Thanks for sharing your experience. I do think most parents push for what’s best for their child regardless of any circumstance. At the same time, I feel the immigrant success story unintentionally hides the effects of structural and historical racism.
For some 85-90% of Black Americans, the comparison would be: “My family has been here for centuries. My great-great grandparents were slaves. My great grandparents and grandparents were physically, violently terrorized in the face of social, economic and political pursuit. It’s only been 65 years that anyone in my family has had their Constitutional rights legally guaranteed. Nonetheless having no cultural origins outside of the U.S. and no apparent choices for fleeing this persecution, my parents figured out how to push me into gifted programs at a mediocre school district.”
How the immigrant experience and descendant-of-slave experience compares in terms of hardship doesn’t matter. But I think it’s important to call out that your parents were seeking a better place to build a life, whereas most Black Americans are seeking to build a something better in a society that has shunned them the majority of its existence. That has an effect... not in making Black parents dumb, but wary and highly cynical.
I’m guessing this will get downvoted, but it’s for context, not whataboutism.
For some 85-90% of Black Americans, the comparison would be: “My family has been here for centuries. My great-great grandparents were slaves. My great grandparents and grandparents were physically, violently terrorized in the face of social, economic and political pursuit. It’s only been 65 years that anyone in my family has had their Constitutional rights legally guaranteed. Nonetheless having no cultural origins outside of the U.S. and no apparent choices for fleeing this persecution, my parents figured out how to push me into gifted programs at a mediocre school district.”
How the immigrant experience and descendant-of-slave experience compares in terms of hardship doesn’t matter. But I think it’s important to call out that your parents were seeking a better place to build a life, whereas most Black Americans are seeking to build a something better in a society that has shunned them the majority of its existence. That has an effect... not in making Black parents dumb, but wary and highly cynical.
I’m guessing this will get downvoted, but it’s for context, not whataboutism.