Redefining Culture Through Education

As I'm looking around at Free Republic this morning, I found an excellent column by Bill Maxwell of the St. Petersburg Times in which he discusses "black culture" and how it seems to be related to a loss of focus in the areas of education, manners, and work ethic. I've got to say, his statements hold true not only for blacks, but for everyone. Where I live, we've got white kids and Puerto Ricans running around pretending that they're "gangsta." They don't know how to communicate in any way other than swearing every third word. They don't know how to resolve disputes without violence, usually extreme violence. They are rude. They are impolite. Reading, writing, 'rithmetic? They have no clue how to do stuff that I used to do in junior high (and I'm only 30 for God's sake!) As far as I can tell, we have an entire generation setting itself up for massive failure.

Sure, in Generation X we have our issues. For a long time the talk was have about we X'ers would never amount to anything because we lacked this or that or the other. And we're still faced with significant obstacles, most commonly a ceiling on opportunity in the business world due to the large number of boomers working later in life. But we have also taken the tools we have: education, communication skills, and a certain civility to still forge ahead and to make progress despite everything.

Generation Y, my little sister's generation, is facing much the same as the X'ers. But like us, they are finding ways to succeed and to prepare for the time when they become the big dogs.

But this new generation, call them Z or whatever you want, I don't think that they're going to be able to adapt as well as X & Y did. Huge numbers of them are lacking the manners and civility needed. Many are dismissing as useless the education, and more importantly the educational ethic of lifetime learning, that will be needed to improvise, adapt and overcome. Generations X and Y headed into the world with a lack of focus and a disheartened attitude, but we had the tools in our toolbox to create success. Generation Z seems to be heading into the world with an empty toolbox.

I know I'm not the only one who shares these concerns. Look at some of these comments I've pulled from the Free Republic thread:

"I remember how these unflappable people put their families before everything else; how children dared not insult an elder inside or outside the home; how doing well in school was taken for granted; how "cutting up" in public and "shaming the family" were not tolerated.

Good article. More white people should have these standards, too." - Tax-chick, post #7

"White culture and white Americans, Eminem, and a host of other substitutions could be made for the authors reasons of why this country as a whole needs to wake up and get back to basics before the sound of a toilet flushing can be heard 'round the world." - freeangel, post #9

"Excellent points. A polite society is a civil society. We've become very course and it shows." - Cincinatus' Wife, post #13

"Very good post. You are absolutely right, of course. I would only point out that you black leaders are going to have to do the heavy lifting to effect corrective action in the black community. In today's PC climate, for a white to comment on, much less be critical of anything "black", gets him labeled racist. Perhaps that's the first problem you need to work on." - zebra 2, post #23

"I agree with this column. People are judged - black or white - by their behavior. More specificially, their attitude, the words they use, their ability to interact with others in a civil manner, even the way they dress.

I know young white men who similarly place themselves at a socio-economic disadvantage. You know the type, the ones who are always copping an attitude, wearing a baseball cap backwards with sneakers and baggy ill-fitting pants, spewing obscenities, "talking trash" and showing no mastery of the English language whatsoever. Well this is the way that many young black men are perceived as well, and this, not race, is what is holding them back." - SamAdams76, post #25

I'm starting to fear that we may actually have an entire generation coming along without the skills needed to function properly. And people without functioning cognative skills are easily manipulated and terrorized, as I pointed out in my last post.

"There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism...The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin...would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities." - Teddy Roosevelt

The hyphenated Americans are starting to impose their will on the majority of American-Americans. They can only succeed if we are too intellectually weak to resist their simplistic demagoguery. The tyranny of the minority starts up front with a lack of education.