<p>It’s about culture. Even well-off black kids experience a different culture from white and Asian kids. Pretending it isn’t so doesn’t make it not so.</p>
<p>I will say that I can imagine some sports-loving white dads writing the article, and maybe getting it published. But there, the culture is more equivocal about this.</p>
<p>“I don’t see how the dad in the video differs from an Asian-American kid’s dad.”</p>
<p>That’s interesting! So you read the article and imagined an Asian dad? I didn’t look at the video, and only read the excerpt cut and pasted.</p>
<p>(Not talking about who had the easier time in school.)</p>
<p>^Nope. I did not imagine anything. I did not see words “black”, “white”, “asian” in the article. Someone else brought up the race issue.</p>
<p>When I read the article, I was virtually certain that this would be an African-American dad. I looked at the video, and I was right. Not because I think that there aren’t plenty of white and Asian dads who feel the same way–rather, it’s because a media outlet is only likely to print an article like this if they think there is something unusual and inspiring about it. I think an African-American dad who takes this approach is swimming against the current of his own culture more than other dads would be.</p>
<p>What if you clicked on the video link and saw a different people? You still believe your guess is correct?</p>
<p>This CNN article also reminds me of another CNN report: “Don’t fail me”. It discusses another nerdy group of students participating in robot competition where no race is mentioned.</p>
<p><a href=“Education in America: Don't Fail Me Part 1 - YouTube”>Education in America: Don't Fail Me Part 1 - YouTube;
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I don’t really understand your question. If it had been somebody other than an African-American, my guess would have been wrong.</p>
<p>i really, really HATE CNN. they have a sick, twisted obsession with black people (black males in particular). now that the 2012 campaign season has officially started, i expect them to kick it up a few more notches, just as they did in 2008. sickos.</p>
<p>I didn’t see the video–only read the story before I posted a response (Post #7). Funny thing–race didn’t even enter my mind. I didn’t have any idea of the race of the father/son in the story.</p>
<p>^ How could LZ Granderson, a CNN journalist let CNN twisted himself?</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure the author, LZ Granderson, writes for Sports Illustrated. I think I’ve seen his name on that website. (Incidentally, I think the cnn sports page links to SI, so there is some partnership between SI and CNN.)</p>
<p>So there may have not been any racial intention by the author.</p>
<p>I don’t see anything racial about the article.</p>
<p>I didn’t read the article, but did not imagine an African American dad, just a dad. I know a distressing number of white fathers who love it when their kid is a soccer, basketball, or tennis star, but unfortunately do not give quite the same over-the-top feedback when it comes to academic success. They think “good enough” is good enough, somehow.</p>
<p>Yay for this dad!</p>
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<p>What a dumb sentence. I could NEVER have conceived of anyone thinking praise for good grades is odd.</p>
<p>^You have to get out more, lol. Seriously it probably depends on who you know. I grew up in and still have close connections to people that never went to college and their kids probably won’t go to college either. </p>
<p>They would not necessarily show as much exuberance about a report card as they do about a sports achievement. They wouldn’t show excitement about their kids grades, and probably think it’s pretty normal not to make a big deal about it. </p>
<p>At some level they would like the idea of their kids going to college, but in the day to day they just aren’t really putting much into it for it to happen. It’s out of their realm and/or not one of their big priorities. They aren’t reading to their kids, they aren’t meeting with teachers, they aren’t looking much at report cards. In one case, they objected to their child being put in a gifted class because they didn’t want their kid ‘to get a big head and think he’s better than everyone else’ and "how would it make his brothers feel?’ </p>
<p>A bit like me with sports I think. In the abstract I wish my kids were more athletic, I really do admire athletes and would be proud if they were good at sports, but if you look back at my behavior as a parent you’d see I didn’t invest in it like I should have and it was out of my realm.</p>
<p>What Starbright said.</p>
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<p>That could very well be true, but it is possible that the racial implications and impact of the opinion and video are unavoidable given the prevailing racial assumptions that most people have. If it were an Asian American parent, the reaction would probably be “big deal” or even a hostile reaction to contributing to an overly “nerdy” stereotype of Asian Americans, or overbearing “tiger parenting”, for example.</p>
<p>To me, the main point of the article is clearly expressed in the conclusion paragraph:</p>
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<p>If someone puts a racial prism on front of everything then that person always sees things in the spectrum of racial colors. If we don’t have one then things will look transparent.</p>
<p>I wasn’t thinking about race while reading, but I did find it conspicuous when he acted like it was unheard of to be enthusiastic about the good grades of one’s child. Should race be instantly assumed? No, but the article would have been odd coming from a middle-class white or Asian person, you cannot deny.</p>
<p>Would the article be more influential if it comes from a white parent because it can attract the largest percentage of the US population?</p>