as a licensed attorney.
I think there is a massive difference between "the world owes me a living" and "I am seriously struggling and could REALLY use some back-up." I think that there is also in the media a perception of white middle-class immunity to self-destructive attitudes, a false perception. Part of what makes racism so virulent among a lot of blue-collar whites is the recognition among blue-collar whites that they themselves are about one paycheck, one person or one mistake from the problems of many black Americans; the rural or suburban trailer park and the urban "'hood" are not so different in substance, and there are white and black trailer parks and urban ghettoes alike in different parts of the U.S.
Hidden beneath issues of "acting white" and "Uncle Toms" are cultural and style differences between "black culture" and "white culture" (or, more precisely, ranges of differences among ranges of said cultures) defined extremely loosely, such differences contribute to miscommunications and misunderstandings and perhaps contributing to a sense of alienation from mainstream (i.e. mostly white) U.S. business and academic culture among some black Americans. A tiny example: the word "fight" has different meanings for most white and black Americans. A "fight" for many white people means an unpleasant argument or what might be termed a "spat"; for many black Americans, a "fight" is a physical confrontation that might involve the law or other reasonably serious fallout. While white Americans are so diverse by class, region, religion and ethnic identity that generalizations about white people across those divides are difficult, the cultural miscues between blacks and whites follow a number of discernible patterns that, with education, can be recognized as meaningful cultural differences.
A white American visiting the Netherlands - a nation of about 16 million people - as an exchange student would take the time to learn some basic Dutch (and, if going near Groeningen, a little Frisian), would learn about Dutch cultural expectations about paying for meals, alcohol consumption, bicycles, World War II, herring, the Queen, marijuana regulation and why the Dutch are ABSOLUTELY not Germans. Knowing jokes about wooden shoes would not cut it. These generalizations would not apply to every Dutch person, of course, but would be useful to know for likely successful interactions. Similarly there are about 32 million black Americans. You would think that white people could be troubled to learn about black culture beyond negative (and positive) stereotypes to get to what's real.
The "Guide to the Netherlands" books in the travel section of most big box bookstores do not have a direct counterpart for black American culture and life. For many white Americans, black America is another country and one that they don't visit.
The best books along these themes that I have found are the two to the left. Neither is a "perfect book"; indeed, the Kochman book is a bit dated but still useful. I think both books should be in the working library of every office manager and school teacher - black, white or whatever. Of course, actually knowing black people and, you know, speaking with them would be better than books, but it's understandable that well-meaning white people don't want to look stupid or assume that any given black person in their acquaintance is jumping up and down for an opportunity to be a cultural encyclopedia for the inquiring Caucasian.
As far as black people getting to know "white culture[s]", that's both easier and tougher - easier because white people are, well, easy to find but more difficult because white people are so numerous and of such varied subcultures themselves.
I drill on the cultural issues here because it's in cultures, assumptions, fears, histories, heritages and heroes, not in skin tone, that black and white Americans of good will find themselves in conflict. As for those not of good will, they do not seek common ground but conflict itself, period. I am perhaps overly optimistic that the former out number the latter among blacks and whites, but optimistic I remain.
Labels: Alliance (MD Blogger), Americana, culture, education, race, racism
I am very interested in the new proposal from Mayor Dixon and Ray Lewis pertaining to the Gateway South Project. I would love to see the Russell Street area revitalized. My concern is I would like to see "Nipper" the old RCA DOG return to his original home on Russell Street. I have lived in the Baltimore area my entire life and one of my most fondest memories was while entering Baltimore City via the BWI Parkway (Russell Street) and being able to look up at that RCA DOG, it is a historical landmark. Nipper is currently now on top of the Greyhound Bus Station located at the corner of Park Avenue & Centre Streets. With the proposal of building a new Greyhound Bus Terminal in the Carroll Camden area (Russell Street), I think they should incorporate "Nipper" along with the new terminal. Nipper is currently owned by the Maryland Historical Society on West Monument Street. I have spoken several times with both Rob Rogers (Acting Director) and Jeannine Disviscour (Deputy Director for Collections) of the Maryland Historical Society but, to no advail. They suggested to have a fiberglass replica made of "Nipper" and it would probably not be very expensive to do so......which sounds great to me. I am currently corresponding with a company called F.A.S.T. Corporation (fastkorp.com) located in Wisconsin in which they specialize in making large figures of any kind. I have emailed Mayor Dixon several times and have also spoken with her assistant Anthony McCarthy and they both feel it is a great idea. What I need is for someone who has some clout in this city of ours to jump onto the bandwagon or at least keep throwing me some suggestions on how to tackle this project. Would you please get back in touch with me and give me your personal opinion and any suggestions you would have pertaining to this matter. The attachment is a photo of "Nipper" on top of the Greyhound Bus Terminal.