I agree with the writer.I too often have gotten into arguments with friends, educated people, college graduates, accepting behaviour such as showing late to anything and calling it black people time, I say it's just rude and I don't identify myself as rude just because I'm black.I have encountered too many young people, especially men, as part of reading tutoring programs that live by the idea of being educated, talking plain english, etc. is acting white.We are the biggest impediment to our own advancement.That's what Bill Cosby was so mad about when he went into his famous(infamous) tirade because here is a man who can recall first hand a time when he could be denied anything just because he was a black man and told so publicly.Why aren't black children doing better in school?Study harder.Stop letting everyone else define what and who you are.I grew up in some of the rougher part of Philly during the 70's and I managed to go to college and graduate "cum laude" from Temple U. with a degree in electrical engineering.So no one can tell me that it can't be done.

Black people spend more time beating up on each other, literally and figuratively, than any other group in the world. Our commentary, in this matter, is generally generally more insightful than in times past but we spend too much time telling each other how bad we are.

I really do not believe that poor black people enjoy poverty anymore than poor white people. Bill Cosby is doing the equivalent of kicking someone when they are down with his misguided outrage. We need jobs, lots of them. Unfortunately, as was so astutely observed, that's not happening. The inability to find a consistent solution in the face of formidable obstacles is the root of the problem. This is not all or even mostly our fault, but we have to fight (just not against each other) our way out of it.

I truly believe the strategic emphasis cannot be to endlessly criticize one another for not succeeding often enough and fast enough. I challenge anyone to look at our accomplishments, chattel slavery to BET, gangsta rap and the entire conflicted mess, and find any other group in the history of mankind that has come further, faster. All this, in less than 200 years. We do have a long way to go, but we are not bad people. I wish that we would remind ourselves of that more often.

Nice piece - clear and eloquent and fearless. But I wonder if Ms Dickerson is right to couch "racism" in terms of "what white people do to black people". She does not say this explicitly, but I think she infers it. Cornel West is good on this point. He says that racism - the belief or assumption that one "kind" of human is better, or worth more, than another - is just as much a cognitive shortcoming for those on the poorer end of this calculus. We are all, he says, infected with the toxic ideas and notions of difference that pervade our world - it's just that few of us will admit as much. Steve Biko said much the same thing.

Gilligan's recent book called "Violence, American epidemic", clearly identifies part of why the American culture/societal construct, has become the most violent in the world. The book is scholarly, intense, and not for the timid. A must-read.

Great post.

Be careful what you wish for. If you go to a state hospital, there is indeed a disproportionate number of black people who are being drugged out of their minds and labelled "paranoid", "violent" and "emotionally disturbed" for their anger at a racist society. "The War Against Children of Color" by Dr. Peter Breggin documents the efforts by scientists and the government to "pre-empt" violence by putting "at-risk" minority kids on heavy doses of psychiatric medications to keep them submissive.

"Blacks today should also be too busy tending to their community to participate in racism's mind games."

And therein lies one of the problems: there is not single community to tend. Too many of us have departed to the suburbs and exurbs and have become part of other neighborhoods and communities. As recently as the mid-70s no matter how affluent Black people were they had to stay in the same community. Perhaps a better block or corner of town, but the same general area. Now some of us have escaped the confines that had been central to a huge piece of any reasonable concept of community. Important because examples of positive aspiration were our neighbors who were professionals, shopkeepers, high skilled craftsmen, etc.

I am not advocating that everyone abandon their homes in the suburbs, which is their access to a safer neighborhood, better schools, higher status or whatever drove them out of the 'hood. Rather, I assert that simply imploring that our brothers and sisters who are left in less desirable neighborhoods with neglected schools to "do better" is totally insufficient. This is a much bigger issue than "personal responsibility" can effectively handle. There is a significant degree of collective responsibility that we must all bear. Part of that collective MUST be government policies and community organization.

From a US point of view you can look at Phily and see a blacks shooting blacks problem.
But then from a European perspective it's much bigger... more an American problem - Americans shooting Americans.
Sadly, the NRA is too powerful to allow any solution.
Debra - this really is a 'Pot calling kettle... story' that applies to every shade of American.

"He answers seldom a word." - meaning he doesn't give them any fuel for their fire I think. I'm Caucasian and there are a lot of others like me who always wanted to go out of their way as best they could for blacks. I wonder if it would help if more blacks were aware of that? As a poor white person I have dealt with depression and feelings of hopelessness. It's my own fault but that doesn't make it better. Making it better comes from finding a way to break that mental cycle.

This ties in to something I was writing about a couple months ago: We've become
divided, hyphenated-americans, and it's been no
accident, nor do I believe
that racism per se is an
exclusively 'white' phenomenon, I've now met my
first 'black' and 'hispanic'
skinheads, recycled hate
rhetoric translates well and
is applicable to many situations I guess, but it's
still destructive.

Anyway, back to the hyphenated-americanism, or
institutionalized racism,
whatever you call it, well,
for one thing, globalizationer is going to put an end to it, because all
the smart companies are taking what's left of their
fortunes and leaving all this wonderfulness behind...and,
since the whole ugliness is
about money for the most part,
well, when the money's gone,
we're just going to be left
with each other. Ah, family...

Racism is the belief or assumption that one "kind" of human is better, or worth more, than another? Drivel. It's completely obvious that some people are better than others. People that live quietly, work hard and support their families are better than those that run drugs and abuse others. Not so?

And appearance apart from physical characteristics is the main clue people have as to culture and character. Dignity. Attitude. Quality and taste of clothing. Cultural judgments are often mistaken for racism. If a poor black person thinks a well-dressed white person is discriminating against him, he or she ought to examine how that person treats well-dressed black people, and how that white person treats white trash, before jumping to the conclusion of racism. I'm white, and have felt a closer connection to well-dressed middle-class black people than to many working-class white people.

Excellent piece, thanks Debra. This should be emailed around!

Yes Forrest, some people *are* better than others (in my view at least), but the point is you can't tell this just by looking, or assuming beforehand. You have to actually find out. A suit and tie is no better as an indicator of personal quality than long hair, no hair, tattoos, eye colour, skin colour, or anything else to do with the surface of a person. It really isn't hard to find well-dressed morons, of any colour.

Prof Watson's post was:"James Watson, a Nobel Prize winner(like Al Gore and J. Carter) for his part in the unravelling of DNA who now runs one of America's leading scientific research institutions and is one of the world's most eminent scientists was embroiled in an extraordinary row last night after he claimed that black people were less intelligent than white people and the idea that "equal powers of reason" were shared across racial groups was a delusion.
He said Western policies towards African countries were wrongly based on an assumption that black people were as clever as their white counterparts when "testing" suggested the contrary. He claimed genes responsible for creating differences in human intelligence could be found within a decade. So much for the waste of resources on diversity and multi-culturalism. "

Why this still comes up as an issue, I think I'll never know. They are crimes that are not be dealt with by society and law-enforcement.

Funny...no one says how much whites must hate whites to kill so many of them in two world wars,and Stalin and Hitler killing their own citizens; or how much Chinese must hate each other to kill and starve so many to death; or how much Christians must have hated each other for England, France and Spain to have fought each other.

As a 60 year old black male, I know there is another dynamic going on here. People will invariably take out their frustrations on those in the nearest to proximity to them.

Feed the frustrations and you feed the crime.

Racism encourages so-called black on black crime. In New Orleans where I grew up, you were lucky if you got six months jail time for killing another black person...kill someone white and you would be lucky to make it to Angola's death chamber.

This is not rocket science.

"Racism encourages so-called black on black crime", yea blame the white man for everything, don't accept responsiblity, be dependent upon the handouts from the white liberals. This is not what the Nation of Islam teaches Freddy. I suggest that you get in touch with them to learn to grow up and be a real man that Black women can look up to.

I believe that if we want a better future for this country, we all, every color must work for it. Yes, black people who are fortunate enough to be succesful, to have had someone encouraging them, or the inner strength, well that's awesome when they give back, just as awesome when anyone gives back. This is everybody's responsibility, to give every child hope. That's a huge task to put on the back of a few, while everyone else gets to sit back and critisize. As some of the other comments said, its the hopelessness, that makes people act out. Its not only black men who beat there wives, or fight each other, or turn to alcohol, drugs, or hate. Please, that's everybody. Not just the poor either. We all need to look at ourselves before we judge another.

I think that Blacks in the US have a tough and perhaps precedented job of defining our culture in the shadow of stolen origins, language, and the isolation of the nuclear family. This is tough people. We are working on it, but it is definitely ugly right now in my opinion. The adaptation of white standards of beauty and criminal mentality may have been and continue to be, on some levels, tools of survival. Personally, I had a huge target on me as an inner city youth who did not have "game" or a good relaxer, but I survived. I also used academics to define myself; I attended great schools. What about those kids who need to define themselves? I think less could be invested in this conversation and more should be invested into outlets for inner city youth who should be defining themselves.

Scott
I commend you for your achievements, but I also wonder, were you a nerd, deeply rooted in the church/mosque, gay, or socially gifted? This question is not meant to insult, as I don't know you except for your career and school performance.

On an anecdotal level, most of my friends and some above examples of people who have made it out of proverty through education have fallen into at least one of the following categories, which can really be broken into (1) socially outside of "typical" superficial high school social life or (2) so popular they were cool w/ everyone and could do what they wanted, including study and graduate. It seems as if peer pressure plays a huge role, and it depends on who you consider your peers.