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Black boys don’t need more discipline, they need mentors (2018)

educationpost.org

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Re: Black boys don’t need more discipline, they need mentors (2018)

#4
Great article, but our societal approach to minority folks is not oriented towards individual mentorship unfortunately. Self-reliance is not considered a meaningful goal - it's so much more convenient to herd them towards ethnically-focused non-profits and "community organizers" funded by government or by politically-minded foundations; mold them into people who will always be dependent on the government for something, 'useful idiots' for the political cause du jour. It's pure mass clientelism, the dynamics that has led to such a screwy political culture in so many parts of Latin America. It's quite hurtful to see it take root here to such an extent.

Re: Black boys don’t need more discipline, they need mentors (2018)

#6
> Although they may have a different set of circumstances, the overall experience for Black boys in public schools is similar across the country, so it’s not just the color of my skin that allows me to relate, it’s also a shared perspective and a mutual respect.

This is both unsurprising and depressing. I am not sure if I have anything to say except that I feel incredibly sad that other human beings living today have to face such incredibly challenging circumstances.

Re: Black boys don’t need more discipline, they need mentors (2018)

#7
post #3

Or, you know, fathers. Half of success in fatherhood comes from simply showing up. Absentee fathers contribute to the generational erosion of the family fabric that is almost impossible to undo.

I once read, kids need fathers to learn interaction with people who are not their mother.

I think, this is where the "atomic family" breaks down. Only having one person for this job, is simply too high of a risk. We should go back to a bigger type of family, so kids can have more people in their early lifes that fill this role, so when one leaves, there are still many left.

Re: Black boys don’t need more discipline, they need mentors (2018)

#9
post #3

Or, you know, fathers. Half of success in fatherhood comes from simply showing up. Absentee fathers contribute to the generational erosion of the family fabric that is almost impossible to undo.

It is, quite seriously, heartening, as a father, to know that just 1) being there at all, and 2) trying with some amount of thoughtfulness not to screw up your kids, puts you well into the top half of fathers, by quality. You can still mess up constantly, and pretty badly, but remain better than average.

Re: Black boys don’t need more discipline, they need mentors (2018)

#10
This gets into a much larger issue of policing intersectioning with darker skinned peoples in the US.

When many of the dads are arrested in jail or prison, obviously they aren't being mentors. And they aren't permitted to be in their childrens' lives. And much of this is overpolicing and overcriminialization. Add this to sentences being worse, and it's unsurprising it happens. We as a nation are setting the situation, then surprised it happened.

And the cycle repeats.

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