"'Any society, including a street gang, provides its members with status symbols. In many cases, what is getting valued is drugs, sex and money. We have to control what is valued in society. To get these kids to learn, we have to get them to believe that it is cool to do well in school.'
Amistad, Toll explains, is trying to turn the values of the street upside down. The school teaches students that it is 'cool' to do your homework, 'uncool' to be a bully."
It fits what Bill Cosby and William Raspberry have said--that elements of black culture decrease the chances for academic success. It also fits into a chain of logic that would explain why African-Americans achieve less than first and second generation immigrants from Africa or the Caribbean. The idea would be that immigrants isolate themselves from their former society so they are more focused on things like success and less restricted by commitments to other norms. A recent Pulitzer winner on slavery up to the great migration (1920) emphasizes the degree to which slaves were able to establish networks of relationships and used the networks after the Civil War in playing a role in political life in the South.
However, there's always the counter-example of the Jews, and other diaspora groups who do much better than the surrounding society. My best argument there, which isn't totally convincing, is that it's the nature of the culture. In other words, success can come two ways: by being part of a culture that focuses on and rewards success, or; by being somewhat separating from one's native culture so the focus is more on the individual.
I've no doubt I'll return to this subject.
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