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Discuss:
The American Embrace of Ignorance, and Why Blacks Need to Let Go.
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Posted By:
MilesEllison at 06/21/2008 6:20:32 PM
Comment:
America's educational apparatus, at various levels, is not interested in educating anyone, yet people are surprised that there is anti-intellectualism? It is not in the best interests of those that dominate our political process to have critical thinkers in the electorate. As far as corporations are concerned, they aren't interested in intelligent American workers, they're interested in cheap labor. Intelligent people are critical thinkers. There is no desire to develop this capacity within the educational establishment. The American educational system has become a trough fed at by incompetent bureaucrats with no interest in raising the level of intellectual discourse or even basic education. -
Posted By:
majorpeace at 04/09/2008 4:57:09 PM
Comment:
No Wonder Anti-Intellectualism Exist
Let me get this straight! The majority of African Americans have professed faith in a religion that says the first human beings were white and that Black people are the result of a negative reaction. A religion that denies 150,000 years of human existance, mentions explicity only 6 or 7 times that Black people exist. Believing in a religion that does not acknowledge that the Egyptians were Black and that Blacks are NOT a chosen people. I could go on but the point being is there any wonder that there might be a tiny bit of anti-intellectualism in the Black community. Sometimes I just want to ask where does the bible say Black people come from and when did White people get there? -
Posted By:
southsiderosie at 04/09/2008 4:24:03 PM
Comment:
One piece missing from the counter-argument about American's leading role in math and science in terms of actual technological development is the historic role that immigration has played in attracting literally the world's greatest minds to our laboratories and universities. What would our science - and especially our nuclear programs - had so many highly educated Europeans not fled from 1890 - WWII?
At schools like MIT, the graduate programs are 50% international students. However, as the competition for these folks goes global, and our increasingly hostile immigration laws (and sheer bureaucratic incompetence) drive people to seek employment in Toronto, London, Sydney, Mumbai or Shanghai rather than Silicon Valley or Wall Street, what will happen to our dominant position in tech development? Unless we 1) encourage people to stay, and 2) develop in-house capacity we may face a real crisis in the next decade or two. -
Posted By:
mwoods at 04/09/2008 4:19:57 PM
Comment:
Actually, the roots of anti-intellectualism in the modern era, post civil rights, I believe can be traced to the Black Power generations rejection of white America's hegemonic values. In other words African Americans started to identify alot of what was being taught in schools, in some cases rightfully so, as part of the larger oppression by mainstream society. Once education was tentatively identified as being part of that power structure it was only exascerbated by the break down of the African American community because of crack, the loss of manufacturing jobs and general decay of urban areas, i.e. schools. The notion that education would somehow white wash an individual was made even worse by those in the African American community, who failed to grasp the full meaning of lyrics from the emerging concious movement in hip hop, taking snippets of lyrics that supported rejection of aspects of traditional education and painting broad strokes across the educational system. Fast forward to now and pop culture is a celebration of ignorance, from Jeezy to Rick Ross, to the mainstream medias obsession with the every movement of Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears. -
Posted By:
*jordyn at 04/09/2008 3:48:02 PM
Comment:
Excellent piece. I think you'll find this book interesting: it's called "Amusing Ourselves to Death," by Neil Postman. It addresses our increasing dependence on the media to provide us with the intelligence we used to have the desire to go and seek ourselves, and how as a result we'll believe just about anything we hear/see.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death -
Posted By:
ShellyB at 04/09/2008 1:45:21 PM
Comment:
My nephew can sit and play video games for 2-3 hours at a stretch with complete concentration but cannot sit and commit to 30 minutes of homework because he has "concentration" problems (he has never been diagnosed with ADHD or ADD) and his Mother lets him get away with that! What happened to parenting. Black folks used to know that to succeed in this country black folks have to be smarter, better educated and harder workers just to make it into the 'middle class' with whites and guess what! That really hasn't changed. -
Posted By:
gb82 at 04/09/2008 1:39:56 PM
Comment:
As a new parent (4yrs) with a child entering middle school just outside metro Atlanta, I am making her learn at home the way I was taught. I do not accept mediocrity or the 'at least I tried' excuse. The problem I see in my area is the lack of parental involvement. I refuse to sit back and let 'nothing' happen to the children in my daughter's school. My goal for the next president is to work with DOE to eliminate the CRCT and the 'No Child Left Behind' falacy. -
Posted By:
ShellyB at 04/09/2008 1:36:11 PM
Comment:
I believe the issue may be even more pernicious. I have seen direct examples of pre-teens and teens I know "give up" on math and science because they find it difficult. They say they just "can't do it" or they have some kind of "problem" even when there is no neurologicall evidence they lack the mental capapcity to learn. So often in current public schools, this thinking is accepted so these kids stop trying to excel in these academic areas. Here is my experience with the school system in Japan. It is a society without a lot of non-Japanese minorities so unless a student is clearly identified as having some sort neurological problem causing a developmental problem with acquiring knowledge, it is assumed by the teachers, parents and students that with hard work, they can become proficient. They may need to work harder and do more work or use tutors to succeed. Maybe that student will not go to MIT to study physics, but they should be able to meet the minimum requirements of math and science provided in a high school education. Here in the US the student says I can't do it and the parents say O.K (He or she just isn't a "math" person) and the teachers say "well, they are black and won't go to college anyway so what do they need algebra for"? The student may not realize at that young age what a devastating decision this is that could impact their whole lives, not only would it become so much more dificult for them to pursue a college degree if they did not complete the basic algebra, geometry and science courses in high school. There would also be limited opportunities in the workplace. So many jobs require a good understanding of basic math, science and reading comprehension. How sad we don't have the attitude with our youth that they can do it, they just need to work at it. -
Posted By:
gb82 at 04/09/2008 1:31:17 PM
Comment:
I'm trying to make a difference in my daughter's middle school by starting a book club. This article is to the point and I see the attitude very present in today's society. -
Posted By:
Kdcarney at 04/09/2008 8:31:43 AM
Comment:
I'm sick of these "us black folks dont like us no education" articles. Especially since studies have shwon that blacks hold education asa higher value that other groups and that when skewed for income blacks do better thatn everyone else. Teens are anti-intellectual because they are teens, I was one as you were one. -
Posted By:
afrographia at 04/08/2008 7:57:33 PM
Comment:
As a professor of education who studies Black education (and who grew up po' and on welfare), I am always worried when we begin to make generalizations about Black young people based on our own personal experiences with them. Ironically, this too is anti-intellectual. Let me explain, using one of McWhorter's main complaints: that Black youth see education as "acting white." This may ring true to many readers, based on their interactions with Black youth in urban schools, and through representations in the media. However, if you actually read the research (and McWhorter, although an academic, is simply a commentator on this issue), or deeply engage with young people in your communities, you will discover a more complex picture: In short, young people are generally excited to learn from those who earn their respect, regardless of color, and are quite eager to engage arts and ideas when they believe that doing so will empower them, and give them a better understanding of themselves and their world. Education is only "acting white" when it valorizes others while denigrating Black experience; when it is seen as something that benefits individual Black folks at the expense of others; when it is imposed, poorly delivered, with no rationale given other than it is simply something one has to do.
Related to this, the author of this essay errs in comparing Jacoby's excellent book to McWhorter's diatribe. Logan, the businessman, suggests that the relative lack of Black achievement on standardized tests and grades attests to their lack of intellectualism. However, Jacoby's point is that even though people may perform well enough to be successful, the problem is that they are not interested in engaging the world, they are not curious, they do not think deeply. The majority of the schools attended by Black children do not teach, nor encourage intellectual rigor. This has been the case since the beginning of integration, when scores of Black educators--who emphasized both performance and intellectual rigor-- lost their jobs. Simply achieving higher test scores is not synonymous with intellectualism. More importantly, it is foolish to simply tell Black kids to "do better in schools" (as they currently exist), without challenging the cultural, political and economic forces which make many urban schools so bankrupt materially and intellectually. And it is about the whitest thing we can do.
Michael J. Dumas, Ph.D. -
Posted By:
rvbarner at 04/08/2008 7:37:27 PM
Comment:
I always have a high level of enthusiasm and overwhelming agreement with articles and speeches like this. However, my problem with them is that they are never written or said to the population they are written or said about. How do we expect things to change if we keep talking amongst ourselves? -
Posted By:
Stephen at 04/08/2008 5:41:42 PM
Comment:
Mr. Logan is right on point about the nation dminishing the western canon, extolling reason, and that the thrust of this attack comes from the American Right. By keeping the American mind "barefoot and pregnant," the Right can more easily expend our lives and treasure on wars of opportunity and maintain social inequality at home.
To rescue our errant youth.it is necessary to begin at home. Parents must teach their children to read at four years of age, with basic step books. The child should enter kindergarten as a strong reader and already advanced. With alphabetsand numbers on the wall and readings when the child is two, the task of learning to read at four is easy. It begins when the child reads the letter words I and A.
As a community we must jump start our children before they enter the system. My three daughters learned to read at 4 1/2, by the time they entered kindergarten they had read the Child Kingfisher Encyclopedia from page to page. Subway trips to the park and elsewhere were reading time. All three are honor students ata demanding school district.
If a parent does little more in life they can take this critical time to make readers of their children. There is no peer pressure at four and once they are on their its hard to stop them. There are adults who cannot read, and these children will never be in that predicament.
Sioan Bethel -
Posted By:
horneddolphin at 04/08/2008 4:39:43 PM
Comment:
Good article, but the Bush hatred shines through. If memory serves, he graduated from Yale (with a higher GPA than Kerry), and then graduated from Harvard with an MBA. -
Posted By:
ebonymind at 04/08/2008 2:36:00 PM
Comment:
This hit me like an Atomic bomb... I see everyday I am a 45 year old Barber a very non complex person and yet this had made clear what I could not put into words. Our youth come into my shop speaking EBONICS, dressed poorly ( with pants almost off and many of the young people are more concerned with the streets then anything else, not to mention there are so many of them that are homosexual ... I hurt inside deeply... and this made me cry . I try everyday to reach as many as I can however, as noted " They think it is not cool " to speak,dress or appear any other way then what they see or T.V. or the corner!
I really hurt deeply inside... I believe we have failed them. -
Posted By:
hoyalawyer at 04/08/2008 2:33:35 PM
Comment:
Other than the inaccuracy---most likely due to imprecise wording---of the statement concerning black high school graduates that "[t]hose who do graduate from high school test at the same level as white students graduating from the 8th grade," I agree with Mr. Logan. -
Posted By:
led0260 at 04/08/2008 1:45:12 PM
Comment:
This is a cogent and timely article. I see examples of the anti-intellectual trend among Black children even in my relatively affluent suburban community. I do think that the causes for the virulence of anti-intellectualism among many (but not all) Black people are multi-faceted. We are in the midst of a perfect storm of crumbling schools, low teacher expectation and a self-concept that rejects educational attainment as "acting white." We must sound the alarm and we must intervene in our own communities, because if we don't care enough to do so, how can we expect anyone else to? -
Posted By:
PSG at 04/08/2008 12:07:50 PM
Comment:
I usually don???t comment on blogs or any online forum for that matter, but I felt compelled to do so this time. It is true that Black teenagers are anti-intellectual as a group even though there are some who did not fit this description. This phenomenon was broached more than a decade ago when NPR did a report/study on young Black males ???dumbing down??? to fit in. Unfortunately, youth and inexperience plays as much a role here as does any cultural mores.
I believe this dilemma has as much to do with class (economics) as it does with a generational decline. Once upon a time, educated Black people, who were predominately middle class, were upheld as an example for other Black people of what they could become and how to act. However, as more Black people entered the middle class, the rules of engagement, if you will, changed. The ???you-think-you-better-than-me??? defense became a good offense for Black people unfamiliar with certain settings and weren???t willing to learn. Culturally speaking, we have somehow redefined the Black experience in America to be homogenous: poor, uneducated and lazy. Sound familiar? We (as a culture) have bought what was forced down our throats for so many years.
I am a fourth generation college graduate. My grandmother was born, raised and has lived in Alabama all of her life and earned her master???s degree from NYU in 1962. I think young Black people just need to be re-educated on Black history (which I can tell you from personal experience they don???t know that either) to understand what the older generation thinks is common knowledge: Black people did go to college, some Black people weren???t poor and Black people worked hard to achieve what they got. Freedom wasn???t given to us ???at any point in history.-
Posted By:
Ms.Martin at 04/08/2008 3:52:13 PM
Comment:
You are absolutely correct, I have lived most of my life not really knowing that there were a great many strong black folks who triumphed in the worst times the race had ever known. I've recently been studying the history of blacks in America and I am full of pride and regret - regret that I didn't have the strong influence of some of those people in my life. I imagine there are and will be a great many of us who can look back and wish things would have been different.
I have to agree with those who believe that a strong black family will make the difference. A family with a strong land determined leader - parents whose most important task is to nuture their children and prepare for their well-being and future each and every day. Some do consider this to be a luxury that only whites have.
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Posted By:
mickey 313 at 04/08/2008 10:53:13 AM
Comment:
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Posted By:
ch555x at 04/08/2008 9:59:56 AM
Comment:
Nice (and depressing) piece. -
Posted By:
len0117 at 04/08/2008 8:47:50 AM
Comment:
The 'blame' if any is to be placed, falls directly on the parents-- or most often lack there of. No father's in the home, lack of parental guidance, the influence of rap culture and BET... there is no mystery as to why African-American children are floundering and failing. -
Posted By:
amylou25 at 04/08/2008 8:04:03 AM
Comment:
Enlightening and very well written. -
Posted By:
lisalisa at 04/07/2008 11:22:18 PM
Comment:
To be sure, black Americans have bought into the cult of anti-intellectualism to our great detriment. But it doesn't start in kindergarten, whatever McWhorter and his "My job is to explain black people to white folks" self says. Have either of you been in an elementary school lately? This stuff, destructive as it is, does not kick in until fourth or fifth grade, at the earliest -- and by that time black children, especially black boys, are already behind in reading and math. So which comes first, chicken or egg?
To say we share the blame for confusing anti-intellectualism with authentic blackness is sadly correct. But to say it is the sole, or even primary reason our children are struggling in SOME settings, is just ridiculous. Next. -
Posted By:
blessinggirl at 04/07/2008 10:44:02 PM
Comment:
Thank you for an insightful essay. As much as we like to carve ourselves out of the American fabric (due, of course to sustained exclusion economically and socially), the fact is that as America goes, so we go. It's no surprise to me that the anti-intellectualism bemoaned by Susan Jacoby is mirrored by black suspicion of speaking standard English and the elevation of looking like a hobo or a whore to high fashion. The devaluation of our culture through media attention and homage to untalented rappers is emblematic of a society racing to the bottom in every conceivable way.
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