Chua and Rubenfeld give the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and others credit for attending historically black colleges and universities that instill racial pride, a plus in their opinion, but Sean “Diddy” Combs gets more space as a spokesman for black historical truth. That’s a warning sign in itself. “America’s most successful groups are cashing in on superiority stories they still believe in and still pass down to their children. This is an advantage that was denied to African Americans and continues to be denied to them today,” they write, as though African Americans are not agents of their own destiny and do not even control the lessons taught to family members. The civil rights movement they disparage contradicts that notion. The narrative told by so many black parents — the pride and respect for ancestors who survived and triumphed despite unimaginable hardship, the admonition that you have to work twice as hard to get half as far and you do it with the knowledge of elders who endured much more – is mentioned as an exception, practiced in the families of black “aristocracies.” My life experience, and that of neighbors and friends who grew up in homes as modest as I did, prove them wrong. I’m guessing they haven’t spent much time listening to dinnertime cross-talk in African American families. Chua and Rubenfeld may be educated, but they aren’t smart enough to know what they don’t know about history and the movement that benefited all Americans – cultural groups that would include them.
Posted on: Fri, 07 Feb 2014 02:32:52 +0000
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