Who the hell is T.I.???
…

I understand what Bboy is saying. But I’m with Bomani. Causation and correlation are two different animals. If we’re talking about large numbers of black people and comparing them, the best we can say is that black, Latinos, and some Asian populations tend to have less education than their white counterparts. We can’t begin to talk about value without somehow controlling for economic status, and dealing with a whole host of other issues.

Any thoughts?

Bboy- Good response!!! You just got an “amen!”

and now back over to Roland Fryer…

Now… after pondering it some more… all this proves is that there exists Black individuals who don’t care about education. BJ’s comment says the same. It’s the same as looking at the NBA and concluding that there exist Black individuals who are good at basketball.

But to conclude that “Black people are good at basketball,” in the same way that I think most of you interpreted my original assertion that “Black people don’t value education,” I agree with you Kirk, there’s no sense to that at all, and (in all caps so that if you get nothing else out of this) I APOLOGIZE AND RETRACT THAT STATEMENT. I should have like many have said been more specific.

Conversely, there have also been numerous examples of Blacks doing things that clearly showed how much they did value education, but again all we get is that there exist Black individuals who do care about education…

I would like to say that I have believed all along that there is no difference across race in the valuing of education, but I so poorly said what I said that I left it open such that one would be inclined to interpret it as a racial/color/genetic thing. But like Bo said we have yet to see evidence of that.

Peace!

I can’t say I’m personally offended, but I really don’t understand why anyone thinks this is worth talking about, unless it’s simply to counter the original statement. If that’s the case, a simple “You’ve gotta be f***ing kidding me” should suffice.

If, on the other hand, one thinks that there are other factors that are involved besides race (economic status, etc.) then the statement should have been framed that way instead. Again, the original statement is just so ludicrous that it’s almost laughable.

First maybe I should say to everyone, I am willing to bet that a lot of my views are slantier than my chanky eyes (I’m Chinese)… this is school for me, and I’m willing and ready to learn. Just so y’all know where I’m coming from.

Anyway here’s one thought I have - it is difficult to dispute that Asian/Pacific Americans (henceforth referred to as APA’s) do value education greatly. But had the Yazoo City high school been 111 out 112 typical APA’s, I don’t think there would have been nearly as much turnout or raucous at the ceremony, which might even lead one to believe that APA’s don’t care about education.

My parents explained it to me like this: from their point of view, graduating from high school is something they sort of take for granted. It’s a milestone on the road of life but nothing to really get excited about, whereas higher education is far more meaningful to them. My parents are not ones to party, but if they were, the post-gradudate degree would be where the party’d be at.

I think to them (and to me, to some extent) their takeaway from seeing the positive turnout you did at your nephew’s commencement could say to them Black People Care About Their Children/Family/Community - but not necessarily Black People Value Education (though the heightened applause for the val/sal. do support that).

You also mentioned that several graduates earned loads of scholarship money… man I feel like Blacks and Hispanics have it good here. In a funny sort of way I experienced being judged by the color of my skin and not by my achievements. My Black and Hispanic friends who had lower grades and SAT’s than me and fewer if any extracurriculars/leadership positions had colleges and scholarhips alike clamoring for their attention… I had one Mexican friend, who was in danger of failing out, receive in the mail one day, completely out of the blue, a full ride from the University of Washington (both of us went to NCSSM, a public boarding jr/sr high school with competitive admissions, so it’s not that he hadn’t achieved anything as far as college admissions were concerned, I had done more). In retrospect I may have had similar offers from NC A&T and possibly one more HBCU (though not Howard)… if only I had known then what I’ve learned from this site.

Anyway… I think what really has me trippin’ are the definitions of everything… what does it really mean to value education… and what does it mean to say BLACK PEOPLE do or don’t…

Would you consider Yazoo City representative of Black “Amerikkka” (was this intentional or is your keyboard broken, BJ?) What about the Chris Rock quote - would it be as funny if he’d been talking about ignorant Asians? I think Will Smith, despite coming from the suburbs, also once said something to the effect of that he felt the pressure of it being “uncool” to be black AND intelligent… maybe it’s all in his head?

As far as “blacks not valuing education” goes, I don’t think that’s true at all. My girlfriend is an education student at Temple and just from what I’ve heard her say about the conditions in the schools there, it’s not the students’ fault, no matter what their ethnicity is. Urban schools are horribly underfunded, made worse because of “No Child Left Behind.” And unless you’ve got money to spend, after school activities that continue education and keep kids out of trouble are few and far between. Beyond that, just judging from her classmates, the current crop of prospective teachers look suspect at best. I mean, these are the kind of people I wouldn’t want to chill with, much less entrust with my kid’s future.

The way I see it, it’s not that blacks don’t value education, it’s that America doesn’t value education. How else do you explain teacher salaries across the board? Or the fact that teachers often pay for supplies out of pocket? Or that in inner city areas, where kids really do need a good education, school funds primarily still come from property taxes even though most companies are given property tax breaks just to set up shop? Or that financial aid for secondary education is being cut left and right? The list goes on and on.

It’s really a sad situation. Education is the key to everything I believe a society should be. Education ends poverty, ends petty crime and makes us all better, deeper, more thoughtful, more understanding. But the way things are, if you’ve succeeded in school, it’s because you and, if you’re lucky, a strong, supportive family, did it. The system didn’t do jack shit for you except get in the way.

I really think that in the long run, if 1/3 of the funds allocated to defense spending were diverted to education, in a generation, we’d have smarter people in government and wouldn’t need to defend ourselves so much. Off topic, I know, but so true.