The bootstrap myth, also called the meritocracy myth, says that anyone can come to America with nothing and, with hard work and clean living, rise into the middle-class in one, two or three generations: “My grandfather came here with $25 in his pocket. If he can do it, anyone can. What is wrong with black people?”
As commonly conceived it is
- way too simple and
- mainly used in a racist, self-serving way
Many whites use it to support their idea that American society is fair, that racism is dead. And then, in almost the same breath, they use it to support their own racist ideas! You know, that Asians and Jews have more intelligence, that blacks are shiftless layabouts, and so on.
In my experience, which mainly concerns West Indian New York, plenty of people do come to America with nothing and lift themselves into the middle-class – yet plenty more do not. Despite all their hard work and clean living. Because the key seems not to be hard work and clean living but a university degree in a useful field.
West Indians succeed not because racism died but because American public schools suck. New York, with its factories mostly gone, needs a work force that its schools cannot produce on their own.
Meanwhile one of the main images of America that is burned into my brain are the million or more people in New York who live in poverty through no fault of their own. And, by some Amazing Coincidence, few are white.
So when white people start with the bootstrap stuff it sounds self-serving and delusional. The Asians they love to talk about are part of a brain drain. They came to America with a much better education than most whites have. They hardly pulled themselves up from the bottom depending on American institutions.
And these Asians and West Indians most certainly do face racism. They succeed in spite of it, not because it has magically disappeared somehow.
The bootstrapper trope almost always overlooks black success. Half of blacks are now middle-class (or were just before the Great Recession). Something you would never know from the trope. They talk about Jews and Asians – and even the Irish – as if millions of blacks have not done the very same thing. Which shows that the trope comes from a racist mindset, not from the latest studies.
The “come to America with nothing” part is hugely misleading. Here is some of that “nothing”:
- education
- political rights
- whether immigration is voluntary or involuntary
- how much one’s culture has been destroyed
- knowledge of English
- parents’s class and education
- family support
- ethnic support and institutions
- internalized racism
- growth of the labour market
- racist hiring and promotion practices
- racist incarceration rates
- labour market
- housing market
- courts
- police
- the press
- Homestead Act
- manifest destiny
- television
- banks
- cheap black and Latino labour
- 347 years of slave labour
Excellent!
Abagond, please provide a source for this information. Also, give me some definition; at what income level does poverty exist?
[i]Meanwhile one of the main images of America that is burned into my brain are the million or more people in New York who live in poverty through no fault of their own. And, by some Amazing Coincidence, almost none of them are white.[/i]
Abagond,
As usual, you have give me food for thought.
The bootstrap myth is just that, a myth. This self serving fallacy was created by whites to excuse their racist mindsets.
Most immigrants that come here have a family member ALREADY here to sponsor them, give them a place to stay and help them find jobs.
If English is a problem, many family members accompany them to job interviews, speak for them and help them fill out documents that they do not understand.
Since we have already established that racism in America is unruly and WILL NEVER DIE, it’s easy to see how some whites can make that argument.
Millions of people live in poverty.
Many are white.
But the media will never portray that on TV for it will ruin the illusion of supremacy.
The reason why so many blacks/ reds/ browns and yes, yellows live in poverty is due to white flight, redling and other racist practices.
When racist whites leave due to the arrival of ” the others”, value decreases…and that sets off a snowball effect.
You mentioned that American public school sucks.
Yes, how true.
Most of the money being poured into a good school system comes from people wealthy enough to KEEP it that way.
The best teachers, zero-tolerance for bullying / weapons, physical education, second languages and computer science are being utilized so these pupils will get a head start into the world.
Think of a person living at home with mom and dad who saves every penny, contributes nothing to the household then, after 3 years, buys a home in cash and says, ” Why can’t most people just work harder to own their own homes instead of working to pay mortgage every month?”
Same difference.
“Some of the ethnic support and institutions for whites which come with their “nothing”:”
***************************************
Excellent post and points!
You might consider adding educational grants/scholarships and political power/connections to your list.
And nepotism.
And these Asians and West Indians most certainly do face racism. They succeed in spite of it, not because it has magically disappeared somehow.
I posted this comment in the “How can it be racist if Asians do better?” thread.
This is what white people like to talk about – Asians bettering themselves despite the obstacles. Well, I can attest this doesn’t work for the many other Asian families I know who weren’t in similar circumstances. The bootstrap myth is indeed false.
Dead-on as usual Abagond. I think the bootstrap myth is one of the most surreptitious of all of white myths. It seeps through the mental pores of whites, allowing them to dehumanize people of colour based on the notion that they are slackers. Through portrayals as drug dealers/gang members/beggars/welfare queens (as you put it) or lazy, license is given to whites to attempt to further dehumanize people of colour. As if they didn’t attain standing in the market proper as popular representations dictate and accordingly, can be dismissed as economically impotent or unworthy of society’s reinforcement.
I also believe this bootstrap myth is used to help argue the case for the so-called war on drugs. Aka today’s Jim Crowe. But that’s another post, another day (trying hard not to get off topic as per usual =D)
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As usual, great post Abagond. Working hard and staying clean doesn’t guarantee a place living in a middle class neighborhood or a place in a Fortune 500 company.
Very good post again. For some reason this myth is always repeated by the very rich, racists or fascists, but mainly those who have had pretty good position in life from the start.
As we can see, the story usually begins with that mythical ancestor who came to America with nothing but decent morals and willingness to work for thousand hours a day for nothing and yet not only survived but became wealthy, or at least middle class.
Another variation seen here often is a poor spouse who came from poor country with no skills at all and yet excelled so much so that now they are married with a WHITE american!!! Wow! They made it, finally!
This myth, like so many others, is part of the System and abagond once again puts it very well out there. Thanks!
Abagond,
What is it with you and these bootstraps? I took one look at the article and I was like, here we go again.
Anyway, just read the article half way and I’m going to bed now, so I will read the rest tomorrow….I had promised myself not to come back to posting on here, but I think I can’t help it especially when I see the new stuff.
@ Herneith
And…hiring your ” own kind “.
The application of the “Black Tax” can also be an impediment.
Definition: The notion that a black person has to work harder than a white person just to get the same amount of recognition, rewards or benefits.
I know. I know, lurkers. I hear ya. Just another “excuse.”
You’re in a damnable position. If you get a promotion for example, it is because you are black. When it’s pointed out that the black person is highly qualified and credentialed(more so than the clown making this type of statement), they then revert to meritocracy of some sort. People who make such remarks are telling me this; they either consciously or unconsciously consider blacks to be at the bottom rung of the social hierarchy, and are outraged at any black person who, to these clowns are ‘uppity’. They see such things as affirmative action as taking something away from them. You can tell these fools until you the cows come home, that there are not enough blacks in the good ol US, much less Canada, to effect any of them(They could always move to a predominately ‘white’ state). Instead of blaming their own shortcomings, their government and education system, they prefer to blame racialized people, in particular, blacks. In reality, they are failures as white people if you go according to the ‘bootstrap’ and white supremacy mentality. If they had half a brain, they would realize they are being fornicated over by the powers that be. They prefer to take their vitriol out on ‘safe’ targets. When these ‘safe targets’ talk back or become resistive, it enrages them as they want others to feel miserable like they do. Sadly, in many instances it works.
As we can see, the story usually begins with that mythical ancestor who came to America with nothing but decent morals and willingness to work for thousand hours a day for nothing and yet not only survived but became wealthy, or at least middle class.
This is jokes fodder! The first ‘Americans’ were criminals and religious fanatics. It wasn’t some clown without a dime nor nickel to his/her name, that came later(industrialization). The natives learned this to their detriment! That was, is, propaganda put forth to lure these unsuspecting dupes here to provide cheap labour for the wealthy. It was also a good way to get rid of your riff raff, shite stirrers and the like.
I omitted a vital point in my last comment. Even after working harder, equal recognition, rewards and benefits are often still beyond a black person’s grasp.
@ Nom de plume
Spot on!
Here’s a cartoon for you, Abagond.
http://173.236.60.18/~herevill/leftycartoons.com/?p=43
@darqbeauty:
Fitting cartoon. From a white cartoonist’s perspective.
@ darqbeauty
Thanks for the cartoon! I added it to the post.
That’s one of my favorite cartoons.
Apparently all white people are related because they seem to have the same ancestor who came with nothing and became awesome!
I can definitely attest that many white people often come in with an entitled attitude that displays this sort of arrogant mindset. Usually many white kids my age throw the bootstraps argument out to silence the idea that there is inequality whenever they want their props for their own success, but they’re quick to take it back when there’s enough financial inequity that it affects them too. Then all of a sudden we’re all in it together and America is so unfair. If you throw the bootstraps argument in their face at that point (“Well, America was really unfair to us black folks, but many of us are middle class! Your white, society is really good to you, so why can’t you pull yourself up like we had to?”), they get offended real quickly.
@leigh It isn’t false, it’s just real hard to do and most people don’t make it.look at the statistics of small businesses that fail, it’s like 85% or something like that. Asians and other recent immigrants that I know put alot of pressure on their kids to go to school as i will with my kids because they know how hard it is to make it here with nothing. You need the will and stamina of a marathon runner to do it.
@ SW6
Poverty as defined by the government (with handy chart):
http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/11poverty.shtml
For a family of four it comes to $22,350 a year or less. That is one and a half times a full-time minimum wage job.
Using that definition, 18.6% of New Yorkers or 1.5 million lived in poverty in 2011:
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/36/3651000.html
There are plenty of poor black and Latino neighbourhoods but no white ones I know of (though in the past there were certainly Irish and Jewish ones). Despite that there are some poor non-Hispanic whites, though not all that many as far as I can tell.
@ Dave
A lot of black families put pressure on their children to go to school too. Usually it is given with the message of “Do better than your white peers at every opportunity, because your A is treated like their C.” The problem is that, while the situation is usually hard for a lot of people, white people have a lot less obstacles in their way than non-white people. Hard work never guarantees success, and America is not enough of a meritocracy for that happen. That’s why it’s so easy to use the “Asian example” to explain why bootstraps are true while ignoring that beyond the acceptable minority Asians (and slanted statistics) many Asians face poverty and discrimination.
I heard an analogy that used sports. Lets say that your on a track and your racing against other people. Yeah, there are hurdles in every lane but yours, and you didn’t put them there. But you also didn’t tell anyone to move the hurdles to make it a fair race, and no one listened to the other racers when they kept asking to fix the track. Then lets say you run the race and win, and start to feel pride over it. When they’re upset that they are (despite all of their hard work) still losing, you tell them to work hard like you did. Yeah you might be a great runner, but it can’t be seen as a fair competition when you won due to an unfair advantage that was there before you ran, especially if you benefited from it. That’s why it’s so hard to take white people seriously when they use the bootstraps myth, because everyone knows that they had advantages that made their road a lot smoother than others who didn’t have the special complexion protection they did.
The people who like to talk about others who made it because they “pulled themselves up by their bootstraps” forget that they had to have the boots in the first place in order to do so.
From what I have been able to figure out… The bootstrap method does work, but it has enjoyed so few successes it may as well be labeled “The Lottery Bootstrap Method.” I cannot see how that could be an accepted process.
It is a good name for it though. It was only sometime in the early 20th century that it meant “bettering oneself through unaided effort.” In the 19th century it was a way of describing an impossible task. Sometimes the earlier definitions and uses are the more apt.
Sorry, forgot to post the link for that info.
Online Etymology Dictionary
The bootstrap myth is also very dangerous to poor whites.
The whole idea of telling a black children, in one of America’s worse ghettos, who has the odds stacked against them to such a degree much greater than that of a white child, even in a similar situation, to “rise above” and somehow “overcome” all of those obstacles is ridiculous and unrealistic.
They look at the child as a defect and ignore the overbearing influences.
What’s more realistic is getting those kids out of that environment and giving them the same opportunities that is obviously lacking in the environment they come from. Instead, they are told, just do the best with what’s around you, which is usually next to nothing and it’s your fault if you don’t make it—you should have tried harder. Sure, there are people who have done it, but why should anyone have to and why in the world would anyone think every child, or even most would be able to do this, who are in a similar situation….? Unrealistic.
If the Bootstrap Method worked, and was as reliable as people claim, then there wouldn’t BE that large classification of people called “The Working Poor” in America.
@Ace:
‘A lot of black families put pressure on their children to go to school too. Usually it is given with the message of “Do better than your white peers at every opportunity, because your A is treated like their C.”
—
Great example of the “Black Tax.”
***
@Leigh204:
‘The people who like to talk about others who made it because they “pulled themselves up by their bootstraps” forget that they had to have the boots in the first place in order to do so.’
—
That is exactly what then Democratic Nominee Barack Obama said during his 2008 speech in Denver. How can a person pull himself up by the bootstraps if he doesn’t have boots?
The Bootstrap concept is used most accurately to describe a laissez faire economic system vs. a centrally (government) controlled system. Certainly in a laissez faire system there are many who struggle and strive and never make it, but there is at least the possibility for some to elevate themselves, hence the oft-cited quip, I believe originally from Churchill, to the effect of, “capitalism is the worst economic system in the world, except for all of the others.”
A note about the obverse — let’s call it “pull yourself down by your bonnet straps”. In my work I deal with many people who have amassed significant net worth. In my experience, in most cases that net worth is dissipated within three generations of the death of the patriarch who built it.
The first generation generally ends up simply managing the fortune. Since these people grew up in relative privilege and luxury, they don’t have the fire in their belly to build it. But since they were scions of the man who did build it, they at least understand its structure and value and take care to preserve it. However, they do not deny themselves the material luxuries that the fortune can provide, and they will generally leverage themselves as much as the market will allow to acquire these material things.
The second generation therefore grows up in even greater privilege, with a sense of entitlement about a high standard of living in the sense of material goods, but with no direct connection to the structure of the family wealth. They simply assume that the wealth is how the world is structure. They attend fancy private schools, where they are further isolated from the world, and study things like Art History in college, with no practical nor economic value. Their life’s plan is to exist on the inheritance they will receive from their families.
However, what they generally fail to understand is that the inheritance consists of capital assets that must be managed. Since these people are typically cousins, they generally don’t have tight familial bonds that enable the open and clear communication necessary to manage complex capital assets. Typically, on the death of the second generation, assets are liquidated and the residue is pissed away by this third generation through profligate living.
Thus, by the third generation — the great grandchildren of the entrepreneur patriarch — the fortune is gone.
There are isolated exceptions, such as the Kennedys, but that’s really more a function of the sheer size of the fortune in the first place. That fortune is becoming dilute and dissipated as well.
The point being that, in the cartoon example at the bottom of the post, which illustrates the issue quite well, the white guy on the platform will fall off of his own accord, leaving the platform empty for the next taker. If you figure that the Jim Crow era was legally over by the end of the 1960′s, but factually in place on a widespread basis at least through the 1970′s, then you can see that the residue of whites in families on that platform level will now be variously at that first, second and third generation level.
This is why/how we have seen unconnected examples of black individuals finding bootstrap style success. The opportunities are presenting themselves, but in a piecemeal fashion.
I look at the bootstrap theory a bit differently, Abagond. I think that the application is usually racist since it’s used to disparage Black Americans.
But in truth no other group of Americans has pulled themselves up by the bootstraps the way African Americans have. Just 147 years ago most African Americans were held in bondage. They owned nothing, no property, no assets of any kind and most were not educated.
And just 1 and a half lifetimes since we collectively are worth billions of dollars. Almost 70% of us are working or middle-class. This despite Jim Crow and other examples of outrageous racism and bigotry.
So pulling yourself up by the bootstraps is not a myth, because we’ve done it. It’s only that most people can’t or won’t see what we have accomplished that adds the racist element.
@ valentina
Well said!
@ Valentina
Excellent comment.
Valentina,
Great point.
leigh204,
Despite your claim otherwise, your story actually affirms a personal example of bootstrap success.
Abagond,
Much the European diaspora which came to the US during the great migration waves in the latter 19th and early 20th centuries were predominantly poor and uneducated.
Certainly, they faced significantly less discrimination than black folks of their time, but life for most of them consisted of manual labor.
Abagond said:
My wife is one of these. They weren’t exactly handing out such degrees like candy back in the Philippines. Their family had no indoor plumbing and spent much of their meager resources on school fees.
Shortly after we began dating, we saw a TV program about failing public schools in NYC. She said to me, “Why do so many of those kids have music players and nice clothes if they’re not getting straight A’s?”
It didn’t make sense to her that the families of these children would allow them to not succeed academically, and even more incongruously, to provide them with “luxuries”.
@Randy:
Where did I say what happened to my uncle and aunts isn’t due to bootstrap success? My mother worked her ass off so her siblings could have a better life. And if it were as simple as Filipinos back home pulling their bootstraps, then would you care to explain why there are still countless millions in third world grinding poverty? GTFOHWTBS!
The assumption that poor kids can simply study and work hard to pull themselves out of poverty is wrong. How can a black kid who’s dad is punching his mom, go to school the next day, and learn math or proper grammar?
Randy’s assumptions are too idealistic and ignorant.
@ Leigh204
“GTFOHWTBS!”
*********************
AMEN
leigh204
You stated that the bootstrap myth is “indeed false”, so presumably that includes your family’s own extraordinary efforts.
By the way, this post is about bootstrapping in America, not overseas in an impoverished, developing nation, where the challenges are understandably much greater.
Although to be fair, some 10%+ of the population of the Philippines are overseas foreign workers, whose remittances comprise a staggering 13%+ of their GDP.
That’s a whole lot of bootstrapping.
Leigh204,
You go, girl.
I use to believe until the bootstrap theory…..until I, and many friends/acquaintances graduated from college. Some got graduate degrees. All of us studied STEM majors. They’ve all essentially become teachers(respectable work, but far from what they aspied to). I work in customer service. While som can get me for lack of certs/licenses, I know others who have certs/licenses, but are still underemployed. I’ve seen a grand total of one punch through and become a successful professional, the rest: just teachers, or otherwise severely under-employed, if employed at all. The one who made it had to spend much of their time after college(7+ years) working menial jobs, and trying to network their way up the ladder. So
My analysis is that, maybe bootstrapping holds on some level, but it’s increasingly becoming a mere myth
There’s a reason the saying “It’s not what you know, but who you know.” has remained so strong in America. Because it’s 100% true. All one has to do is take a glance at the working class, who are still working their butts off at a dead-end job just to make ends meet. I’m sure that people have heard the utterances of how they work incredibly hard at their job, and have very little to show for it. Not to mention that with this economy, many are/were forced to pick up a second job.
No. In order to be successful in America, you need serious luck and almost (you know…because you need the skill to maintain the position) nothing more. The overly simplistic notion of “primarily working hard ” (which is often favored by self-serving whites) rarely pays off, because there have been incredibly hard workers in America since its founding. People from generations of hard workers that (when you factor in inflation and other modern day variables) aren’t that much better off than their working class ancestors.
Franklin,
It’s not enough to work hard, but one generally has to work hard in an in-demand knowledge field. You can thank globalization for much of the recent rate-of-change of the labor market, although the trend towards business and mechanical automation was going to lower the relative value of human manual labor anyways.
Also, perhaps missing from these types of discussions is a definition of the term “success”. Fifty years ago, “middle-class” often meant you lived in a 900 square foot tract home with one bathroom and one car parked in the driveway.
Are you suggesting that a poor kid, black or otherwise, who gets good grades in school can’t reasonably hope to achieve that?
This isn’t fifty years ago. By that logic gaps will never close.
@Abagond
Aba, thanks for the providing the source material. So, first things first: the poverty levels and the 18% (some observers say 20%) of New Yorkers in poverty are tangible measured stats. Next, however is your extrapolation, that few of those 18% are white.
“There are plenty of poor black and Latino neighbourhoods but no white ones I know of…”
Well, okay but Abagond this statement implies that a proliferation of poor whites would necessarily manifest as poor white neighborhoods. I see it differently.
Possibility 1.)
It makes more sense to me that proliferating numbers of poor whites could/would be scattered throughout New York getting into this or that building and simply qualifying for subsidies. In this case you’d never get your “poor white neighborhood” and you’d keep seeing blacks as extra hard done by; something for you to consider.
Possibility 2.)
Aba, you must know as well as I do (I’m a foreigner for Godsake!) that plenty of people are simply moving out of NYC and out of New York state. The people who move out of NYC citing cost of living as the reason need to be considered in the discussion on poverty in NYC. To be sure moving out of NYC does not mean you’re in poverty but it could mean you think you might land in poverty if you stay in New York and that’s very revealing (i.e. class issues not race issues)- it goes without saying Aba that plenty of these people who see potential personal economic hardship and simply move are white as well as other races.
Anyway, with all due respect, I don’t think this is a “great” post. To my mind you’re too fixated on Blacks having to struggle against racism. I think racism is more a subset of larger issues in social life today. I think I’ve said that before. I was just in New York in November last year and I was treated fine.
Aba, you get the world that you’re looking for.
Have a look at this article, keep in mind that the lady is white.
http://www.citylimits.org/news/articles/4351/sharon-s-homework-self-sufficiency
@ SW6
True, it could well be that poor whites are mixed into higher-class neighbourhoods and become less apparent.
Well, at least in my case, that is not how it has worked out, Time and again I have been surprised to find out that whites are more racist than I suspected:
http://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/07/20/why-i-write-about-racism/
@ Randy
1. You do know, right, that schools were common way before indoor plumbing was? Aristotle taught university-level material without indoor plumbing. Somehow.
2. You do know, right, that America as a whole has never been serious about seeing that blacks get a good education? That MOST white people, at least like 80% (probably more like 99.5%), are QUITE FINE with blacks going to shit schools? That that is like part of the function of the bootstrap myth?
@Abagond
Re: Why I Write About Racism
I read it. Thanks, it helps me understand your motivations a little better. I’ll hold off from raising any counter issues, it’s not why you directed me to the post anyway. Peace.
When you get a chance to read the article that I linked please let me know what you think.
The reason this scene is so powerful is not because it is not fiction, because it is, but because it hits home with so many people and for that there is truth in it.
@ Dave
I don’t really understand the statement you are making with this video. Can you please clarify? Thanks.
It’s funny that, in the US, people believe they have the most economic and social mobility in the world, yet they do not:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/us/harder-for-americans-to-rise-from-lower-rungs.html?_r=3&ref=business
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jess-coleman/thanks-dad_b_1209068.html
People love to believe that all you have to do to climb to the top is work hard, but working hard is not always enough. My parents (also in a western country with very low economic and social mobility) have worked five jobs between them with no holidays for more than a decade. Where has that got them? Lower than they were before, slipping further and further into poverty. According to the bootstraps theory, they should have made it somewhere by now.
@someguy, well sam said that the Ellis island ancestor story had a mythical aspect to it but for alot of us it is a proud moment in our family history, so I thought a visual response rather than verbal jargon would work better.
@Randy:
Bootstrapping, my heinie. You think my uncle and aunts became nurses on their own? Hardly. The only reason why my uncle and aunts did well is because they had help. Without my mom juggling a couple of jobs end trying to make ends meet and sending money back to the Philippines so that her siblings would have a proper education, they would not be where they are now. Why do I bother to explain anything to you anyway? Frankly, it’s a waste of my time. You just don’t get it.
@Iris:
Exactly! There are people busting their chops to no end hoping to achieve success through hard work and determination. And yet, without support and resources, then what? My mom admits she was fortunate to have landed the job she did. Her Canadian company was recruiting overseas especially in the Philippines. And she had to possess certain skills as a sewing machine operator in order to pass a test. If she hadn’t passed this test, she would not have been able to immigrate to Canada and she wouldn’t have been able to financially help her brother and sisters.
@ Dave
Gotcha.
…..You know, that Asians and Jews have more intelligence, that blacks are shiftless layabouts, and so on………
I’m an Asian. This is not true as far as I am concerned. They succeed or fail just like anyone else does. Concerning blacks, among the hardest working migrants in the West are the Nigerians and Ghanaians.
Coming back to Asians, in the West the break-up of marriages and family life is really a problem!
leigh204:
This is the essence of bootstrapping. It’s a family affair!
In this post, Abagond is attempting to argue against the claim that through sacrifice and hard work, the native-born and immigrants to America can rise to the middle class within 3 generations. He is suggesting that wholesale societal changes and government programs are required to make this dream accessible to them.
While the circumstances are slightly different, your family did it within 1 generation. Certainly there are never any guarantees in life, but what we’re debating here is whether the opportunity to succeed is available to those who are here.
Abagond contends that the poor in America (particularly non-whites) are doomed to it. I argue that those who work hard, sacrifice, and prioritize education (just like your mother did for her siblings) can indeed rise to the middle class within a few generations.
Abagond:
Black people can achieve “The American Dream” just like everybody else, but, racism is still an obstacle just the same. As i’ve said before, all races compete with each other for money, power, and resources. Black folk must understand this dynamic going forward. Whites built their power and wealth from slavery, asians built their wealth and power via whites in europe and the americas, etc. They got a running start on black people in that regard. They’re not smarter or better than us, our ancestors were slaves. Africa gave the world everything…history…language…law…government…engineering…science…medicine, music…art…dance, etc. We have no reason to walk around with our heads hanging low…None! Racism from others will always exist in some form in relation to black people. Envy makes human beings irrational, we can’t control that…Real Talk!!!
Tyrone
Black Eros
@ Herneith, Truthbetold, and Nom de Plume:
Nepotism AND cronyism…”It’s not what you know, it’s WHO you know and WHO you blow!”
I’ve said it before and I said it again – to me, it’s amazing that such a simple statement and concept goes over so many heads!
Selective reasoning and understanding…must be nice to have that ‘privileged’ mindset…it’s certainly limiting, though.
@randy:
It took government programs to make it even in theory possible. Or do you claim that abolishment of slavery was not an government level policy but an happy accident? Also, particulary in the South, blacks had no real possibility to rise before 1960′s.
You also forget happily the discrimination against the jews wich was still going strong in 1940′s when in some parts of the country they could not get a hotel room etc.
You forget that before education was provided for everybody, there was not much of hope for the poor ever to rise in social class in USA. The ones who did so in 1800′s where actually criminals by our standards.
Only when government has done something, laws have been changed, there has been a window of opporturnity for the poor and the minorities in USA.
@sam:
There’s no point in trying to convince Randy. He’s a lost cause.
Someone should take a bootstrap to Randy. I guess if you have 7 or eight jobs, go to school and starve until the age of 90 you are a success who has pulled your bootstraps up. That is if you can afford the boots to start.
sam,
You’re attacking a strawman. We’re talking primarily about contemporary times and the opportunities available to people now.
I’m sorry to have to use leigh204′s story against her will, but she (no doubt inadvertently) offered a prime counterexample to Abagond’s point.
So far, nobody has explained why other relatively poor people couldn’t do what leigh204′s mom did. I’ve personally observed numerous other examples in this mold, particularly among Filipino friends and family. Once again it comes down to families prioritizing education.
Quite frankly, the resistance to accepting this idea surprises me. Why wouldn’t you want to tell poor folks that they can succeed, and how to do it?
I’d rather encourage and empower people than to dispirit them with the suggestion that the system will prevent them from succeeding despite their best efforts.
I’d rather encourage and empower people than to dispirit them with the suggestion that the system will prevent them from succeeding despite their best efforts.
No one is discouraging anyone from trying to achieve. Who wrote that? This is a form of propaganda designed to take the blame off the perpetrators. Hence someone who works several jobs, or is under-employed, and has poor living conditions despite being employed, is fed this tripe so the blame falls on them. In fact they may even believe this to the point it may affect their health. People need to realize this. What’s being described here is a mode of propaganda which only serves capitalist masters.
http://abagond.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/just-world-doctrine/
Exactly, your uncle and aunts did not become nurses simply through their own hard work and clean living. They also had the advantage of connections. Something my parents lack. Yes, they have family, but there is no obligation for them to help (especially if they are also struggling) and family can easily be selfish.
Take my uncle and aunt, for example. Instead of working hard, they chose to lie about being mentally disabled and they get more money in benefits than my parents do working five jobs, with no weekend for my dad. They sit around smoking and watching their flatscreen TV, while my parents work themselves to the bone and get repossession warnings every few months. My parents claimed for benefits several times, but less than $2 a week in the bank to spend on food makes them `too rich’ to get benefits. It’s lucky they get a little cash-in-hand, else they would starve, but they get further and further behind on rent because they have to eat.
A bootstraps theory supporter would probably say they should move, but the prices all around them in that city have risen so high they would be fools to move out of their home when it is currently a lot cheaper than every other place around. They would probably then say they should move to another city. With what money? Less than $2 a week? Find another job? What do they think my parents are doing with their tiny amount of spare time? No such luck there. Go bankrupt? Where they live, to go bankrupt costs money! About USD1,500. They are quite stuck and bootstrapping gets them nowhere.
Don’t you think it’s funny how a lot of bootstraps theory supporters have never been born into poverty and worked their way up?
@Iris:
How is it that you understand what I’ve been saying all along and Randy doesn’t?
Don’t you think it’s funny how a lot of bootstraps theory supporters have never been born into poverty and worked their way up?
I noticed that too, Iris.
I wrote about this same topic, and I put in a little historical truth behind it:
http://brothawolf.wordpress.com/2011/04/22/working-hard/
@randy:
“Quite frankly, the resistance to accepting this idea surprises me. Why wouldn’t you want to tell poor folks that they can succeed, and how to do it?
I’d rather encourage and empower people than to dispirit them with the suggestion that the system will prevent them from succeeding despite their best efforts.”
Well, first of all, millions of those poors will never succeed no matter what they do. On the contrary, millions have fallen during the past few decades from the lower middle class to the class of poors. In USA there are jobs which pay out even less than the minimum so that you have millions of people who have two jobs only because without the other they simply can not afford to go to the first job. To tell them THEY CAN DO IT is a basically fooling them into believing in the american system which is the real problem here.
I’d rather change the System than fool the poor into believing in system that allows the poverty and keeps it up in the first place and according to which you are poor simply because you have not what it takes,
I agree. In fact, there are generations of blacks who are upper class. Lawrence Otis Graham wrote about them in his book “Our Kind of People,” about 15 years ago now.
The other aspect that is overlooked in this bootstrap trope is white poverty. As I understand it 34% of whites are on food stamps. So clearly, boot straps did not work for a large part of the white population either. But you will never hear about that. Poverty is almost exclusively viewed as a “black problem.”
@ leigh204
I think it is because when people are born with certain privileges, it is really difficult for them to face up to the fact that it wasn’t only their own hard work, intelligence, morals, etc. that got them where they are. It’s hard for them to acknowledge that they could be rewarded for simply being born the way they are, whereas others are punished for being born the way they are. This makes lots of people uncomfortable, so they do their best to deny everything.
There are probably other things that would influence this, but those are the basics of what I think about privileged people who refuse to `get’ topics to do with racism and other isms.
@ brothawolf
Glad to know I’m not the only one.
Thank you for the link, it was an interesting read and, naturally, I agree with a lot of it. Hard work by itself is not always enough. Working hard is the only variable a person can change, but there are many other variables they can’t do anything to change. e.g. If they work hard, but never get promoted, they cannot make their employer give them a promotion. If they worked hard in uni, but potential employers won’t give them a job due to lack of experience, they cannot force them to change their minds. If they worked hard all their lives and took a big fall because of the recession, they cannot erase the recession. They can only work hard and working hard doesn’t give one the power to change the world and mind control people.
It’s the good old-fashioned, media-driven “what you see here is what applies everywhere” fallacy. For most white people, television dictates their entire worldview (in America, let me add that caveat.) Because of this, any changes in social status among “others” in their personal range of vision is filtered through what they see on the TV. If you visit the Midwest, you’ll meet thousands of people who have used the same Chinese-run laundry, restaurant and delivery company for 2+ generations (and they’ll swear on a stack of bibles that all Asians are geniuses because the Asian kids in the local schools bring home A’s, despite the fact that the parents of those kids are still working out of 1500 square yard shops.) These same people will buy clothes from black owned stores, go to black doctors, get their taxes filed in a H&R Block with multiple black accountants, sell heating oil to black owned houses with black renters, etc. (and swear again on the same bibles that black people are mostly a step above mentally disabled because a bunch of teenagers made a flash mob and their kids’ sports teams are half-black.) And if you’re like me and you have access to a school administratoror two, you can ask them questions like, “If Asians are so smart, then why haven’t they sold their business and retired to someplace cheaper?”, or, “If black people are so stupid, then why are more than half of the black students in your schools pulling in a hard C (with a C grade being between 78-84 in the specific grading system?), and watch the wheels turn and churn.
I’m a NYC native who has spent decades hanging out in places like Chinatown and Flushing, you can’t tell me sh*t about Asian mental superiority that I can’t debunk in 30 minutes of travel. The schools in those majority-Asian areas are just as raggedy as the schools in other poor NYC neighborhoods (with a less than 5% difference in dropout rates as compared to majority black or latino schools.) The same busted, brokedown (but with pretty furnishings) restaurants are there, run by the “so smart” children of the people who opened the restaurants before I was born. The cooks are the same as in my childhood (in fact, Chinatown may be the sole section of the city in which Central Americans *aren’t* the bulk of the kitchen staff nowadays.) Almost all of the cheap trinkets stores are still there, the same coterie of bums are still there, the same generation of underground brothels and gambling parlors are still there, etc. (In fact, the sole change is the addition of a couple of ‘designer’ mini malls.) When you travel uptown to Little Japan and Koreatown, its the same thing. Dozens of restaurants and trinkets shops and *ahem* massage parlors, buffeted by the multitude of immigration lawyer shops and the random Asian “big brain” business.
IME, Asians have the same “upwardly mobile” business plan as other minorities-study your ass off, get into the best school possible, cross fingers and pray. Unlike blacks or Latinos, however, Asians have a less threatening stereotype attached to them (which allows them to take advantage of AA like gangbusters.) In comparison, blacks and Latinos with the right connections can be found all over Europe (when I lived in Germany, I met almost 1,000 black Americans (65% working, 33% students) who couldn’t find work in the States but got a hookup from a Swedish or Belgian exchange student during an internship. I won’t name names, but in a time in which American businesses are at least claiming to want “qualified” African-American workers, the various tech-based international businesses in Germany’s Silicon Valley was flush with dark faces. Hell, I have two cousins (engineers) who have given a nod to my statement (one of them is an electrical engineer. He took a business trip to Ireland for a conference as his company’s token black and was greeted by over 20 African-Americans working between the three foreign corporations who were hosting the conference. One of the corps was *Samsung*, and the antipathy between Koreans and black people is well known.) How ridiculous is it that a qualified/credentialed black man has a better shot at getting work with Nokia or Aldi than in “our own” country? How asinine is it that the most effective way for black people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps is to say, “F*ck it, I’ll take that job at Boehringer-Austria Division because Parr Pharmaceuticals won’t take me here.”
Tl;dr: Due to an AA policy that favors women and Asians, more and more credentialed black people are working overseas. Because of this set of circumstances, media executives are surrounded by “positive” Asians at work and “negative” blacks at play (simply put, they see Asians as financial backers and/or technical workers at their jobs, then listen to gangsta rap and buy their weed and coke from black people.) Because people, regardless of background, “write what they know”, the media produces tons of model minority Asian/ghetto trash stereotypes for public consumption. The white public consume this information and use it to buttress their own stereotypes (which leads to them ignoring Asian failure and black achievement/parity.) With the addition of “if it bleeds, it leads” news media, the average white person sees hundreds of black people acting ignorant per year, buffers that information with their own experiences of BBB (Blacks Behaving Badly) and ignores the thousands of black people who *aren’t appearing in the newspaper or the 6 o’Clock News either robbing a pensioner or catching a ball.. Likewise, by living in areas in which the half-dozen Asian kids are eating knowledge like Tic-Tacs and always appearing on the honor roll (and where their local colleges are stacked with foreign-born Chinese students on government scholarships), reading articles about Asians getting high positions in various companies and seeing Asians on TV who are doing well allows them to ignore the dozens of asian slums in America (in the same way that no one ever sees TV shows based in rural parts of this country and therefore only knows about white poverty from the random news story about crystal meth.)
P.S. I don’t know if its been done, but I’d love to see a post about “magic businesses” and the tendency of people to believe that anyone can become a millionaire by opening up “their own store!”, with blackjack, and hookers! I’ve known a lot of black people who hate on small business owners, but the amount of white people who use “but {insert favoured minority type here} has a business and he’s doing well, so why don’t those damned {insert unfavoured minority type here} do the same!?”, while *concurrently complaining about how their relatives’ businesses are doing in this economy* and *voting for people who pay lip service to the needs of small business owners.*
“What is wrong with black people?”
Stupid and violent.
[...] in America are little to no value. Now children of color are force-fed nonsense such as the bootstrap argument instead of having an honest discussion about how White Privilege exploits disenfranchised [...]
[...] people push back and demand reciprocity, society calls us whiners, complainers, and given the bootstrap speech. Black people are still discriminated on a social, economic, and political level yet society [...]
The bootstrap myth is just that, a myth. My ancestors didn’t become successful only on hard work and determination, they just gradually got socially constructed as white people instead of as “German immigrants” or “Irish immigrants”.
It’s interesting that you mentioned Asian-Americans because racist white people just love to cast them as the “model minority”. In other words, some white people like to point at Asians and say, “Look the Asians are doing so well, why can’t you blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans be more like them and pull yourselves up by your bootstraps?” In reality, it is not the case that Asian-Americans are doing better than white people, in fact, the average income of an Asian household more closely resembles the average income of a black or Hispanic household than an average white household.
Unfortunately, many Americans have been brainwashed into believing that we live in some sort of meritocracy where things like white privilege, class privilege, male privilege, and heterosexual privilege don’t exist and that it’s supper-easy just to pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
This myth may have been created by white Americans, but it has been embellished by African Americans; i.e. Bill Cosby, Herman Cain, Skip Gates, Larry Elder and to an extent Charles Barkley.
[...] her wealth – it’s a sign that she’s worked hard. Even though social Darwinism and the Bootstraps Myth have clearly not worked to create jobs or help the needy. Which is how you can end up with stupid [...]
I don’t really feel this debate is substantive. Of course the “bootstrap myth” hasn’t worked for everyone. The American Dream has been denied to a lot of hard-working, good, decent people who get unlucky, face racial barriers, lack institutional advantages and privileges, etc. You did a very good job to prove that.
But what are we to teach our kids? I think that if you sell the bootstrap myth as: poor people deserve to be poor because they didn’t work hard, clearly that’s racist and self-serving. But if I want to teach my kids (who don’t exist yet, but roll with me) that working hard and playing by the rules gives you the best chance at success, why is that racist and self-serving? What other advice should I give them? What advice would you give to my rhetorically-useful, imaginary children? Now I can see how you wouldn’t want to tell them that hard work and self-sacrifice always pay off for everyone in every situation always. That’s clearly not true. But am I to tell them that there is no correlation between hard work and success? That the world is just some racial lottery and we won it, so just abuse your privilege and thank your lucky stars you weren’t born black?
[...] ourselves up by our bootstraps” which was The Mr’s way of making a reference to the bootstraps myth because he’s a good feminist/anti-racist/overall socially justice minded kind of person), [...]
Some folks don’t have boots. So someone has to help them. Yes many African Americans have achieved the American dream. But some people have someone giving them the metaphorical boots so they can have the so called straps to pull themselves up.
Just poorly argued opinions. Get a degree. Learn to think. Race obsessed weirdo.
Well said Hegro! That was an extremely well-argued retort to all those poorly argued opinions! Thirteen whole words! Now let me guess, your degree must be the PhD in Rhetoric from Oxford?
Not sure why you’d need to go to Oxford to see through this nonsense. Maybe the idea of education is mystifying to people like you. Since you never bothered to obtain one, you just don’t understand it. Very odd. White privilege is an unsupportable joke. It must be horrible for you to hear someone who doesn’t share your opinions. Bizarre.
@ Hegro
So you assume a person does not have an education based on what? Your ignorance or belief that thinking outside of the box equals lack of education? Do tell. So far it seems horrible for you to hear people that do not share your opinion. So sad.
Hegro, trust me—you’re barking up the wrong tree on the education issue.
Yesss… and that’s precisely why I don’t support it!
Will there be anything else Poindexter, or are you ready to take your leave? Do close the door on your way out, we don’t want any additional dimwits to find there way in.
@Hegro:
Pull yourself up by your bootstraps please!
A common example of the Bootstrap Myth is the case of immigrants opening up businesses in poor ghettos, but who manage to send their kids to top universities.
Nothing exposes the fallacy of the myth than examples like these.
@ jefe
I don’t get it.
My point is that poor immigrants who “make it” in 2-3 generations are among the examples of those who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. However, the pre-assumption is that they came with “nothing”, but actually, they have many resources to tap into that help get them on their feet, eg, immigrant networks (which can provide sources of training, experience, risk protection and financing), as well as less acculturation into mainstream social norms which have many aspects of white racism built into it. In other words, they do better by operating outside the system.
So, yes, they are examples of how people pull themselves up by their bootstraps, but it is spurious to use them as examples to people who do not have access to these resources.
I started to draft a post about that. I will send it in later after I clean it up a bit.
Reblogged this on The Racist and Unoriginal Anglo-American Entertainment Industry.