B E B E R E

Thomas Sowell has an very thought-provoking article on race and racism and whether or not it holds back lower-class African Americans (or "black rednecks" as he calls them). I'm reminded of a couple coworkers of mine who were from Honduras talking about how easy it was to tell an "American" black from a Caribbean, latin or African - the immigrants worked hard (sometimes two or three jobs), valued education and wanted to see their kids in school, kept a pretty tight rein on their kids. The natives didn't, apparently.

I'm also reminded of Jim Goad's thesis in the Redneck Manifesto - that lower class whites and lower class blacks have more in common with each other than with the upper class/more successful members of their respective races, and that this is played upon by both conservative and liberal factions. This isn't an easy read, as Goad's style is definitely a rant. Quite an eye-opener, though, and definitely a notion that I can agree with to an extent.

A good number of my friends who, like me, come from poorer backgrounds have had to deal with the anti-intellectual/anti-education mindset of our communities. It's not easy when you've a whole culture around you that does not value your desire to better yourself - whether you are black, white, latino, whatever. My black friends often were called "whitey" or "oreo" for appropriating what they saw as white culture (standard English, not cutting class, reading as a pastime. Western New York State wasn't as bad a place to grow up as other depressed areas, however.