BLACK PEOPLE DON'T READ!

[Theresa E. Grant]

For those of you who heard it, this is the article Dee Lee, Harvard educator, was reading on a New York radio station. For those who didn't hear it, this is what she said: THEY ARE STILL OUR SLAVES. We can continue to reap profits through the blacks without the effort of physical slavery. Look at the current methods of containment that they use on themselves: IGNORANCE, GREED, and SELFISHNESS.
Their ignorance is the primary weapon of containment. A great man once said, "The best way to hide something from Black people is to put it in a book." We now live in the information age. They havae gained the opportunity to read any book on any subject through the efforts os their fight for freedom, yet they refuse to read. There are numerous books readily available at Borders, Barned & Noble, and Amazon.com, not to mention their Black Bookstores that provide solid blueprints to reach economic equality (which should have been their fight all along), but few read consistently, if all all.
GREED is another powerful weapon of containment, Blacks, since the abolition of slavery, havae had large amounts of money at their disposal. Last year, they apent 10 billion dollars during Christmas, out of their 450 billion dollars intotal yearly income (2.22%).
Any of us can use them as our target market, for any business venture we care to dream up, no matter how outlandish, they will buy into it. Being primarly a consumer people, they function totally by greed. They continually want more, with little thought for saving or investing. They would rather buy some new sneaker than invest in starting a business. Some even neglect their children to have the latest Tommy or FUBU, and they still think that having a Mercedes, and a big house gives them 'Status' or that they have achieved their dreams. They are fools! The vast majority of their people are still in poverty because their greed holds them back from collectively making better communities. With the help of BET, and the rest of their black media that often broadcast destructive images into their own homes, we will continue to see huge profits like those of Tommy and Kike. (Tommy Hilfinger has even jeered them, saying he doesn't want their money, and look at how the fools spend more with him than ever before!) they'll continue to show off to each other while we build solid communities with the profits from th ebusiness communities that we market them.
SELFISHNESS, ingrained in their minds through slavery, is one of the major ways we can continue to contain them. One of their own, Dubois said that there was an innate division in their culture, A'Talented Tenth' he called it. He was correct in his deduction that there are segments of hteir culture that has achieved some form of success.. However, that segments missed the fullness of his work. They didn't read that 'Talented Tenth' was then responsible to aid the Non-Talented Ninety Percent in achieving a better life. Instead, that segment has created another class, a Buppie class that looks down on their people or aids them in a condescending manner. They will never achieve what we have.. Their selfsness dows not allow them to be able to work together on any project or endevor of substance.When they do get together, their selfshness lets their egos get in the way of their goals their so-called help organizations seem to only want to promote their names without making any real change community. They are content to sit in conferences and conventions in our hotels, and talk about what they will do, while they award plaquws to he best doers. Is there no end to their selfishness? They steadfastly refuse to see that TOGETHER EACH ACHIEVES MORE(TEAM) They do not understand that they are no better than each other because of what they own, as a matter of fact, most of those Buppies are but one or two pay checks away from poverty. All of which is under r the control of our pens in our offices and our rooms. YES, WE WILL CONTINUE TO CONTROLA THEM as long as they refuse to read, continue to buy anthing they want, and keep thinking they are 'helping' their communities by paying dues in organizations which do little other hold lavish conventions in our hotels. By the way, don't worry about any of them reading this letter, remember, THEY DON'T READ!!!

[Theresa E. Grant]

The statement that Black people don't read is hard to prove. I simply don't know. I do know that all of my friends and family read, my children read. I've seen black people on the metro reading.
My husband teaches Chemistry at a college and he says that the small percentage of blacks in his class don't do well simply due to the fact that they didn't read and was poorly prepared for the subject. He is talking about percentages. I don't like lumping people into groups and saying this race or that race doesn't do such and such. You can't judge a whole group by what a small percentage of that group does. To say that Black people don't read, you would have to interview every black in America on whether they read or don't read.

[Ken Mills]

What radio station was this played on? Through an internet search, this piece is at least 2 years old, and it is not attributed to a white Harvard professor, but a black comedian who goes by the same name and has a radio show. That Dee Lee has an official site. I'm not posititve that this is the person who wrote this either.

I wouldn't believe that a Harvard teacher would write it, because it's full of misspellings. It does, however, seem like a tongue-in-cheek piece. Whatever it is, it seems like one of those things that gets forwarded through e-mail to everyone.

[Theresa E. Grant]

This was forwarded to me by my cousin in Arizona. She said that it was sent to her by email last week. She ask me what my thoughts were about the email. I told her that I would submit it to the intellectual members of Black Author Showcase and get some feedback for her.

[Johnnie Renee Barrett]

I don't understand. Why submit it to Black Author Showcase when black people don't read. It will never be read. Do you see the . . .

[Dyahnne]

The major publishers use this same argument - BLACK PEOPLE DON'T READ - to justify their reluctance to publish books by black authors. (In my opinion, the major problem with this argument is the assumption that only black people would be interested in reading a book written by or about a black person, but everyone will read a book written by and about a white person.) But if they should decide to publish a black author's work, they won't invest the resources to market and distribute the book properly because they don't expect it to do well (unless it is written by a celebrity). Then, of course, the book doesn't do that well, and they feel justified. But didn't they just set the book up for failure?

[Paula Chase Hyman]

As member Ken Mills points out, this seems to be based on a cyber myth or at the very least a stand up act. The sentence referring to Tommy Hilfiger, for one, is an old rumor started in '96, one that has since been debunked over and over (yet the rumor persists). For more on the rumor itself: Tommy Hil never made the racist comment.

The issue isn't that as a culture we don't read (best selling authors like the deceased E. Lynn Harris prove that popular fiction sells quite well among black readers) - it's that publishing only allows one or two portrayals of black culture to succeed in literature at any one time. Right now, according to the industry all we read is street lit. And for the young adult community, all they'll read is historical fiction. Neither is true. But it is true that publishing primarily looks for those sort of stories when a black author walks in the door with a manuscript.

I don't have access to Bookscan numbers, but believe me - christian fiction is doing well among black readers. Street lit even better. We read plenty and I have no doubt we'd succeed in selling books in other genres if publishers would publish AND market it.

[Enoch Mubarak]

Beyond the hype, speculation and theory are the facts of life in a culture where the majority rule. I gave us the benefit of doubt but even I could not ignore the recently released educational report.

It is true Black peole don't read and that's the major challenge and obstacle when marketing books to African Americans in particular.

The most devastating news of all comes out of Chicago, Illinois. The educational report concludes beyond assumption and supposition that African Americans can't read and the report clearly explains why black men are struggling in colleges.

The reports firmly reveals that the greatest number poor performing highs schools are black with only 2% of the students proficient in math and only 8% in reading out of a national average of 54%.

The facts and figures leaves no doubt that African Americans cant read WE NEED A NAME AND A FACE
The education reports quantifying that African Americans cant read was devastating enough but since African Americans can’t read they cant comprehend the dire implications or ramifications from the report.

Without a face and a name to illustrate and demonstrate the true impact of the report upon the African American existence the report in and of itself is just a meaningless pile of facts and figures.

Without a name and face added to the report African Americans are content to let people say and think what they want to say or think about them.

African Americans need proof. African Americans need to see someone they know before they believe they can't read. What would happen next would prove to African Americans that figures don't lie and it will put a face and a name to the facts and figures. What African Americans saw and heard brought the educational report to life in real-time.

The following statement that brought the facts and figures from the educational report to life came from the African Americans greatest and loudest advocate for public education.

Senator/Pastor James Meeks the African American's staunches advocate for parity in public education while representing his mega church of over 2000 members had this to say at the Urban League Economic Summit about the African American participation in the economic stimulus package:

“Black people ain’t gone get their fair share of the stimulus money”
Senator/Pastor James Meeks

Black people must be prepared for the demands the make. Why ask for what you are not educationally or physically prepared to take or endure?

Is the following President Obamas fault? and pray tell what job is available in this society and culture for black people with the following black on black resume?

1. One in four U.S. public high school students drop out before graduating.

2. About 15 percent of the nation's public high schools produce more than half of its dropouts and 75 percent of its minority dropouts, according to the Everyone Graduates Center.

3. The nation's 2,026 "dropout factories," where 40 percent of the freshman class fail to graduate three years later, are found in every state but are concentrated in 17 Midwestern, Northern-industrial, Southern, and Southwestern states, as well as in California.

4. In 2006, America's 15-year-olds scored just ahead of the Slovak Republic and Lithuania in science literacy and on par with Azerbaijan and the Russian Federation in math literacy.

5. More than half of the 81,499 U.S. high school students participating in the 2006 High School Survey of Student Engagement said they spend one hour or less each week reading and studying outside of class.

6. At least 95 percent of students entering high school from the wealthiest communities are proficient in their eighth-grade state exams; in high-poverty, inner-city schools, less than 20 percent of students are proficient, usually possessing fifth- or sixth-grade math and reading skills.

7. Of the class of 2008, 15.2 percent took an Advanced Placement exam and scored a 3 or above-the scores typically required by a college for credit-up from 12.2 percent in 2003. Low-income students made up 13.4 percent of successful examinees, up from 9.8 percent, in five years.

8. Eighty-seven percent of high-school seniors surveyed by the U.S. Department of Education said they expected to go to college. Three-quarters of graduates enroll in college within two years.

9. Approximately 40 percent of college students take remedial courses.

10. The college graduation rate for low-income students is less than 10 percent.

Of course there are pockets of success. Referring to the U.S. education system broadly, The Secretary of Education told his audience of educators and reporters that......

Adult dysfunction has been at the heart" of the nation's educational ills.

Enoch Mubarak
President & CEO Mubarak Inter-prizes
www.mubarakinter-prizes.com

[Knewborngod]

Truth hurts.

[Knewborngod]

On second thought, truth hurts if it applies to you. I love to read, and know many black people that love to read as well. As a undiscovered author, I must admit, besides self improvement books, deeply crative authors,and books written by elevated thinkers, there's not much to offer in our book stores besides; Pookie got shot and La quandas haven his baby, hog wash. If your not taught to weed through this junk, then this is what nourishes your young mind, and this is the type of empty calorie reading you crave. You simply over look the type of litrature that promotes community developement. Theres been a group of people who have been promoting, building our own communities and the unification of black people as the key to our success in doing so for the past 80 years, but we are so devided by religion, we cant accept the ideas presented to us by a people who pray differently than we expect God fearen black folkes to pray. But I digress. If your not brought up in a family that promotes mind building as an extracurricular activity, your pretty much left to sink or swim in this; the intelligent eat the underachievers world. It most definately starts from home, and a lot of sisters are raising children alone, or with a semi-conscious man in the houshold with breast milk still on his breath, leaving the raising, educating,and child rearing to an over worked, overstressed, and under aided mom, who simply cant find the time between working two jobs, or three, to make sure homework is right and exact, and that the children develope a healthy attitude toward their education. Children are taugt in our pitiful excuse for a school system,to work hard and be nice. At an early age theyre being taught to make it through school, graduate, and go to college to learn how to work hard to run some wealthy persons business, and shuck and jive, even if mistreated by their employer. Colleges are becoming more like trade schools when it comes to our people. So the question for a lot of youngsters is;what the hell do I need to do any extra reading for? If all we show them is struggle, even after we get "educated", there's not much of a desire for them to do any thing extra when they feel like this is a glass cealing world for the darker class. These youngsters become adults, who have children, and "careers" that require they work extremely hard to pay off school loans, for those not blessed with full scholarships, and the cylcle continues even in the upper class of black folk. Our community rich and poor, has been in survival mode since our " freedom" was granted to us by the people we continue to get educated to work for. Its easy to point the finger and laugh at a reality of a people, when youve inherited the foot that's on their neck. But what are we going to do about this Black People? Lets start by putting the crayons down.

[Ken Mills]

The actual piece was tongue-in-cheek, but if it sparked conversation, I guess it doesn't matter what was intended anymore. What I think it that More Black People Should Read is what would be a good topic now, because its my belief that not enough black children want to learn about the larger world around them, about history, etc.

[Knewborngod]

Sparked conversation is an understatement. I guess I'll get off my soap box. Lol

[Jerel Chambers]

I can respect what this article is stating. We as a people to read. But I promise to the world and myself I am not and wont fall victim to this disease.