In my experience, it's not so much about being black as the environment you grow up in. There was an interesting study done by a professor of anthropology from University of California at Berkeley.
Shaker heights was full of affluent African Americans, and yet there was still a large acheivment gap between the black students and white students. The study concluded that the parents didn't involve themselves in their children's education as they figured living in an upper middle class society did the work for them. Meanwhile the kids held themselves back so they wouldn't be "acting white".
You can read about the study here, it's quite facinating:
For what it's worth, I'm black and grew up an upper-middle-class household in a mostly white middle-class area. At 27 I've had no trouble finding a good job and in fact just recently turned down a high-paying job offer at a fortune 500 last month. Race has never been an issue for me, one way or the other.
You "wish" more blacks could be more like him? How many black people do you have intimate conversations with to base your opinion on how "most" of them are like?
I'm curious - what's your opinion on what other races who aren't white should be more like? I mean in your perfect world where white people just dictated how everyone should behave.
Shaker heights was full of affluent African Americans, and yet there was still a large acheivment gap between the black students and white students. The study concluded that the parents didn't involve themselves in their children's education as they figured living in an upper middle class society did the work for them. Meanwhile the kids held themselves back so they wouldn't be "acting white".
You can read about the study here, it's quite facinating:
http://www.racematters.org/whyareblackstudentslagging.htm
For what it's worth, I'm black and grew up an upper-middle-class household in a mostly white middle-class area. At 27 I've had no trouble finding a good job and in fact just recently turned down a high-paying job offer at a fortune 500 last month. Race has never been an issue for me, one way or the other.