This is a cross-post from my blog. I'm experimenting with the community features here. It's longish, but there's a special treat at the bottom. wink
It's funny, just as I'm about to write about education, I run across
this post over at
Calpundit, which touches on a bunch of different issues in education. He links to several very interesting pieces, including
this one by
Washington Post columnist William Raspberry on the racial education gap. And now I'm about to write a long post that's (mostly) not about education at all. Oh well. Hopefully I'll get to my intended topic someday soon.
The gist of the article is that maybe black students are underperforming, not because of racist attitudes and practices, but because their culture values education much less than do other segments of the population. And, in a narrow sense, this conclusion is more or less correct. But the cultural attitudes of African-Americans do not exist in a vacuum, but rather in a melting pot. Before one dismisses the role of racism in the racial education gap (something certain conservatives seem strangely eager to do), one must examine the role of racism in forming the substitute cause, in this case, black cultural attitudes. And it seems crystal clear to me that white racism has been a major influence on black culture. How could it not? Most African-Americans are the descendants of slaves; even if particular people have never themselves been victims of racism, it is impossible to ignore the role racism has played in their lives, since without racism, they would in all likelihood not be Americans. But, of course, most African-Americans
have personally experienced racism, whether they realize it or not.
But what form of racism am I referring to, and how exactly does it contribute to the devaluation of education in black society? Well, let's take a look at what is (stereotypically) valued above education amongst African-Americans: physical prowess (as typified by professional athletes), lyrical skills (rappers), and mental hardness (gangsters). I'll deal with the "gangsta" obsession in another essay, since it doesn't really fit in here, but as for the athletics and music, let's delve into why many see those areas as more promising than, say, politics or medicine. The most obvious reason is that blacks have experienced immense success in athletics and music. For instance, the majority of the players, and notably, star players in the NBA and NFL are African-American. In music, rap is now more or less synonymous with pop; last week's top 10 singles on the Billboard chart all featured rap, and for years, rappers have outnumbered rockers and popsters on the singles chart. Meanwhile, prominent black officeholders are still rare (though less so), and who can name a single famous black doctor (not counting characters from TV shows like St. Elsewhere or ER)? The point here is not that African-Americans are not succeeding in medicine or politics-- they are-- but rather that the "superstars" in those fields-- the senators and medical correspondents and such-- are almost never black. The superstars in music and pro athletics, however, are black more often than not. Everyone gravitates toward superstars, while few are drawn to follow in the footsteps of garden-variety successes. So it is easy to see why young black people would look to rap and basketball for hope.
But, unfortunately, those areas contain far less possibility and far more risk than do even politics or medicine-- two of the more exclusive areas of academic pursuit. I would have no problem with the education gap if forgoing that education provided a reasonable chance at success, but of course it does not. The fact that most famous/successful black people are either musicians or athletes is thus quite troubling.
So why are there so many African-American superstars in music and athletics, and so few in other areas? Let's first look at what makes a superstar. First, obviously, is ability. But ability is apportioned equally across races; black people are not inherently better than white people at basketball, or rapping, nor inherently worse at lawmaking or surgery (I hope I don't need to prove this, though of course I could). But at least as important as ability is hype. One cannot be a superstar in any field without the media to hype you. And hype has absolutely nothing to do with skill. The people who control the hype machine are not interested in how skilled you are, but rather whether you will make them money. And guess who those people are? You got it, rich old white guys. And while I know of only one media mogul who is explicitly racist in his views (Richard Mellon Scaife), you can sure as hell bet that any of them would sell any person-- or group of people-- down the river to make a buck. And that's just what they've done to black society.
In the 1960's these media moguls, seeing that black America remained a largely untapped market, set out to create some African-American idols. They knew that music and sports lend themselves exceptionally well to idol worship (and thus, profits), and so those were the fields they targeted. Creating black superstars was easy, for there was no shortage of talent in the black community, and most Americans were at worst indifferent to the influx of blacks into popular music and athletics. Now, it is very important to note that black athletes and musicians have not been hyped, on the whole, more than their white counterparts. But a black superstar is viewed
much differently within the black "community" than a similarly-hyped white superstar is within the white "community".
What do I mean by this? Well, as I've already alluded to, African-Americans have historically been a repressed minority. So when an African-American rises above the repression of the white majority, that person becomes a sort of folk hero (and rightfully so) to other African-Americans. If a group is repressed, any successful member of that group becomes not just a role model but an icon of how to escape that repression; if a group is already successful, however, a particularly successful member is met with approval, but is not necessarily iconified. If you come from power, the achievement of power is less noteworthy than it would be to an outsider. And so when the media hypes up black athletes and musicians, but not equally deserving black doctors and politicians, though the motive may be monetary (i.e., media moguls and their buddies make more money off of sports and music stars than they ever could off of doctors or politicians), the net result is that blacks are encouraged to enter the high-risk worlds of pro sports and music rather than pursuing the safer route of education. Even if you are a failure as a politician, you still will have gained many easily transferable skills, but a failed athlete (and very few succeed) has nothing; a degree is much more useful than a jumpshot. So it is very revealing that the mainstream media desegrated its hyping of musicians and athletes so readily, while completely ignoring the many accomplished and deserving African-Americans in academic fields.
So it is that while most people look at say, 50 Cent or Shaquille O'Neal, and see hope-- "He had nothing, and now he has everything; so, too could anyone"-- I see only the broken dreams which surround them, and the greedy men behind them.
Yes, it is true that black culture, and not white racism, is the most direct source of the racial gap in education. But this does not mean we can pretend that racism is now extinct in America-- on the contrary, it means that it has evolved into a stealthier, deadlier beast. A beast ruled not by hatred, but by greed.
Postscript: You may have noticed some similarities between my thoughts in this post, and
the controversial remarks of Rush Limbaugh, drug addict and ex-ESPN commentator. But Rush was, as he so often is, wrong. He claimed that McNabb is overrated by the media because they want black quarterbacks to succeed, and that is plainly ridiculous. The media, "liberal" as it may or may not be, certainly does not care about race or politics, but only about what brings in the ad revenue (ironically, it is for just that reason that Rush was hired by ESPN). If McNabb is overrated (and I don't think he is), it is for the usual reasons-- he has charisma, and his team wins a lot of games. Maybe if Rush hadn't been hopped up on OxyContin, he would have realized that the real problem is not that black athletes are overhyped, but rather that black non-athletes are underhyped. Although somehow I doubt even a sober Rush would think such a thing.
Oh, and as for that special treat: It's a poll (near the top, on the right)! What, you were expecting Gary Coleman?