Vision Circle

I think kids will be what their personalities lead them to be. If they are competitive, generally speaking, and their class expectations are to be a basketball player, chances are that they don't need any special motivation to learn how to dribble. They'll take it upon themselves, and the next thing you know, they'll be dribbling. If they are not competitive, then they'll sit on the sidelines. People do what they want to do.

Secondly, one of the most tiring and futile exercises is comparing simply black with simply white. On any day of the week you'll be able to find a poor black person and a rich white person. Comparing the two is meaningless and constantly done. What is not often done is comparing families, and of course that's because it's difficult to do. But a start could be talking about some of the following factors.

Generations of college attendance
Generations of home ownership
Numbers of business owners

Let's leave it at that. If you look at an extended family and start tallying up such factors, it's going to tell you a lot about what kind of expectations are in the home and what children can easily see as their destiny.

So I'm combatting the myth that you can 'motivate' someone into American success. I say that American success is organically grown, and that concentration on the exceptional individual is a big problem in the thinking of those who believe in motivation. I am saying that there is something fundamentally wrong with telling a young girl that she can be 'an Oprah'. The fact of the matter is Oprah herself can't even raise a daughter to be 'an Oprah'. Bill Cosby's children are not movie stars, but I have a very good idea what they are like.

Tangentially, I think this is key to understanding something about the phenomenon of the underachieving black children of Shaker Heights as studied by Dr. Ogbu. I seriously doubt you'll find those families have 2 and 3 generations of college or home ownership. My nickel says their parents were exceptional and just moved to Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights which were not black neighborhoods two generations ago. But if you go to the Old School upper middle class black neighborhoods, you'll find a much more consistent level of success.

None of this should come as any surprise. Old money and family traditions work for blacks the same way they work for whites. Why anyone should believe any different smacks to me of the same old idiotic white liberal structuralism and paternalism which overruns conversations of this type. Too bad blackfolks believe it.

While I'm on this tangent I should note, apropos what Dr. Spence is saying below that I find symmetry in my assertions and his criticism of 'positive images'. What are positive images supposed to do other than motivate? We get into that entire game of self-esteem, which is so often just an artifact of conformity.

Thirdly, to interject a bit of scholarship. Andrew Hacker in his book 'Money' said that most Americans, no matter what their socioeconomic status believed that they would be very satisfied if their salaries were increased an average of about 20%. That much more would make the difference for them. In this context I take it to be a confirmation of my achievement vs excellence idea, but most importantly that the overwhelming majority of blackfolks are always going to be able to find whitefolks with 20% more. It's not a huge amount on any absolute scale, but it is the material difference between what people get and their satisfaction.

So long as the gap between black and white is viewed in purely in terms of race and money, minor differences will continue to be a source of continuing dissatisfaction. There is always more 'them' out there just beyond the reach of blackfolks. No amount of motivation is going to close the gap. So long as 'they' are subjectively 'white' the target will shift and will keep shifting until some African nation becomes the planet's superpower.

Therefore efforts should be directed at reconciling people to familial progress in the context of class, that area in which they have some direct knowledge of their status quo and achievement relative to it.

Matters of uplift through motivation, positive images and beating 'the man' are ultimately useless, because they 1) cannot be reliably replicated generation over generation 2) they have diminishing returns as socioeconomic status increases and 3) there will always be somebody (nominally whites) at points beyond the increment of satisfaction.

Understand that I believe we are begging improper questions in the matter of racial uplift. There should be no reason for 10 million black families to be upset at the socioeconomic stalling or regression of several dozen black families in Ohio. There is no status for the race, there are only averages which are not really useful. Who can depend on this or that University study or position paper by the NAACP to help us deal with the problems of our outlook on life. If we have families, then they can tell us if we are doing well or poorly, and this is a close and immediate benchmark. If the race is to achieve or fail it will come from the families in aggregate, not from the race as a whole and then allocated among the families. So our benchmarks must come from families.

Finally, let me throw in a twist. If blacks cannot find satisfaction in improving the lot of their extended families and are searching for external motivation in order to compete with 'them', what are they doing but 'acting white'? In this way of thinking there is no other context for black progress except that which can be identified as white and superior - a presumed constant threat yet a moving target. But black families will never be white by this definition. There is no escape from this foolish cycle. Clarence Thomas' sister will never be a judge and that's no surprise. Barry Bonds' father was a baseball player and that's no surprise either. Clarence Thomas has an issue with 'the race', Barry Bonds does not.

Blacks need to do right by their own standards in line with their family, religious and class traditions. Otherwise they will be endlessly frustrated by setting standards which will estrange them from organic support networks of family and community. 'They' will always be out there as will excellence. When the family achieves consistently, excellence becomes a simpler achievement through inheritance of a well organized legacy.

Posted by mbowen at October 5, 2003 12:17 AM | TrackBack