Best Posts in Thread: Telling children 'hard work gets you to the top' is simply a lie

This is what i've come to learn. PPl love to hear them and make them feel good. Sometimes I even get happy when I hear how a black person beat the odds and got out to get into the ives.

But then I think what about the ones who did not get out. Where did they go. If not Harvard did they get into Morehouse or Hampton? Or what about their own parents they also worked hard why were they not able to get out before they had kids? Then I think about our ancestors. What about them? I know damn well they work really hard. Why did they not get to see the fruit of their hard work--SLAVERY.

Theses stories sometime ignore the institutional hurdles we face trying to make it. I have a problem w/ this because this should be the norm not the exception. It also feeds into the mentality that poor people are poor because their lazy don't want to work. "If they only would work hard they could be rich". All the poor ppl I know have at least 2 jobs with a college degree.

 

Everyone doesn't have access to the tools needed to get ahead,as addressed above.Some people won't get too far because they won't qualify.if your high school is a level 2,you most likely aren't even aware of how unprepared you are for college.

And really any job is based on an employer's sense of you.They have the discretion to choose or pass over you with no explanation.Any success anyone has ever had is owed,on some level,to someone giving them a break.Hard Work will (hopefully) get you in the position to be noticed by anyone who can open doors for the next level.

 

But you know us black people have known since forever that this is a lie too.

 

Yes increasingly for any group(unless you are born with a silver spoon in your mouth) you have to word hard as well as have some lucky breaks, or even better, the ability to see and take advantage of opportunities when they arise. It is not just opportunity-it is the ability to see and realize an opportunity is there, and then to seize it and act upon it. It is easier for whites of course, but not as easy as it was and it is getting worse for everyone as society loses the middle class and increasingly becomes a bifurcated society with fewer 'haves', and many many more 'have nots'.