Not at all; "black culture" in and of itself is not anti-education or anti-intellectual. On the contrary, if you examine black culutre in it's purest form, and go back to the pre-1960 timeframe, when you can and will see black cuture in it's pure form, you will find that there is a huge emphasis on education and on intellectual advancement within the culture.
The contemporary problem is two-fold. First, thanks to the race warlords and poverty pimps and liberal enablers, it has become "OK" for blacks to relish within their "victim" status. The be-all, end-all for black America, thanks to the Jesse Jacksons of the world, is to play the victim. Unfortunately, this has spread to education. John McWhorter pointed this out in his book, "Losing the Race."
The second problem is tied, not to "black culture," but to popular culture. Pop culture is force-fed to the masses via television and radio; it's extended by peer pressure and culture. It's popular not to achieve - why? Because you don't see or hear of your favorite television star or favorite musician going that route. When they see blacks on television, they are more likely to watch something like "Fastlane," which glorifies violence and crime, than to turn on the Discovery Channel or PBS.
Now this does not speak for everyone by far. But it does speak for enough that are reflected by the statistical numbers.
In any event, when households are steeped in traditional values, either black or mainstream or both, the offspring of those houses prosper academically.
It also means that the parents are more likely to take an active role in their childrens' education. Even something as simple as checking over their kids' homework and helping them to understand concepts taught at school. When that happens, everyone benefits.
Honestly, I don't see that being isolated to blacks; Pop culture has created a generation of "feel-good slackers" who do as they please.
Professor Ogbu was invited by black parents in 1997 to examine the district's 5,000 students to figure out why....For example, he said that middle-class black parents in general spent no more time on homework or tracking their children's schooling than poor white parents. And he said that while black students talked in detail about what efforts were needed to get an A and about their desire to achieve, too many nonetheless failed to put forth that effort....Not surprisingly, he said, the parents were disappointed when he turned the spotlight on them as well as the schools.
As a teacher, I find it amusing that the parents themselves hired Professor Ogbu, presumably to find a scapegoat in the school system for their children's lack of success, but were offended when he found the problem was closer to home.
Indeed, and consider the Reconstruction period as well. The first things many former slaves did was start schools and try to re-unite their families - two things that fly in the face of much of the current "popular wisdom" of black culture.
The contemporary problem is two-fold. First, thanks to the race warlords and poverty pimps and liberal enablers, it has become "OK" for blacks to relish within their "victim" status. The be-all, end-all for black America, thanks to the Jesse Jacksons of the world, is to play the victim. Unfortunately, this has spread to education. John McWhorter pointed this out in his book, "Losing the Race."
Culture does change with time. Imagine an American World War II soldier magically transported from 1942 Berkley, California to 2002 Berkley, California. He would be wondering what planet he had landed on. "Black culture" overall has declined just as "white culture" overall has declined since the 1940's. Unfortunately, the decline of black culture has outpaced the decline of white culture because of the race-pimps.
In current "white culture", it is accepted in school that there will be "jocks", "nerds", "stoners", "brains", etc. They may harass each other but no one group claims to represent "whiteness".
As a black Conservative, you not merely harassed. You are demonized by the Jesse Jackson-Harry Belafonte crowd. There is only one "black culture", it is the True Black Culture and that culture is the Victim Culture. Thus, self-sufficiency is frowned upon and failure is not only excused but actually demanded.
I had a black friend in medical residency that I tutored for Boards on a subject she was weak in. She had come from a well-off family with her father being an airline pilot for a major airline. She told me that, in high school, when she went to a white private school, she did fine in school. However, when they moved and she transferred to a school with a large black student body, she experienced the "acting white" attacks from the other black students because of her academic excellence. Peer pressure is a very powerful force in a teenager's life. After a while, she decide to let her schoolwork slide and be accepted as as "black" rather than remain an "Oreo" with a high grade point average.
It is the tragedy of modern American black culture that the popularized ideal of "black culture" is the culture of the most dysfunctional sub-culture that Black America has to offer. It's cool to be the black equivalent of "white trash".
For that, black youth is not to blame. They had no control over what culture surrounded them when they were born.
For that, the race and poverty-pimps and the Liberal media who sign on to their Victimhood agenda are to blame. They have replaced the black culture of Booker T. Washington with black culture of Snoop Doggy Dogg.
Unfortunately, you never hear anything today about the black culture which was thriving and vibrant even in the Jim Crow South.
Granted, it did not extend to all black people by any means, but even in the early 1900s, and even in the South, there were blacks who were wealthier and better educated than most whites.
I think it's a tragedy that black children now are not educated about that part of their history - those people who succeeded despite tremendous obstacles - but instead are told that every difficulty is because the world is prejudiced against them.