~In response to Forbes blogger Gene Marks’ article, If I Were A Poor Black Kid~
Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2011/12/12/if-i-was-a-poor-black-kid/
Is it easy? No it’s not. And this is a valid claim because I actually am a poor black kid. Born into the underclass, and set miles behind other children because of the color of my skin. So it’s hard, real hard. It takes a special kind of kid to succeed. Success is easily accessible to those born into the right skin color. But it’s different for people who are Black, like me. It takes a special kind of kid to fight through inequality and the crafty rhetoric of racism in this country.
You see, President Obama was right. The gap between the rich and the poor is a problem in this nation. But added on to inequality we have another problem. You see, ignorance is the problem. But the ignorance is too often misplaced. Rich White people are under the impression that we aren’t trying to succeed. As a poor Black kid from the inner city, I can say that I would be able to do so much more if rich white people took their foot off of the necks of my communities. The tools are not here. There isn’t enough for everyone. Opportunities are few, and we have to go through the back door to gain access to the majority of those that do exist.
You see I went to a magnet school. As a poor Black kid, I did not know I was supposed to be picking schools based on different education standards, I’m just a kid. But for some odd reason, rich White people think I am supposed to not only be responsible for this information, but also manage to get into these schools. Rich white people think that white kids should have a childhood but poor Black kids have to learn to network their way through grade school.
Poor Black kids are expected to go to their school counselors. You see, I went to my school counselor and even though I am in the top 5 of my high school class I am steered to a local community college and told I won’t make it into a university. And opportunities are not as simple as Google or Bing. If that were the case then this would be a wonderful world and America would actually be a nation of equality.
As a poor Black kid I’m expected to somehow find the money for a cheap laptop. Who said 200-300 dollars is cheap to a poor Black kid? And if a poor Black kid manages to get 200-300 dollars who’s to say that they can actually spend it on a laptop? We are the underclass, when we get access to a sum of money we take care of family first. If we happen to come upon 200-300 dollars when the refrigerator is naked and the cubert is bare, we make the right decision. Everything in this life is hard for us to come by. You see, the things that come easily to rich White people are the things we struggle to attain. But if the way we are trying to survive in this nation is incorrect, we’re glad we have rich White people to steer us in another wrong direction and then raise taxes as the toll for their bad advice.
Some nerve! This White man has no idea but gets paid to be an authority!
I remember being in elementary school, when a friend told me to stop “acting” smart. He then pointed to the ‘gifted’ class, that undeserving White queue, and remarked how Black was inferior to White. I was stunned. This was a fellow Black man–in elementary school–my grade!
Just today, I saw a youth, wearing his clothes like the “hip” kids, clearly a fashion adopted due to peer pressure. Or the other day, I heard a child being jeered for purchasing clothing from payless.
Granted, all of these seem like “Black-on-Black” but there’s a background. This same White man funds an agenda to create a self-hatred against the African and every one in the society buys into it: this hatred of the African. A hated people can not even act without the hateful paradigm.
You brilliantly write that he opines that “White kids should have a childhood but poor Black kids have to learn to network their way through grade school.”
I like it, but in reminding me of that dreaded school system, I recall that the guidance counselors and the teachers actively hated me. It was difficult to get into the gifted programs and the counselors always persuaded the able Africans against trying. I remember that in elementary school, the city awarded me with the highest mathematics honor for my whole school, but my classroom teacher could not give me the same honor. And I remember acing the state’s mathematics test, but the Math department in high school told me that I could not qualify for the honors program. It’s complete bollocks.
Let this man research grade inflation and the obvious inverse of grade deflation. I’m done. What an irritable White man. At my blog, I sometimes consider the motivations of these White folk. Clearly, ‘hate’ comes to mind. His writing seems innocent, but what a hateful writing to blame Black children for society’s dismissal of them.
Does he know about the justice system letting European children slide where African children lose lifetimes in person? Bah–I am done. What a despicable article Forbes’ endorses!
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