[Jermyn Davidson]

Originally Posted by Monkeyman
I recall the teacher telling my brother that he HAD to take mechanics & wood shop instead of the higher classes so he could get a job more according to his kind...causing my Dad to drive up from LA demanding to see the top dog and the result was my bro graduating from Yale, Duke, and now a prof @ U of Michigan.


The guidance counselors in my HS tried to do the same ting to my youngest sister-- encouraging her to take up hair braiding at the Charles County VO-Tech Center. She was given this advice her Junior year of HS.

She works for company that has a contract with DARPA(?) today-- some kind of Office Adminstrator. She makes whole lot more than what she would have made if she had followed the well-meaning advice of her guidance counsellors who told her to take up hair-braiding.

My sister is black. Her guidance counsellors were white, old and female.

I am not saying they advised her the way they did out of malice or hate.

At least one her counsellors was a counsellor I knew as well when I was in HS-- they did not steer me to VO-TECH at all.

It's so much more difficult to explain, to pin point and it's not necessarilly mean-spirited all the time-- but racial prejudice still permeates our society.

Racism-- institutionalized, damaging, hate-filled and fear mongering race oriented behaviors (racism as I define it) is not America's most pressing problem. Today, I am not sure it it is even in the top 10 of major issues plaguing our country as a whole-- I'd say probably not.


However, my Grandparents-- my Parents America is a much different America than today's America. For this we should all be grateful and DO MORE with the opportunities we do have instead of looking for a reason to explain away our personal failures. That'll preach for every American-- red, yellow, black and white.