Is it ever appropriate to blame the victim? As harsh as it sounds, yes, it is appropriate when the very perception of victimization has become a core problem in and of itself.
The NY Times reports on the surprising and disturbing results of a study conducted right here in the Cleveland area:
- The persistent academic gap between white and black students has touched off difficult and often ugly debates over the question why. Are racist stereotypes to blame? Substandard schools? Cultural attitudes?
This long-running argument may bubble up again next year with the arrival of a book that argues minority communities themselves contribute to student failure.
The book, "Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb: A Study of Academic Disengagement" (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates), is by John U. Ogbu, an anthropology professor at the University of California at Berkeley and a well-known figure in the field of student achievement for more than three decades. Indeed, it was Mr. Ogbu's research that popularized the phrase "acting white" in the mid-1980's to help explain why black students might disdain behaviors associated with high achievement, like speaking standard grammatical English.
Now Mr. Ogbu is back, arguing with renewed fervor that his most recent research shows that African-Americans' own cultural attitudes are a serious problem that is too often neglected.
"No matter how you reform schools, it's not going to solve the problem," he said in an interview. "There are two parts of the problem, society and schools on one hand and the black community on the other hand."
Professor Ogbu's latest conclusions are highlighted in a study of blacks in Shaker Heights, Ohio, an affluent Cleveland suburb whose school district is equally divided between blacks and whites. As in many racially integrated school districts, the black students have lagged behind whites in grade-point averages, test scores and placement in high-level classes. Professor Ogbu was invited by black parents in 1997 to examine the district's 5,000 students to figure out why.
"What amazed me is that these kids who come from homes of doctors and lawyers are not thinking like their parents; they don't know how their parents made it," Professor Ogbu said in an interview. "They are looking at rappers in ghettos as their role models, they are looking at entertainers. The parents work two jobs, three jobs, to give their children everything, but they are not guiding their children."
And these are relatively affluent black families. Unfortunately, you have never "made it": making it is an ongoing struggle for every family and every generation. It takes effort to keep the attention focused upon intellectual and academic achievement from generation to generation, especially when significant aspects of the culture act to undermine that value.
- Professor Ogbu is no stranger to controversy. His theory of "acting white" has been the subject of intense study since he first wrote about it in the mid-80's with Signithia Fordham, then a graduate student and now a professor of anthropology at the University of Rochester. They studied an inner-city Washington high school where students listed doing well in school among the "white" behaviors they rejected, like visiting the Smithsonian and dancing to lyrics rather than a beat.
Article comments
1 - Al Barger
It would make the point clearer and more consistently to simply drop the word "victim." If you're doing it to yourself, you're not a victim. Holding someone accountable for their own actions is not "blaming the victim."
Now, you could reasonably say that they are victims of the poverty pimps [eg Jesse Jackson, Kweisi Mfume] and the general culture that encourage bad attitudes and irresponsible behavior, but you'd still be hanging on to the unhelpful model of irresponsibility.
The main point is that (in a free society at least) people are usually their own worst enemies. In this case, black folks are doing it to themselves. It's not whitey that tells blacks to disdain learning. It's not whitey that tells black folks they should have 70% of their children born out of wedlock.
It's perhaps not "nice" to hold people to account. It's doesn't get the observer any credit for empathy or compassion. If your principle goal is to feel good about your own compassion, then accountability isn't the obvious strategy.
If actually improving people's lives is your goal, however, truthful and honest input is key.
2 - Eric Olsen
We seem to be in conceptual agreement - my use of the term "victim" here is meant to convey those heretofore not held accountable for their own lives due to the victimology policies of the "poverty pimps" as you call them. My main point, perhaps not clearly made, is that the most important decision is not identify yourself as a "victim" in the first place.