Black In America

Throughout the film statistics were constantly thrown at us showing how African Americans are more likely to go to jail or flunk out of high school or college. These are very sad statistics to hear, but I believe that a lot of these problems are self-inflicted problems. As it even said in the film, many African Americans do not do well in school because it is not considered black to get good grades when many of them are capable of achieving those good grades. Fixing errors in ideology such as this would lead to more African Americans graduating and being able to get better jobs instead of leaving high school and turning to a life of crime for money.
I am not saying that it is purely due to this ideology that African Americans seem more disadvantages, for I realize that there is still racism around today, but that small remainder of racism seems to be fading fast, as shown by the election of Barack Obama and the appointment of several other African Americans to high ranking positions within the government. To me, it seems to be not so much racism that holds African Americans back, but rather several mentalities, which have became ingrained within their culture. If these cycles were to be broken I believe that many of the startling statistics presented within the film would drop to much lower levels. Another of these problems is the amount of kids who grow up without father figures because the fathers don’t marry the mother before having the kid. A lot of the time this causes the dad to be distant and not have an influence on his sons’ life, which, though maybe not consciously influences the son who acts the way his dad did.
Finally, though many may disagree, I believe that affirmative action also has a negative effect upon the African American community because young students who might not be qualified for a certain college still get in. Not only does this mean that the college may be too hard and that they may fail where they would succeed at another college but it also would implant a doubt in their mind and in others minds. As the many who worked for a music company said, even if you do a good job, in the back of people’s mind will always lurk the suspicion that, “oh, he got the job because he is black,” so that a persons work may never be totally validated.
I realize that some of my opinions may come across to some people the wrong way and that I can never truly understand what African Americans in this country go through, but I still believe that many of the problems today are not due to racism, but rather due to flaws that became ingrained within the culture.