Posted on 12/03/2005 2:09:57 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Mandisa likes Abercrombie & Fitch, not FUBU.
She speaks proper English, not Ebonics.
She takes honor classes and belongs to the Beta Club and National Arts Honors Society at Parkview High. She plays the violin and has danced and sung in area productions of “The Nutcracker” and “My Fair Lady.”
Mandisa Surpris, a 15-year-old sophomore, is all this.
And she’s black.
Some of the other black students don’t know what to make of her. The way she dresses, the way she talks, the grades she earns. She’s an anomaly. To them, she’s more white than black. They’ve even told her so to her face.
“It’s the most ignorant statement I’ve ever heard,” Mandisa told me. “A lot of black students have the ability, but they think that being smart isn’t cool. So they hide it.”
She can talk about her experience now because she knows how to deal with it. That hasn’t always been the case.
Last year, the comments, slights and snubs took a toll. Mondays, the start of the school week, were especially tough. She’d complain of pain in her limbs. Mom and Dad took her to several doctors. Tests were taken and exams were given. Nothing.
Then, a doctor at Emory University wondered if her illness wasn’t psychosomatic. Something, he said, must be going on in Mandisa’s life that’s making her body ache. It was a breakthrough.
Mandisa, crying, had a heart-to-heart with Mom and Dad. She told them how some – not all — black students treated her as an oddity because she didn’t succumb to their idiotic and destructive views of the black diaspora. My words, not hers.
“It was painful,” said Renald Surpris, her father. “Some black kids don’t have the education and understanding to accept people for who they are, not what they look like.”
I know what some of you are thinking. Here Rick goes again. Writing about race. Stirring up trouble. Critics say it all the time. I don’t care. I write about racial issues carefully and selectively, and sometimes, when I’m ticked off.
Like now.
My people, my people. Some of you disturb me. There’s something terribly wrong when black students — even one — at Parkview or any other Gwinnett campus criticize, ridicule and question the “blackness” of someone like Mandisa simply because she wants to excel.
It’s even sadder in this case because Parkview High is no ghetto school. Its student population doesn’t hail from lower-income apartment complexes and subdivisions. At Parkview, the parents and students consider their school the crème de la crème of public schools, the clientele upper-crust perhaps and at the very least middle-class.
So I blame parents. You black parents.
It’s your fault if your children think academic achievement is uncool, anti-black and pro-white. It’s your fault if your offspring are so enthralled with the so-called thug life that they devalue education, hard work and dedication.
And you’re especially to blame if your child’s sense of black culture means that you have to think and act a certain way, and that to do otherwise means you’re acting like whitey.
It’s your fault. And you’re crippling your kids.
Mandisa wants to pursue acting or a career in the fashion industry. She plans to attend college in New York, her birthplace. I’m sure she’ll be fine.
It’s the kids who ridicule her that I worry about. When they succumb to this crippling ignorance, we all lose. We’ll have fewer doctors, teachers, artists and more. Fewer people to be proud of.
Enter Clarence Thomas, Enter Condi Rice, Enter James Steele
Mandisa needs to keep it real.
Owl_Eagle
"You know, I'm going to start thanking
the woman who cleans the restroom in
the building I work in. I'm going to start
thinking of her as a human being"
The Black adults who pelted that Black Republican with oreo cookies are leading the charge, and there are plenty of them.
Fortunately there are plenty of parents who sacrifice big time to put their children in Parochial School where they don't generally get this black/white dividing line. But by and large it's the thug culture of the parents who perpetuate the desire of their children to remain lazy, stupid, unemployable and worthless. what a legacy to leave the world.
Nauseating
"At Parkview, the parents and students consider their school the crème de la crème of public schools, the clientele upper-crust perhaps and at the very least middle-class."
The key word here: "Public"
Hang in there young lady and make something of yourself.
And yes, PC does permeate the military even now, especially the Air Force....ask the Chaplins at the Air Force Academy.
"She plans to attend college in New York, her birthplace."
Come home Mandisa, if you can make it there.....
Good on this guy for pointing the finger at the parents, a la Bill Cosby. Enough with the "black redneck" stuff. Check out the NY Post today and see how Mr. Singh a member of the Crips (or Bloods, I forget) shot to death another Guyanese immigrant over a cigarette. Now the "thug culture" is corrupting those hard working immigrants we hear so much about.
ENOUGH ALREADY! As we say in NYC.
I've been in the military since 1972, and it is worse now than it's ever been before.
There is a high school that accomodates every student in the small town. All types of kids from all backgrounds are thrown in together. That ghetto anti-education attitude affects decent kids. I've seen good students pick up on that attitude and lose interest in homework, tests, etc. When these kids finally wake up, they're in their late 20's, and they don't have a good enough job to afford a house, etc.
That's part of it, but also look at the black celebrity types like Snoop Dogg. He deliberately dumbs hisself down. He be talkin' like a complete imbecile 'cuz it coo.
Fo shizzle ma nizzle.
Now WTF is THAT supposed to mean in plain English?
You can't even hope to get through a job interview when you talk like half a retard.
I think it was Dave Barry who said the British sound smart because of their accents. People can sound really stupid, too speaking Ebonics.
They're stuck on stupid the Lib Plantation!
I agree. If African-Americans (pardon my concession to PC) would have role models like Rice, Powell, Sowell, Williams. Carver, and a myriad of others, maybe they would score higher than 85 on IQ tests and move on up through society.
Exactly! I was going to add Dr. Thomas Sowell, Dr. Walter Williams, Ward Connerly, Roy & Niger Innes, Alan Keyes... The list goes on and on.
These proponants of the "Thug Life," who claim "Black heritage" for their "style" need to ask themselves one thing... WWFDD? (What Would Frederick Douglass Do?)!
Mark
I am not sure that is a uniquely black problem, I vaguely remember similar problems when I went to HS some 30 years ago. It didn't matter what color your skin was though. If you had some smarts, you were a target of some ridicule or shunning. It isn't that much different as an adult either. Get an employee of the year award and you'll find out who your friends really are.
This girl is in grave danger of becoming a Republican.
Nah, they'll brainwash all of her good instincts out when she goes to acting or fashion school in New York.
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