JewishWorldReview pundit Clarence Page introduces us to an intriguing new book that purports to show why affluent black children lag behind equally-affluent white children in academic performance. The book was researched and written by UC-Berkeley's Dr. John Ogbu, who claims expertise in the field of student acheivement. Dr. Ogbu was in fact recruited to write the book by a group of black parents in wealthy Shaker Heights, OH, who were unhappy with the black-white academic acheivement gap that persisted despite the equal economic status.
And now these parents are unhappy with Dr. Ogbu as well. Why? Because his new book, "Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb: A Study of Academic Disengagement", places some of the blame squarely on them:
As Ogbu told a New York Times reporter, there were two parts to the problem; "society and schools on one hand and the black community on the other...What amazed me is that these kids who come from homes of doctors and lawyers are not thinking like their parents. They don't know how their parents made it. They are looking at rappers in ghettos as their role models, they are looking at entertainers. The parents work two jobs, three jobs, to give their children everything, but they are not guiding their children."
This is not Dr. Ogbu's first brush with controversy. In the 1980's, he and a fellow researcher uncovered the phenomenon of black students avoiding academic success due to their fear of "acting white." And Dr. Ogbu isn't the only one to identify the presence of violent gangsta rap and ghetto-idolatry as an obstacle which impedes black children. John McWhorter's description in the City Journal of the negative effects of gangsta rap is compelling, and unnerving.
Mr. Page advises black parents not to allow their kids to accept such self-defeating behavior as rejection of social norms or academic acheivement, and not to use the excuses of racism (or fear of it) to avoid self-improvement:
There is no shame in the mere fact that some groups show different levels of interest and performance in education and other skills. It is only a shame if the low performers don't do something to improve. Asian Americans outperform whites academically, for example, yet no one blames racism for white "underachievement." Similarly, the rest of us should not reject useful insights about our children, either, even when it is a little painful to hear.
By facing obvious realities openly and honestly, we can begin to encourage a self-image among black youths that will help them to value their brains as much as their basketballs or the "bling-bling" and "ching-ching" of rap stars on MTV and BET.
Posted by kswygert at August 5, 2003 01:20 PM