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The Origins of Apathy in Students of Poor Communities

Brendan

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Deviated from: Pelosi calls for birth control to stimulate the conomy (eugenics?)

[...]I'm am for birth control, mostly because I think people are stupid and can't control their impulses long enough to think about the consequences, but is it really going to make that much of a difference...? now, this is where quite a few of you are going to get upset... Given the various "low income" schools I'm acquainted with, I do not think that adding a child to the picture would end the educational aspirations for most of those teenagers.. because most of them could care less about school in the first place. Sure, a child would not help, but to blame a pregnancy for destroying their futures... please. When the average in an algebra class is 30% because students are turning in their tests blank, not doing their homework, showing up to class two days a week, giving the teacher false phone numbers in the hopes that their parents can't be reached (when they are reached, it's not like much of a difference is made, anyway).. saying things in class like "I don't need math or school, I can just sell drugs"... the problem lies with those kids and the values and self discipline they lack (let's not deviate into a debate over the origins of that apathy)[...].
But you opened the door.

What do you feel are the origins of the aforementioned apathy?
 

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Brendan

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I didn't read the thread in question, however reading just the quote, I would think that the reason is because they don't think they can escape. They don't think there is a chance of escaping such a lifestyle, so they don't even try.
I feel they're trapped by a system that doesn't represent them.
 

Costrin

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I feel they're trapped by a system that doesn't represent them.

That would seem to be part of the problem. The system doesn't help them, doesn't even try from their point of view (which people may disagree with, but it's not their perspective that matters, it's the student's perspective), so they say "screw you" to the system and don't participate any more than they are forced to.
 

Brendan

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That would seem to be part of the problem. The system doesn't help them, doesn't even try from their point of view (which people may disagree with, but it's not their perspective that matters, it's the student's perspective), so they say "screw you" to the system and don't participate any more than they are forced to.
They feel people don't care because people don't generally act as if they care.
 

Brendan

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I agree. The question is then, what do we do about it?
I don't know. I'm reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and I've been asking myself what the "white man" can do.

Then I read this passage:

I never will forget one little blonde co-ed after I had spoken at her New England college. She must have caught the next plane behind that one I took to New York. She found the Muslim restaurant in Harlem. I just happened to be there when she came in. Her clothes, her carriage, her accent, all showed Deep South white breeding and money. At that college, I told how the ante-bellum white slavemaster even devilishly manipulated his own woman. He convinced her that she was "too pure" for his base "animal instincts." With his "noble" ruse, he conned his own wife to look away from his obvious preference for the "animal" black woman. So the "delicate mistress" sat and watched the plantation's little mongrel-complexioned children, sired obviously by her father, her husband, her brothers, her sons. I said at that college that the guilt of American whites included their knowledge that in hating Negroes, they were hating, they were rejecting, they were denying, their own blood.

Anyway, I'd never seen anyone I ever spoke before more affected than this little white college girl. She demanded right up in my face, "Don't you believe there are any good white people?" I didn't want to hurt her feelings. I told her, "People's deeds I believe in, Miss--not their words."

"What can I do?" she exclaimed. I told her, "Nothing."
 

lowtech redneck

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I feel they're trapped by a system that doesn't represent them.

What "system" is that?

Generally such apathy can be traced to a combination of parents who don't know how to raise their children with the characteristics needed to succeed in a post-industrial, information economy, and a sub-culture which devalues or even scorns norms and practices that encourage children to gradually develop such characteristics through socialization and habituation.
 

Brendan

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What "system" is that?

Generally such apathy can be traced to a combination of parents who don't know how to raise their children with the characteristics needed to succeed in a post-industrial, information economy, and a sub-culture which devalues or even scorns norms and practices that encourage children to gradually develop such characteristics through socialization and habituation.
Which parents, what sub-culture are those?
 

lowtech redneck

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I don't know. I'm reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and I've been asking myself what the "white man" can do.

In terms of poor black communities as a specific subset of the problem, the Malcolm X autobiography is unlikely to provide many answers; the stagnation of class mobility among black Americans and the breakdown of the black family can be traced to the early seventies.
 

Brendan

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In terms of poor black communities as a specific subset of the problem, the Malcolm X autobiography is unlikely to provide many answers; the stagnation of class mobility among black Americans and the breakdown of the black family can be traced to the early seventies.
And beyond!
 

lowtech redneck

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Which parents, what sub-culture are those?

It differs according to whichever poor "community" is being considered, though the rejection of (not to be confused with exclusion from) mainstream culture combined with the devaluation of academic achievement, marital fidelity, reading, and the ability to postpone gratification for future rewards are prime characteristics of such parental inputs/sub-cultures.
 

Brendan

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It differs according to whichever poor "community" is being considered, though the rejection of (not to be confused with exclusion from) mainstream culture combined with the devaluation of academic achievement, marital fidelity, reading, and the ability to postpone gratification for future rewards are prime characteristics of such parental inputs/sub-cultures.
Oh, you're talking about Americans.

Haha. Just kidding.

You basically just said that it depends upon which parents and subcultures you're talking about.

Yeah. That's what I'm asking you.
 

lowtech redneck

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And beyond!

No; the preponderance of one-parent families and out of wedlock births is a recent thing (the social damage caused by slavery had been largely overcome before that, no thanks to the dominant white population). As for economic mobility, it stagnated in the early seventies after steadily rising throughout the latter stage of the Jim Crow era. The issue is not nearly so cut-and-dry as you seem to percieve it, and the Malcolm X book won't provide any answers to such modern developments.

Edit: This is not to say that an equal percentage of black families were part of the middle and upper classes (This WAS during segregation, which took place in the context of deep-seated societal racism, after all), merely that the percentage was steadily rising (at a faster rate than the white population if I remember correctly, but that's really to be expected, similar to successful developing countries having faster annual economic growth than rich countries) before the seventies
 
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lowtech redneck

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You basically just said that it depends upon which parents and subcultures you're talking about.

Yeah. That's what I'm asking you.

Well, again in terms of the poor black community (Malcolm X would not be able to tell you much about poor spanish-speaking or predominantly white trailor-park communities) stigmatizing students who love learning and perform well in school as "acting white" while calling students who speak eloquently and identify with the norms and practices of the mainstream culture as "oreos" is not exactly conducive to a successful life.
 

Brendan

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No; the preponderance of one-parent families and out of wedlock births is a recent thing (the social damage caused by slavery had been largely overcome before that, no thanks to the dominant white population). As for economic mobility, it stagnated in the early seventies after steadily rising throughout the latter stage of the Jim Crow era. The issue is not nearly so cut-and-dry as you seem to percieve it, and the Malcolm X book won't provide any answers to such modern developments.
This excerpt is about when he moved to the neighborhood of Roxbury in Boston:

So I went gawking around the neighborhood--the Waumbeck and Homboldt Avenue Hill section of Roxbury, which is something like Harlem's Sugar Hill, where I'd later live. I saw those Roxbury Negroes acting and living differently from any black people I'd ever dreamed of in my life. This was the snooty black neighborhood; they called themselves the "Four Hundred," and looked down their noses at the at the Negroes of the black ghetto, or so-called "town" section where Mary, my other half-sister, lived.

What I thought I was seeing there in Roxbury were high-class, educated, important Negroes, living well, working in big jobs and positions. Their quiet homes sat back in their mowed yards.[...]

I'd guess that eight out of ten of the Hill Negroes of Roxbury, despite the impressive-sounding job titles they affected, actually worked as menials and servants. "He's in banking," or "He's in securities." It sounded as though they were discussing a Rockefeller or a Mellon--and not some gray-headed, dignity-posturing bank janitor, or bond-house messenger. "I'm with an old family" was the euphemism used to dignify the professions of white folks' cooks and maids who talked so affectedly among their own kind in Roxbury that you couldn't even understand them.

Please discuss how African-Americans have collectively climbed the social ladder since 1941.
 

Brendan

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Well, again in terms of the poor black community (Malcolm X would not be able to tell you much about poor spanish-speaking or predominantly white trailor-park communities) stigmatizing students who love learning and perform well in school as "acting white" while calling students who speak eloquently and identify with the norms and practices of the mainstream culture as "oreos" is not exactly conducive to a successful life.
Have you read the book?
 

lowtech redneck

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Have you read the book?

No; since I was addressing developments which occurred after Malcolm X was assassinated, that doesn't really matter. If he actually did have something relevant to say about poor spanish-speaking (not nearly as many back then) or white trailer-park communities, what was it? If his cultural comments were relevant, what were they?
 

Brendan

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No; since I was addressing developments which occurred after Malcolm X was assassinated, that doesn't really matter. If he actually did have something relevant to say about poor spanish-speaking (not nearly as many back then) or white trailer-park communities, what was it? If his cultural comments were relevant, what were they?
He speaks of "crimes of the white man" in general, throughout history. Not just against blacks since the Civil War.

Maybe you should read the book...
 

lowtech redneck

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He speaks of "crimes of the white man" in general, throughout history. Not just against blacks since the Civil War.

Maybe you should read the book...

What will he have to say that I (probably) don't already know? Besides, I would take his perspective with a grain of salt if I were you; for instance, he seems to have somehow overlooked the historical record of the Muslim slave trade while demonizing Christianity as a religion of black oppression. One of these days I might get around to reading his book, but its not exactly a priority for me.
 
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