ARCHIVES
OF EDITORIALS
June 16, 2005
Toward
a culture of success
The annual Scripps National Spelling Bee has just
ended and once again a young student of East Indian heritage has
been crowned the winner. In fact, the top four finishers were
all Indian immigrants or the children of immigrants.
According to reports, the Indian community felt a profound sense
of pride when the 13-year-old son of Indian immigrants won in
1985. From that time on, Indians in America decided to establish
programs to enable their children to master spelling. Even though
Indians are less than one percent of the population, in 20 years
they have come to dominate the 80-year-old spelling bee.
Some might argue, what is the value of learning how to spell archaic
words that will probably never be used? The answer is simply that
the academic discipline that enables young students to become
good spellers is a transferable skill. Learning the vocabulary
of a foreign language or the Latin nomenclature in biology is
a very similar process.
Immigrants and their children are highly motivated to succeed.
It is not unusual for more than 25 percent of the 40 winners of
the annual Intel Science Talent Search to be immigrants or their
children. The list of valedictorians from Boston public schools
included students from Jamaica, Cape Verde, Vietnam, the Dominican
Republic, Guinea, Albania, China, Trinidad, Columbia, Liberia
and Malaysia. Black students who are the children of African American
citizens were definitely underrepresented.
It should be clear that the immigrants, regardless of race, see
America as the land of opportunity. Parents motivate and discipline
their children to succeed. Although life is often very difficult
for newly arrived legal immigrants, they tend not to think of
themselves as victims.
Many African American parents work hard to motivate their children
to succeed academically. The problem is that the culture is not
very supportive. The hip-hop media constantly blast a message
of violence, style and sexuality. There is nothing there that
will lead to academic and professional success.
It is time for black adults to rid themselves of the stigma of
being victims so that they can do as good a job as immigrants
in motivating their children.
An unfair advantage
According to reports, Boston longshoremen have devised
a new way to give their children a head start in life. They place
their children on the payroll as young as two years old to generate
union seniority.
According to the union contract the salary level of a worker is
determined by seniority. A newly hired 21-year-old longshoreman
would be paid $16 an hour. However, if another 21-year-old had
accumulated 19 years of seniority because he was enrolled at the
age of two, his hourly rate would be $28.
Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly has begun a criminal investigation
of the practice. It sounds like the practice defrauds the shipping
companies which pay the bills.
This practice is another example of the false assertion that those
in power are interested in creating an even playing field. It
would not be surprising to find that longshoremen union leaders
oppose affirmative action.
Blacks must understand the importance of developing the power
to overcome the disadvantage of unfair competition.
Home
Page
