Difference between yesteryear’s parental values of whites vs. African Americans
 

Dr. Sherman N. Miller

10/15/2008

Whites teach their children that they can accomplish whatever they desire and there is no mainstream resistance against their upward mobility. Blacks might label this mindset as white privilege. On the other hand, I was taught that I had to be twice as good as a white to even be competitive and there were a host of leadership positions that I could not aspire to. There were white and black positions in the economic mainstream such as white can be President, governor, US Senator, senior executives in the corporate world, doctoral degrees holders in areas of engineering, physics, economics, and so on; however, blacks upward mobility was limited to preachers, teachers, lawyers, and doctors. 

In yesteryear, it was an illusion of grandeur for blacks to even consider reaching these white positions because white racism would preclude their efforts such as white block voting for only white candidates, blacks not being developed for leadership positions, blacks not viewed as educable to develop to the doctoral degree level, and black neighborhoods written off as sources for leadership caliber people in the economic mainstream.  I do not believe this racist scenario is operable today because white parents are no longer writing off mulatto children as N....... in the woodpile for they are now embracing these children as their children and grandchildren. Yesteryear's racists knew that school desegregation would have a nightmarish impact on white supremacy lasting another hundred years because white parentage would teach their nonwhite offspring to embrace today's white privilege mindset.

When I received my doctoral degree from the University of Delaware I was surprised not to see other black males with whom I could bond. Today, I am pushing a neighborhood role model program where I am encouraging neighborhood blacks to earn their doctoral degree. I was elated to see my oldest sister, 70 years old, complete a PhD program after receiving two heart operations in the same day and Dr. Zenobia James lives in the same inner city Wilmington neighborhood for approximately 45 years. I had the honor of providing my sister guidance during writing her dissertation and I am presently working on a book to help graduate students achieve the doctoral degree in a timely manner.

Obama's working class white parentage taught him to think with the white privilege mindset that is why his blackness was initially questioned by some black leaders.  He would been vilified as an Oreo or white corporate clone in yesterday's black leadership mindset but today Obama is lifting the upward mobility garrote off of nonwhite America to where he is demonstrating that he is the true heir to Dr. Martin Luther King's legacy of color blindness on mainstream receptivity. Hence, young Jewish grandchildren are now visiting their grandparents in Florida and convincing them to vote for Obama. This Jewish vote scenario is a nightmare for the Republican race baiting and ethnicity exploiters who hoped vilifying Obama as a Muslim would keep the Jewish vote in line. Jewish grandchildren are proving their blood relationships trump any fear-mongers antics to exploit untrue.

I see Obama's run as more than his merely winning the Presidency. I see Obama legitimating the equality of the American Dream for all US citizens regardless of race and today's youthful Americans are telling yesteryear's white racist parentage that racism is now hearing death-rattles. I am reminded of a white senior citizen sharing how his grandfather had hidden horses from General Sherman on his march through Georgia during the US Civil War. This white senior citizen said he was floored when his son kept talking about his college roommate and when they visited the campus they found this roommate was African-American. He further shared how he upset some white lunch buddies in the Nineteen Fifties when he predicted that black equality in the economic mainstream will become the norm.