Modern day minstrel shows?

wherezwallace
Mon, 18 Nov 2013 17:44:21 +0000

This has been bothering me for months and this past week was the last straw.

School and County Background: We live in one of the top five most affluent counties in the United States. Most kids who go to our D’s high school are blessed with dual income parents and don’t seem to want for much. This characterization applies to asian, caucasian and AA kids. The school is 12% african american.

Situation: Our D attends a large public high school where she along with 117 other students were inducted into the National Honor Society recently. My wife and I had a bet before the induction as to the percentage of AAs that would be in NHS.

The actual number was 8 of 118 or ~7% which is lower than the ratio of AAs in the school.

What was even worse is that only two of the eight were boys. That’s 1.7%!!! I’m sitting there very proud of our D but wondering, “where are the rest of us???”

I do not think for one second that this is an indication of intelligence. This is learned behavior. I wonder (and here comes the controversial part) if our boys are still being taught that the only way for a AA man to make money in this country is through entertaining the “masses”.

Yeah, you know what I mean there.

“Entertainment” is broadly defined as playing sports in front of a crowd or rapping and singing on a stage.

Am I overreacting here or is there are subtext that is still as offensive today as it was 100 years ago? I’ve been on CC for years but as I see the inequity of the college admissions process, I’ve changed my username so I can speak a little more freely.

thoughts?