Replies

In 2013, the LA Times ran a heartbreaking profile of Kashawn Campbell, and African American student who, after becoming class salutatorian in his South Los Angeles high school, found himself in danger of failing out of UC Berkley. After years as a straight-A student in high school, Campbell found he “had barely passed an introductory science course. In College Writing 1A, his essays — pockmarked with misplaced words and odd phrases — were so weak that he would have to take the class again.”

Georgetown University freshman Darryl Robinson found himself similarly challenged even after a stellar academic high school career in Washington, DC. He wrote bluntly in the Washington Post: “Even though I attended some of the District’s better schools…the gap between what I can do and what my college classmates are capable of is enormous. This goes beyond knowing calculus or world history, subjects that I didn’t learn in high school but that my peers here mastered long ago. My former teachers simply did not push me to think past a basic level, to apply concepts, to move beyond memorizing facts and figures.”

Very telling. After generations of liberal thinking infused into their schools, they are worse off than ever before.

Affirmative action and social promotion have been devastating for “preferred minorities” (blacks, Hispanics, women); when they enter the real world they are demoralized by how far behind others they really are. It leads to bitterness and racial resentment, crushing any hope of self-esteem; it simply feeds racial inferiority complexes.

When you see how few “big words” are used on mass media like TV, you realize that whole segments of the population would have no idea what they are talking about (or selling) if you threw a three-syllable word in there...

The article ignores the biggest variable of all, the home environment. Blacks do poorly in school because so many have no serious structure and guidance in the home. "Working harder" is an outcome variable, not input. It is the outcome of having two parents who are good role models and who expect high performance. Those Black students who have these factors present will do just fine.