Young gifted and black: advice for young African Americans

Brandon Whitney writes, "I'm not going to lie to you or sugarcoat it."

I like your point of view. I will assume the same attitude for you.

You article is slightly tinged with racism through your casting all of society, those who are not black, as bigots and racists. This is ok. I understand to you believe to reach your readers you must portray Black Americans as victims and the rest of us as out to inflict harm on blacks.

Is this truly the right message to send to readers? Some might be offended, as I am.

Other than your opening insult to the majority, your article is to the point and contains good information. Following your points will certainly help any person, regardless of skin color, stand a better chance at living a good life.

Perhaps some young people, of any skin color, will ignore your opening comments and follow your advice with yours being very sound advice.

I can write to your topic in many different ways but will work at being brief; I tend to write too much and readers tend to not be interested in reading.

Our family owns a lot of rental homes. No, we did not inherit those homes, we worked our fingers to the bone, we worked for and paid for those rentals, with cash.

Some notes about rental tenants. We can spot those who make good tenants because they trap themselves into a life of being renters. These are people who do not adhere to tight and reasonable budgets. These are people who buy a lot of toys and almost always buy using a credit card. These people have big screen televisions, big stereos, fancy furniture, nice cars, often bar hop, fly off to Hawaii, wear the latest fashion in clothes, enjoy sitting on a plush sofa while drinking beer and watching football on the big screen... and are in debt up to their necks and never to be free of debt; no escape, no future, forever rental tenants.

Sometimes, not often, but sometimes we have to evict people for not paying their rent or always being late, causing problems in a neighborhood by being loud, disrespectful, whatever. This is unimportant. We have their money, they are gone and we have a tenant waiting list because we enjoy a excellent reputation as landlords; we keep rent low, are generous and quick to lend a helping hand.

What is important is events after tenants move out. Very quickly a mail box is filled up with their mail because they are not responsible enough to file a change of address. What arrives? Overdue notices, mail from collection agencies, law firms giving notice of civil litigation to collect owed money. Always happens, always the same; spend more money than made.

This is a reflection of a lack of good work ethics.

These struggles in life, about which you write, are the same for almost everyone, least those of us not born with a silver spoon stuck in our butts. These struggles are not restricted to black folks only.

Our family was born to poverty, dire poverty. We escaped poverty by working hard, by sacrifice, by doing without and by clinging to our money as if money is life itself.

Getting ahead in life is a game and you have to play this game just right which includes humbling yourself to others to make gains, to get ahead.

We taught our daughter humility the same way her father and I learned humility, through hard work, damn hard work. When she reached ten years of age, while her father worked, each summer break from school I took her to Oklahoma to live with Choctaw relatives who are rural farmers. She lived life as we did when her age. She worked from sunrise to sunset, work at knocking down weeds, tending crops, plowing behind a mule, sweating, cursing and being eaten alive by chiggers, ticks and mosquitoes at night, along with sharing a bed with other kids, all of whom sweated their way through hot humid Oklahoma nights.

Couple summers, we lived with Indians on reservations in northern New Mexico. She learned a lot from those experiences, learned very valuable lessons about humility.

When she became a teenager, we went to Arizona to pick cotton or to the Imperial Valley in California to harvest crops right alongside Mexican illegals. She had to give me half of her wages, which were not much, to pay our cheap motel room rent and to pay for our food. After a couple of months, we returned home with maybe five-hundred bucks saved up between us.

She both enjoyed and suffered a lot of experiences like this. We taught her good work ethics.

Today, she is a clinical psychologist and very wealthy. She also knows how to farm, knows how to plow behind a mule, knows how to milk a cow and churn milk. She also knows how grind grains to bake hard bread in a tribal communal oven and how to stone wash clothes then string those clothes out to dry on a rooftop. She also knows how to do without and knows hunger.

http://www.purlgurl.net/~choctaw/graphics/powwow/pw019.jpg

All of your points about moving ahead in life, Brandon Whitney, are very good points and I fully support your thoughts. I would add one more thought. This is to teach your children and to teach yourself, good work ethics.

I have never known an honest hard day’s work to harm anyone.

Okpulot Taha
Choctaw Nation

Great article. My only complaint is that you assume that somehow "hard work" eradicates racism. Doing your best, as you repeated over and over in this articles does not mean a fair share to a piece of the American dream. There are still stigmas that societal, not necessarily an issue for blacks. But all in all, I like your underlying message, which I interpreted to be: it is much harder to discriminate against someone based on race if one isn't adhering to and perpetuating racial stereotypes.

Carla is right on. Good article, but like she said blacks shouldnt take on this role of the abused woman. Blaming themselves for the abuse of her husband. Thats his sickness alone. Now as the article states his sickness is no excuse for you to fail. We have risen above the most challanging odds, and we must continue. Somewhere theres a balance. Not the Cosby approach simply laying all of the blame on contemptous negroes, Nor the Jesse, Al approach laying all the blame on the biggot boogie man. Somewhere theres a responsible approach, Thats God centered. That has dignity and self determination, combined with moral accountability, combined with passionate commitment to social justice.

What is the purpose of this article?

Unless he has forgotten "CHARITY" and "Home Training" begins at home. Maybe there's something I'm not getting here. All blacks do not do any of the above mentioned. And that is something that all races can be contributed to

So now Brandon my question is this. What about the Young, Gifted, and Black indvidual who works hard and gets looked over due to race? Please answer that because I have seen all too much in Corporate America where KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS and ABILITY is suppose to advance you

However, I have also seen it all be trumped by "LIKEABLITY" So Brandon answer that. This was really baseless unless someone is not being raised properly at home and just do not know the TYPICALS Do's and Don't's

But of course WHURLY PURLY always knows the answers for African Americans in which she isn't one

Nice Article Brandon, I give my respect to anyone who takes the times to inspire and encourage afican american youth. A lot of what you said is true. But some of the things really made me laugh. But maybe thats becuz I am already doing everything you suggested and more. I could sit here and try to find fault with what you said. But this is not the time or the place. Thank you for the encouragement. Im going to pass this along to a LOT of people right now! Id also encourage black youth to hold out on sex if possible. It'll most likely always be there. So focus on developing and progressing yourself first. Before you decide you wanna go laying off in other people.

I disagree with Purl Gurl that the article is offensive to all whites. I am white, and I was not offended The article did not imply that ALL whites have racist attitudes. However, enough whites do that if blacks to not take that into account, their opportunities will be significantly limited. Moreover, his advice to achieve success would be helpful for people of any race, regardless of the presence or absence of racial discrimination.

FRE writes, "I disagree with Purl Gurl that the article is offensive to all whites."

You are right. His opening remarks are not offensive to all whites. His opening remarks are offensive to everyone, regardless of skin color.

I did not write his article is offensive as you state. I write his opening remarks are offensive. I also write strong support for his overall theme.

Brandon Whitney, author under discussion, writes, "You're Black...People are likely to assume...."

"People" is everyone, regardless of skin color. However, Whitney infers an exception for blacks because he is contrasting blacks to all others. In essence, Whitney is writing, paraphrased, "All people are bigots except for blacks."

This is offensive wording but I give Brandon benefit of the doubt. My presumption is he intended "some people" rather than "all" as inferred.

Okpulot Taha
Choctaw Nation

Brandon Whitney is right, you know. Purl Gurl is right, too, because she is expressing her own, honest reaction to Brandon Whitney's article. The gist of it is that if you are black, or something else not caucasian, you learn to assume people may be viewing you thruogh lenses they have inherited from society. You assume that, until shown otherwise on a case-by-case basis. That does not mean you go around disliking others. You do the opposite, even though you must know that the initial impression of some people will be that they dislike you. This is just about as true for someone who must go around in a wheelchair or has their hair parted the wrong way, as it is for black people. You don't have to get defensive about it. There are things that give people special challenges.