If I were a poor black kid...

An article posted by Forbes today, in which the white male author acknowledges his privilege and then goes on to say that that if you are poor and black, you just need to work harder.

Perhaps you caught me on the wrong day, perhaps I'm just procrastinating because I don't want to write my lesson plans, but excuse me? I appreciate that this man is thinking about poverty, and perhaps even feeling a little guilty about his privilege, but this isn't about you making yourself (and other people like you) feel better about the advantages you received.


First, before you say one word about what "poor black kids" should do, why don't you have a look at what some of them actually do. Not the collective, generalized "they," but the people who have actual challenges because they are minority children living in poverty in the U.S.

My children get up way before the sun every day to commute from all kinds of places because their families want them to have a better education and enrolled them in a charter school. My kids start their day, if they make it to school on time, eating a breakfast  provided by the USDA (I'll let you use your imagination, but I can tell you it's nothing like what mom makes) in a noisy cafeteria. My kids spend 8 hours at school, where they are surrounded by the uneasy chaos that comes with an under-resourced, under-staffed school. School is not as stable, comforting, or structured as it should be. They get almost no time to grow emotionally, to play, or to feel supported because we are too worried about walking in straight lines and sitting in ready position. Some of them go to after school programs. And not the kind where you make crafts and have snack.

Many of my kids get picked up by different people every day because parents can't afford childcare. They tell me things that happen at home and my heart sinks. My uncle was shot... The other day I was riding a bus with my mommy and a man had a gun... Yesterday I was absent because we had to go to my baby sister's funeral... Never mind what the stress of poverty and poor nutrition does to a child's brain chemically and psychologically. Never mind that I am talking about 5-year-olds who still have twelve years of this to go before they are college-aged.

The last time I checked every poor black kid I know was working their tiny little self pretty hard just to stay afloat. They do the best they can every day, and no one has any right to tell them that they need to do more, that they are lazy.