Warner Squire,
Bartow, FL.
I’m convinced that much of our society and standards are based on perpetuating manufactured truths in order to manipulate people who have become way too busy to do their own research in SO many areas; not only do they have little time and resources, but they are taught from a young age to value material things beyond necessity and/or their grasp (e.g. spend their McDonald’s check at Walmart, while watching sports (or the news…) and being advertised-to by T-Mobile (I’m a customer : ) ). These citizens pick their presidents via sound-bytes!.. These citizens wouldn’t contribute as much to the GDP if they were critical thinkers… critical thinkers MAY question the privileges (“unearned advantages”—-Shannon Sullivan in “Revealing Whiteness”). In our current state, people are scratchin’ for every advantage they can get—-even if we ARE all from Africa, most citizens only care about using perceptions for advantages.
Admittedly, we blacks have a lot of blame to shoulder as well; call it an unnatural feat, but if we could value education per se, the way we value entertaining (and being entertained), we could be the first people on Mars. While whites are continuously setting new standards (in general), we consistently measure ourselves by our obtainment of the statuses/liberties of their achievements. We need “self-determination” as the Panthers used to say.
In the end, we cannot force people to care about others—-those of us that see the benefits of it need to continue to get together and have a blast, so that the marginalized BECOME the ones who choose to hang-on to old sensibilities, rather than seeing how much we can learn from each other, and how much more we have in common than we differ on.
Michele, I NEVER knew you were black (I’ve listened to you from time-to-time over the years). I always felt “smart” listening to “All Things Considered.” Thank you for visiting us at Florida Southern College for Convocation on February 11th, 2015. I enjoyed your Master Class (I wanted to say “thank you in person, but I thought ‘sayyy, speakers probably get tired of “groupies… : ) ” ‘). Please tell my uncle (Dennis Herndon) I said, “Heyyy, Unck!…”
