Hacker News Reader

Comment by endtime | Hacker News Reader

Why do black people need their role models to be black? Plenty of white kids in my day looked up to Michael Jordan as an incredibly hardworking athlete.

The "acting white" derision is pretty much exclusive to blacks, as far as I know. It's certainly not present among Asians or white people. I'm actually not sure about Hispanics but I've never heard of education being frowned upon by them. I don't know what you mean by "that's too easy", but I've heard it cited as the main problem in socio studies, by people like Bill Cosby, and in firsthand accounts in things like reddit AMAs.

View on HN

"Acting white" is a black concept by definition. But poor whites absolutely do have an analogous cultural stigma: the concept of 'showing up' your parents/family/friends by doing better than them. You may have also heard this expressed as 'thinking they're better', general discouragement of learning, some uses of 'putting on airs', etc.

As for role models, it's more important for minorities to see people like themselves in those roles, strictly because culture is otherwise telling them there are things they cannot and/or are not allowed to do, because of who they are.

It's not that a would-be black scientist needs a black scientist to be inspired to pursue science. Nor a would-be gay politician needs a gay politician to be inspired to pursue public service. It's that a would-be black scientist or gay politician benefits from seeing anyone like themselves doing what they want to do, so they can know our culture is full of shit when it says they can't.

It's far, far easier for a child to believe the lies and be discouraged from a challenging path if there is no evidence out there to disprove what the culture is telling them.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to play semantics with the phrase "acting white" - I've never heard of the whole "showing up" thing. I'm surprised to learn of it. That, uh, sucks. The only similar meme in my memepool is rural people feeling a bit miffed/abandoned by relatives or friends who move to a big city, but I didn't get the impression that this had to do with money or education.

The tall stake gets hammered down. Happens in every culture.

In Australia, this is known as the 'Tall Poppy Theory'. The idea is that the tall poppy is the first one to get cut. Staying alive means staying at the exact same level as everyone else.

It's an awful pattern, but is hardly restricted to one cultural or racial milieu. Class systems everywhere are predicated on the same basic idea: you're supposed to know your place, and you're not supposed to forget it.

The "acting white" derision is pretty much exclusive to blacks, as far as I know

"Acting white" by definition isn't going to be present among whites, but anti-intellectiolism certainly is. See: GOP 2008 presidential campaign.

It's certainly not present among Asians

You've never heard the insult "banana"?

Yeah, I actually have (though I didn't think of it when I wrote my previous comment). But I've heard it only in a joking fashion. And certainly not to do with education or success - more often to do with food or cartoon preferences than anything else, I think.

>Why do black people need their role models to be black? Plenty of white kids in my day looked up to Michael Jordan as an incredibly hardworking athlete.

I didn't mean to say that their role models should only be black. Sorry if I wasn't clear on that. For a black kid, I think the impact of seeing someone who's black and successful is huge. Think about the numbers of black kids who started playing golf because of Tiger Woods. Like I said, it's hard to quantify but it makes a difference.

>The "acting white" derision is pretty much exclusive to blacks, as far as I know. It's certainly not present among Asians or white people. I'm actually not sure about Hispanics but I've never heard of education being frowned upon by them. I don't know what you mean by "that's too easy", but I've heard it cited as the main problem in socio studies, by people like Bill Cosby, and in firsthand accounts in things like reddit AMAs.

The "acting white" derision most certainly exists in other minorities besides blacks. I've seen in it first hand in in some form or another. I'd contend that the "acting white" derision and the "extreme anti-education" sentiment are not necessarily the same thing.

It exists in some Native American groups as well, where people who "act white" are called Apples (red on the outside, white on the inside), similar to how blacks who "act white" are called Oreos. Sadly, both groups often find it easier and more attractive to blame racism for all their problems than to actually consider that there culture is part of the problem.

Ah, I didn't know that and that is unfortunate. I've never really met any Native Americans or otherwise been exposed to their modern culture. I've heard an Asian friend jokingly refer to herself as a banana (yellow outside, white inside) but I got the impression that this was not a serious/pervasive thing in the same way as the Oreo slur. If the "apple" thing is that serious then that's very unfortunate.

serious/pervasive thing in the same way as the Oreo slur

I don't know that "Oreo" is a pervasive slur. I've certainly never heard it IRL.

I don't know if it is pervasive, but it certainly exists:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2005/nov/1/20051101-1049...

Oh, I'm not that it exists but the assertion was that the use of "oreo" was pervasive - I'm not convinced of that given thadisputingt I've never heard anyone use that term in real life.

For what it's worth, my ex-girlfriend (an African fugee) was called an oreo (among other things) by African Americans who didn't approve of her lifestyle.

Again, it exists, but if in 38 years of growing up black, going to school with blacks, living, working, playing sports, dating, etc with blacks, I've never heard it, and I don't know anyone who has heard it, I really can't consider it "pervasive".

Lots of things exist, but aren't pervasive - terrorism for example.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com