Love Has Absolutely Nothing to do With It

Yesterday, I went to make sure that my head remained relatively dead cell-free. Any place where hair is being styled or shorn is a great place to get into all sorts of stimulating conversations and top-of-the-lungs debates. Yesterday was no different.

My barber, Mario, a huge—as in fat—guy, has a lot of children. Some of them work for him as barbers, beauticians and manicurists. One of the girls, a seventeen-year-old senior in high school, is about to send out her college applications for the 2004 fall semester/quarter, she informed me. I’ve been going to this barbershop for a few years now and I’ve watched this young lady grow up, so I was thrilled.

This led to a discussion about loans and scholarships. The daughter is applying to Cal State and University of California schools, along with private schools like USC and Pepperdine. Mario tried to dissuade his daughter from applying to private schools because of the costs involved, but I told him not to do that. She should apply and then apply for scholarships, I told him. If she doesn’t get enough to cover costs, she can go to a UC or a Cal State school. All they can do is say ‘no,’ I told him. He was convinced.

(Like many people over fifty, he is ambivalent about computer use, so I clued him in about the various ways of winning scholarship money through the Internet.)

While this conversation was going on, there was an older man and his grandson waiting their turn. At an opportune moment, the man interjected with this:

“You gotta jump through too many hoops just to get an education! They don’t want us there anyway!”

Why did he have to say that in front of me? (Answering my own rhetorical question: so I could blog about it, of course.)

This is what it’s all about. They don’t want us there. Those hoops are just there to discourage blacks and latinos from applying to college. Yep, that’s right. No other group of people has to follow the same route when applying for college, according to this man.

So, because they allegedly don’t want us there, we should just forget about going to college.

Isn’t that the most stupid pile of feces you’ve ever read in your life? After all the Affirmative Action, the 20 points for melanin, the black-only dorms, the black-only graduation ceremonies, they don’t want us there. Even if it were true, so what? Getting a college education isn’t a popularity contest—although the Looney Left Liberal professors make a good impression of it being so (which, ironically, would work in a victicrat black person’s favor.)

This is the crux of the problem with too many black Americans. It’s not about jobs, education, money or housing, not really. Black people want you to like them, every last one of them; from Al Sharpton to Condoleezza Rice (okay, maybe not her).

Heck, I don’t even like every black person. In fact, I don’t like most of them. (Don’t start feeling smug, others. I don’t like most of you either.)

Some Jamaican and African immigrants I know have even said as much. The man who owns the cleaners that I frequent, an American born in Jamaica, put it this way: “You [native-born black] Americans care about things that most of us don’t. Trivialities. You want everyone to love you.”

When black (and other) immigrants come here from places where most don’t have adequate housing, in-door plumbing, food, health care and opportunities, they make the most of it and worry about people liking them later, if at all.

Arrgh!

(Calming down.) Well, for my black brethren who still want unconditional love from white people, I submit for your approval a white brutha and sista who really know how to show some love to the race! Heh.

Comments

[Dean Esmay]

You must get called an Uncle Tom (Aunt Tom?) a lot.

Pathetic, ain't it?

[King of Fools]

I think you hit the nail on the head. It is so frustrating when you see people who have plenty of potential and opportunity but instead spend their energy identifying every slight or even perceived slights.

Sometimes it feels like the traffic lights are biased against me but I try not to take it personally.

(Hey - and thanks for linking me!)

[DCE]

Amen! It seems that too often that some of the so-called 'leaders' of the black and latino communities are more interested in maintaining 'victim' status for the people in the community rather than helping them truly get ahead. With no more victims they have no followers, hence no more power.

[Chris from CT]

"You want everyone to love you."
Hmmm. Maybe that should be, "You want to sue everyone into loving you."

[SwampWoman]

I used to have a construction company and hired a variety of folks. What I thought was odd was that the whites and hispanics did not have a problem with the Caribbean blacks, but the American blacks would make their lives a living hell until they left.

[baldilocks]

Dean: Not to my face. :-P

Chris: Yes.

SwampWoman: See DC Thornton's take on black American/black immigrant relations. Very illuminating.

[SwampWoman]

Thanks for the link, Baldilocks! Yes, it was very illuminating. Seems that the more people have to sacrifice to get here (like the Haitians here in Florida), the more they despite the people that do not see or refuse to take advantage of the opportunities.

I thought it was strange that the people that I had intuitively thought would be most sympathetic to a new immigrant of color trying to make it here were the most oppressive to the new immigrant, while the (supposedly) most oppressive(white folks)were more supportive. Yeah, yeah, I know, never assume.

[Will]

I think the statement "They don’t want us there anyway!" can be interpreted any number of ways, and I think there's more to it than "Black people want you to like them."

What if he meant, "They are creating a hostile learning environment, and, since this isn't conducive to an optimal learning experience, I'd rather not experience this." Is that a legitimate complaint?

[baldilocks]

Will: I've had quite a bit of experience in university classrooms--some many years ago, before my military service, some in recent years. Anecdotally speaking, I don't understand what hostile learning environment you are speaking of. As a matter of fact, the only hostile learning environment I've personally experienced was in high school when some black gang members threatened to beat up a teacher (black man)for referring to them as little thugs when they were disrupting his history class.

The man in question in my above post was solely referring to the application process. There is no question of it.

Could you explain what you mean by hostile learning environment?

[Will]

I asked a hypothethical question. I'm waiting for your response.

[Will]

As you've gathered from the conclusion of my most recent post, I'm not interesting in an argument. If you'd rather not answer the question, or if you don't think it's lucid enough, so be it.

[baldilocks]

And I asked a question to get some clarification of your definitions so I could answer your question, Will. I think that's fair.

[baldilocks]

As you've gathered from the conclusion of my most recent post, I'm not interesting in an argument.

Linking to my post, (out of context) commenting on some of my points and commenting of my commenters is an...interesting way of demonstrating lack of desire to engage in argument (reasonable exchange of ideas and opinions).

[Will]

How much "context" would satisfy you?The entire paragraph? Your entire entry?

Not answering my question is a blatant way of showing your unwillingness to engage in argument and to defend your own words.

What we have here is yet another blogger who only responds to commenters who kowtow to her point of view. Goodbye, Juliette.

[baldilocks]

LOL! Thanks, Will, for being my first troll. It's an honor.

[toddk73]

Will, are you sniffing glue?

[John]

"What if he meant, "They are creating a hostile learning environment, and, since this isn't conducive to an optimal learning experience, I'd rather not experience this." Is that a legitimate complaint?"

Wil asked this, and man, its idiotic right off the top. If I turned down every opportunity I had because it wasn't an "optimal learning experience" I'd never have gotten out of kindergarten. I mean seriously, life is hard, rough, mean and nasty. If you want to be coddled, grow up, it aint gonna happen after your mom stops breast feeding you.

[baldilocks]

Lay off of Will, folks.

[Dom]

That is just a very funny site. Letters page is the funniest.