*** ……… I'm just so tired of being black in that way, that way which can only understand itself as the people who are oppressed by white people. The people who condone murder as long as it annoys whites. The people whose morality is situation specific if there's a way to get back at whites by forgetting our home training.
……….So, combining old fashioned virtue for its own sake with Post-Movement opportunity was my recipe for success. So many poor blacks are missing the first component, they can't make use of the second.
………. Why keep reliving your worst nightmare over and over again? They're still focused on the obstacles, not the opportunities because they 're still focused on making white people 'fess up and apologize. They act as if its still 1954 instead of 2004. They're old dogs who can't learn new tricks, even the young ones who hew to old school racial discontent.
…… Also, we have to learn to believe in our own efforts again. We have to act as though we truly believe we don't need anyone to ride to our rescue.
………. Reading the newspapers while trying to move beyond the tropes of a stultified racial discourse, was maddening. Even as I was trying to abandon my post in black America's war with white America, I was constantly being brought up short by thinly veiled racism and just plain bs all around me. ***
We'd build one around choice, like-minded parents and educators who agree on what children need and how they are to be taught, one school at a time.
We'd allow parents to buy education services just as they do medical services, from any able provider they choose. That's part of the fix.
The other is marriage and the family. Only three of 10 black children are born to intact families. New research data reported by University of Chicago economics professor James J. Heckman and University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy L. Wax on racial disparities in education make the connection.
"Young black children lag significantly in school readiness before traditional school programs and expectations of discrimination could have much effect. Black underachievement, especially among males, is present even in the best schools and is only weakly correlated with indicators of school quality, such as per-student expenditures, class size or racial composition."
The explanation is probably not poor schools, poverty, low teacher expectations, excessive school discipline, nor anticipated discrimination, they write.
What, then, explains the gap? "The most important influences on young children's development are family, home and immediate social circle." Young black children watch more TV, read fewer books and converse and go on educational outings with families less often. And "they are more likely to be raised in homes without fathers, family mealtimes or fixed routines."***