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'Hard-core rap' is cashing in on stereotypes*** My personal theory is that black people of my generation -- I'm 46 -- have resisted speaking forcefully against this because, like all baby boomers, we are deathly afraid of appearing less than hip. But as I recall, our parents never worried about that. They understood their role to be not hipness, but guidance.

THE FRUIT OF FAILURE

I am of a generation that has largely failed that role, that turned ''judgment'' into a four-letter word. The fruit of that failure lies before us: an era of a historical young people who traffic in stereotypes that would not be out of place in a Ku Klux Klan meeting.

And I'm supposed to be angry at David Chang? I'm not. He's just a good capitalist, just regurgitating what he has been taught in hopes of turning a buck. My anger is not for the student, but for his teachers. And not just my anger, but my sorrow, too.

I'm not losing sleep worrying about what David Chang thinks of black people. I'm more concerned with what black people think of themselves.***

Make excellence a 'black thing'***If I were a high school student with lackluster SATs, I'd take no comfort from those who defend my mediocre academic work accomplishment as an unfortunate characteristic of my race.

I'd be offended by the fact that the HOPE scholarship controversy has become another forum for repeating the ancient wisdom that black students simply don't perform well on standardized tests.

I'd be embarrassed by black lawmakers who threaten to go to court to protect my right to receive HOPE, even though my scores don't measure up to those of most white students.

I think I'd want to prove them wrong. I think I'd give up TV and take as many advanced placement classes and spend as many hours with a math tutor as necessary to raise my SATs. That's what I'd do.

Will black children around the state respond that way? Or will they merely sink back into a fatalism that will guarantee the outcome -- poor test scores -- that has been forecast for them? ***