Posted by Alarie Tennille on 5/2/2008, 1:00 am, in reply to "Re: Racial wrongs and Wright"
64.151.36.14
I believe Mr. English and Mr. Wallace have made some excellent points. I don't believe those of us who grew up in middle-class white homes can judge minorities who have grown up in poverty, with drugs, violence, parents who couldn't read, who have experienced first-hand racial slurs, prejudice, undue harassment by police, and lack of equal opportunity as "to blame" for not bettering themselves. We just haven't walked in the same shoes. Equal opportunity is not here yet. Many public school systems in this country do not prepare students for college or a decent trade. I've volunteered for literacy tutoring here in the midwest and found an alarming
number of high school dropouts (whites and blacks) who cannot read but got passed along until they gave up from frustration.
And remember the "freedom of choice" that flung minority
students into an often hostile environment at our own WWHS?
My African-American friends at work, who have achieved
success, had the advantage of food on the table and a family
that encouraged that success, just as I did. But we can't underestimate how poverty and illiteracy tend to perpetrate more of the same.
I was in the first class of women at the University of Virginia and encountered enough sexism and lack of equal treatment in job recruitment in the 70's that I know even good credentials and the will to succeed can be thwarted. There is still a glass ceiling,
even though we have come a long way, Baby.
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