To Marleyislegend

exactly. there's a big difference between:

-i notice black men tend to receive less college education

and

-HA HA!!! black men are stuuuuupid, black men are stuuuuupid, everybody else has college degrees, black men are stuuuuupid.


wyld,

the fact that you constantly remind us how uneducated we are, but refuse to acknowledge what an unfair race that is, makes me believe that you're here for nothing more than bashing brothers, i'd love to hear a post from you that contradicts this

There are also some very serious problems in the American education system that are racist at their core.

some schools pigeonhole minority students into educational tracks that do not provide a strong base for higher education. my neighbor's daughters and several other people I know have had to be super vigilant to make certain that their kids take the right classes because teachers and counselors often steer minority students away from college track programs. my aunt, who is a school counselor, was surprisedd to learn that her daughter had to take remedial courses in college, not because her grades were bad, but because her high school had not provided her the prerequisites to take first year college courses. come to think of it, in all my

in many schools and communities discipline is different for white and minority youth. i know a brother who was expelled from school and criminally charged for throwing a cigarette into a wastebasket and causing a fire. he ended up in a reform school, which was basically prison for minors. reform schools and prisons are the best places for young people to learn to be criminals and become friends with criminals. this particular young man is now 24 and has spent nearly 10 years of his life incarcerated. the percentage of latino and black young men in prison is astounding, not because they commit more crimes but because they are treated more harshly by the system. my friend april has a white boyfriend who has FIVE FELONIES, two involve theft, one arson, the other two are for extreme violence. travis doesn't work, he smokes pot all the time, and constantly begs me to buy him alcohol (he's underage). how is travis walking free with 5 felonies, what ever happened to 3 strikes?? his parents are wealthy and afford one of the best lawyers in north carolina. i know black guys who've gone to prison for lesser crimes, for one or two felonies.

wyld, i urge you to not limit your intelligence. don't be content with KNOWING the latest numbers. expand your mind and find out WHY the numbers are the way they other, otherwise they serve no purpose other than being judgmental. when you look behind the scenes, you see a landscape that makes it less likely for a black men to ever consider college, let alone finish. that is of course if he's not murdered, or doesn't die because he can't afford the health care he needs, both of which ALSO happen in larger numbers to black men.

Well, I suppose...
But I don't think a creative person will usually become intellectually rigid. He will probably be exposed to quite a number of people more highly creative than most of those he met before university ... and this will be true even if there is a prof or two who is, as you say, tradition-bound.
And I do think even rigid people who enter university will tend to leave at least marginally less rigid.
It would depend a great deal on what you were studying. (I was studying philosophy and English and doing independent studies.)
But marley almost seemed to be arguing that university seems destructive of creativity.
That goes too far.

Of course.
But marley's statement was logically irrelevant. It didn't in any way affect the argument he was making. It was an incidental observation.
If someone was arguing that Chechens, say, have small ... um ... forefingers, there would be no reason for anyone to say they knew a Chechen with a large forefinger.
Oh, it might be anecdotally interesting, but the claim that Chechens have large forefingers doesn't speak for every Chechen, but merely for the average Chechen.
An observation that one knew a Chechen with a large forefinger would refute the claim that all Chechens have small forefingers, but that isn't where we started.
No one said that all people who lack education are unintelligent.
But that's the only proposition on which marley's statement would have any bearing in logic.

Exactly with all of that. He definitely is doing that, which is why there comes in a reaction to it. I've noticed myself that I do it as a sort of reflex and get defensive with these kinds of things.

Rubi, what has been going through my mind with this post is both the OP and marley are doing the same thing on both sides, which is to present something as objective while the essentially rhetorical nature of the material is concealed (or there is a more-than-usual attempt to do so.) In this kind of case, the matters of racism which are underlying are denied when they may or may not have been the real reason for the post to begin with. Then Marley starts talking, in increasingly mawkish and sentimental tones about 'how is education a tool for the drive-by hooker vicitm' (not a direct quote, mind you), and we're supposed to quit eating truffles again because of the poor children in China...erm, I mean, in Sudan...etc., etc.,

I've done that sort of thing in the past and convinced myself I was only interested in the facts, and am only recently realizing I had an agenda that I'd even hidden from myself. The OP may or may not be guilty of this, but there is a tone there--and except when people edit quotes when it is about silly things with their friends, I think quotes ought to be left as they are and then argued outside them--or they lose their integrity as quotes--not this shitty 'www' or 'qq'. After this, I won't talk to the OP person, and think he is in bad faith. And he's asked for some of Marley's predictable (even when often bright) responses, which can be unnecessarily time-consuming.

No, it's called common sense. I'd expect people who try to debate social topics such as this to at least have some.

And yet, there are millions of people in college at this moment. Far more than what the study used as a base. NCES (National Center for Education Statistics) states the number of first-time freshmen enrolling in fall 2004 at 2,630,000. This number fluctuates but usually grows from year to year. If we use that as a base, your "factual study" didn't even survey half of the available numbers just on a Freshman level alone. Already, that shows a flaw in your source. Let me know if I should continue chopping at your "facts".

Nobody is suggesting that higher education doesn't benefit people. Unfortunately, for some people that's not a choice and it doesn't mean that they're lazy. Plenty of people, including myself, couldn't afford to finish it financially. Many more are doomed from the start by being pushed through public school systems that don't have the proper tools to educate students correctly. Many are told that the ony way they're going to college is to seek a sports scholarship, or to settle for something less ideal like a trade or low budget community college.

No, that's what you're saying for I never implied or typed it. But thank you for misunderstanding me.

Again, you're not using any level of common sense. There are far better explanations as to why most minority men do not attend or go to college. And it's not because they're lazy, as you so adamantly put it on your first post. Seriously, to be this blindly ignorant and act as if you have all the answers. Maybe you attended bad public schools and didn't go to college yourself?

you're not good at reading in between lines, i can tell when someone is trying to discreetly make insulting remarks. this is usually done by googling whatever incriminating statistics you can find. this isn't the first time i've had this kind of talk. last time it was "lots of black men go to prison", then there's "black guys are always poor". statistics may prove these statements, but what's the point?? if someone doesn't have a certain level of racial bias, why would they
-feel so compelled to share negative statistics
-talk about a matter that has NOTHING to do with race. i'm sure that a percentage of rape victims are a certain race, but what does that have to do with anything??

there are white uneducated people, there are black ones. there are fat uneducated people and skinny ones, so why are the black men the only ones being called out?? why is there an entire thread devoting to proving that black guys don't get degrees??

when i first saw the post, i wasn't going to bother read it cuz lots of people here hate me and i was sure it was going to be something rude and unnecessary. turns out i was sorta wrong, instead of insulting me, i've found someone who's insistent upon airing out the dirty laundry of black men, as if we're the only group with problems. where's the white heroin-addicts thread?? where's the muslim wifebeaters threads?? its good that those don't exist because people are usually more respectful to those groups. however it seems that some members fingers are just itching to post statistics about black men's education or crime or anything else that sheds a negative light on us.

Honestly, I'm not sure what the debate is here. I agree that you are merely stating the facts. Many people have noted the decline of African-American men in college and the decline in them finishing their degrees. The reality is that more African-American women are attending colleges and graduating at much higher rates than men.

I don't remember Marley ever disagreeing with you on this or anyone else. The issue you had was with Marley saying "plenty" of Black men have college degrees. And plenty do--the numbers may be declining but it doesn't erase the fact that there are highly educated African-American men. Plenty is relative. Marley's point and mine was that these men exist and most media and society likes to promote that the entire experience of Black males is gangs, rap and jail. There is no denying that those experiences exist but there are other experiences to Black male life.

So again, I don't get your point. You can't argue that there aren't highly educated African-American men--there would at least be 2-5 million. If you want to explore why there are more African-American women in college then men, well discuss that issue. As many have stated, there are a variety of sociological and economic reasons behind the graduation rates.

So what again was your point beyond the obvious?

you're assuming that there is a point. some people just like going

"na na na boo boo, black guys are uneducated, here are some statistics to prove my point"

"ha ha!! black guys always end up in jail, here's a link to a cnn report about it"

"what's wrong with black guys? they never stick around to raise their children, here's some stats from the national center of yadda yadda yadda"

hulk, you ever had that kid in school that didn't necessarily have all the answers, but LOOOVED to make fun of other people for having the wrong ones?? if we wanna start posting stats about different races shortcoming this could be a field day. again, the difference is I don't spend my time trying to prove why (insert race) as a problem with (insert social problem that affects majority of said race).

some people, whether its racism, superiority, or bordem, LOVE talking about all the ways black people fuck up. give em a few rap lyrics, prison statistics and unplanned pregnancy statistics, and they have an orgasm and the ability to justify looking down upon another race.

Well, I'll never forget the college class where the white professor told the class that there was more white people in jail than blacks, more whites on welfare, more white single mothers, etc. And the class wanted to revolt. But the professor was merely looking at the facts. There are more white people than black people so the numbers would obviously be higher. Then someone, who could barely handle dealing with that information that challenged everything they grew up believing said, "yeah but what about proportionally?" Which I found funny. Denial is a great self-defense mechanism.

exactly, if you're so ugly that you can't stand your own reflection in the mirror, tape a picture of your ass-ugly neighbor and you'll start feeling like naomi cambell.

Well, WGC has a real talent for posting things that may have some merit, if presented well, and with due concern for the sensibilities of many of the people who are likely to read it.
A number of times he's gotten slammed and I've secretly felt that his position, if presented with more care, could have had a much more sympathetic response.
I think he unconsciously wants to have to duck ripe tomatoes and flung cow patties.
That may be part of his hidden agenda.
Just my guess.
(Of course, we all have hidden agendas to some degree, as you implicitly imply yourself, above.)

Actually, marley, although I could certainly be wrong about this, I figure that I'm fairly good at reading between lines.
Nothing that I've said puts me in WGC's camp.
I'm on the sidelines, marl.

break on through, to the other side!!!! - jim morrison

But isn't that an obvious and necessary question?
It puts things in context.
The prof was right, and yet the first implication that might naively pop into mind was wrong.
And that would be brought out by the answer to that perfectly reasonable question.

I smoked a joint at Jim's grave in Paris.
(Apropos of nuthin', I know, marl.)