...FROM YOU! I LEARNED IT FROM WATCHING YOU

Tuesday, January 14, 2003

 


this guy was my professor for my linguistics 55 class at berkeley. he wrote a new book, read about it here.

what do you guys make of this idea, taken a little out of context:

"For example, at Berkeley every third student is Asian. They're everywhere. There's clearly something that Asian students are doing above and beyond what anyone else is doing. They're obsessed with doing well and they show you what is required to hit the highest notes. Doing that requires incentive. Unfortunately, it also applies to black people, with all of our history and all of our struggle. Asian students have learned what it takes to do well -- you can't sleep, you can't date. They practically overdo it. There's no reason for that in the black community, because if you do pretty darn well, you'll get into a school above and beyond what Suzie Wong could possibly get into. People wonder why middle-class black students still have these low grades and scores. There's no reason to wonder. Part of it is that there's an element in black culture that is a legacy of racism, and another part of it is that there's no reason for that to go away, because everywhere a black person turns, they're given a pass. That has to stop."