Opinion: Letter from a poor black kid: Baratunde Thurston responds to Forbes' Gene Marks
Editor's note: Baratunde Thurston is a comedian, writer, co-founder of the black political blog, Jack and Jill Politics and director of digital for The Onion. His first book, “How To Be Black,” will be published in February 2012 by Harper Collins.
"Black in America: The New Promised Land – Silicon Valley" airs at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET on December 18 on CNN.
UPDATE: Read Gene Marks' response to Baratunde Thurston.
By Baratunde Thurston, Special to CNN
The following letter is a response from a hypothetical child to Gene Marks' article in Forbes, titled "If I Were A Poor Black Kid." While completely fabricated, the letter below has a stronger basis in reality than does Marks'. In his article, Marks, a business and technology contributor to Forbes, argues poorly that poor black children should use technology to improve their station in life. The article is terrible.
Dear Mr. Gene Marks,
I am a poor black kid. I don't have great parental or educational resources. I'm not as smart as your kids. These are facts. In 2011.
The one smart thing I do everyday is read Forbes. It's what all us poor black kids do. Forbes is constantly reporting on issues of relevance to me and my community. This week, I found your article "If I Were A Poor Black Kid" printed out and slid under my door like all Forbes articles.
Thank you Mr. Marks. You have changed everything about my life. Thanks to your article, I worked to make sure I got the best grades, made reading my number one priority and created better paths for myself. If only someone had suggested this earlier.
But that was just the beginning of how your exceptionally relevant, grounded and experience-based advice changed my life. Thanks only to your article, I discovered technology.
Why did my teachers not teach this? Why isn't this technology mentioned anywhere in popular culture? I don't understand, but you do.
You listed so many different websites and resources, at first it was overwhelming. But I didn't let that deter me. I thought to myself, "If a successful, caring, complicated, intelligent man like Gene Marks says to do it, then I'd better head over to rentcalculators.org right now!"
I did not stop there. I became an expert at the CIA World Factbook, started using Evernote and made it my goal to get into one of those private schools you wrote about. Before your article, I never wanted anything more for myself. I used Google (thanks for the tip!), found the names and addresses of the school admissions officers, and showed up outside of their homes. It's like they were waiting for me. They smiled, waved and immediately told me about their secret scholarship programs.
Private school was exactly like you said it would be. I went straight to the guidance counselor, and I said, "You know everything there is to know about financial aid, grants, minority programs and the like."
And she said, "I sure do! And even though I don't know your name, I'm going to help you get summer employment at a law firm or a business owned by the 1% where you could meet people and show off your stuff." I love showing off my stuff, sir. You have no idea.
I took more of your advice. I got "technical." I had no idea I could get technical. I learned software!
From there it was just a quick hop to a top college, marketable skills and an immediate job offer from a businessman starved for talent. Did someone say recession? I can't see it!
The amazing part is that I did all of this in two days! All thanks to your article!
TIME: If I were a middle class white guy writing about being a poor black kid
I didn't know any of these opportunities existed. My parents and I were too tired. We were all ignorant, and quite frankly, I could have figured it out sooner on my own if I'd had the brains to do so. Your article provided those brains. It wasn't about my parents or ways to improve the school system or how to empower the community. It had nothing to do with history or accumulated privilege or social psychology. No, I simply needed to want success more and combine that with technology. You taught me that I can do all this by myself, and I have!
With that one article, you solved the problems of millions. Imagine the good you could do with three or four articles! Please don't stop with poor black kids! What about children trapped in sex trafficking? How about undocumented migrant workers? And of course, there's women. Have you ever wondered why there aren't more women CEOs? I'm sure you have. You've thought about everything and figured everything out. You are a great man. Thanks again for teaching me about technology.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Baratunde Thurston.
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Gene Marks is a jerk, a person without class or a sense of self. I guess it's his job to tell people what to do, but honestly I don't want to hear advise from a middle class anyone. I have ideas too, I'm middle class, probably more successful than Mr. Marks, but I know that I don't have the answer to any complicated problem in which I do not have a background. Shame on us for reading his columns, I know I won't be making the same mistake twice.
Mr. C. your point is so valid. I'm a social worker and that's exactly what I was thinking. People forget that it takes a support network to help one succeed. Those individuals who aren't lifted out of poverty don't stay there for lack of desire or lack of work ethic. There are plenty of youth who lack the emotional support they need to overcome obstancles. Everything isn't so cut and dry. Those who have found success should not judge but try to be active in uplifting the community.
There is no color. Only Jerks.
White privilege is very real. Even those of us whites who do not have a college education, a fancy car or come from powerful families, we still have fewer relatives in prison (cops don't bother us as much), tend to live in areas where we will get better insurance rates, and tend to have more friends in general who are employed (and can help us get jobs) or if we're self employed we have friends with more money who can buy our products and services. Fellow whites, we're just not living in a world where we are self-made successes; so how can we demand this of anyone else?
There are huge amounts of untapped talent in black America. I would suggest to my fellow whites to "get connected" while you can; you never know when things will be reversed and you'll be the one needing a friend. And it wouldn't be much use to you to just be told to "get your stuff together and be a self made man like me", would it?
Not sure how you mean that.I was just spirused to find out that we really don't have a very ethnically diverse community.
If I was [sic] a poor black kid, Plan A would be to study hard and win a Rhodes scholarship.
Plan B would be to clean toilets in the school for 50 cents an hour, just like Uncle Newt suggested.
For all the "usual" brainwashed people who responses have been "Stop being a victim and step up." and "Foreign-born black people coming to the US haven't been brainwashed to think they are oppressed and abused, so they succeed", it is amazing to me how many opinions flood the internet about what African American "need" to do by so many non-African Americans and/or African Americans. I'm going to work a little backwards here so follow me if you can. To the latter, if at any point you think you made your success alllll on your own need to learn some of you African American history. If it wasn't for the action of African Americans who stood up and fought for the end of slavery, equal rights in education and in the work place, and also the rights to live, eat, the rights to walk down the street without getting lynched because some racist got a wild hair up their butt, the rights to live in our own homes without crosses being burned on our property or with them getting burned down all together and praying to God to get everyone out alive, the rights to not be spit upon the hallways of schools where we are the minority, the rights to just simply live in peace like every other person in this county, you wouldn't have the nice things you can sit back and relax and have today. Don't you ever think that whatever you have accomplished in your short life is not in great part to the hell that your ancestors had no choice but to go through so that their children and their children's children and so on and so forth would be able to have what they did not have then. This in no way mean the struggle is over. It has just taken a different form and shape. Now, to the "Stop being a victim and step up people. I will not go as far as to say that no one knows what struggle is because I don't know you nor do I know what it's like to walk in your shoes. Having said that, there is no possible way on God's green earth that you would know one iota about what African Americans in this country have had to endure let alone what Africans from Africa's experience is, has been or will be. How dare you. How dare you sit on whatever high horse you think that you are on and pass judgement over a whole race of people. Get a clue you dim whited idiot. I am so completely done with people who do know their butt from a hole in the ground sit online and be so willing to say the same bull jargon they see on these racist cable news shows that are on there just to get ratings so they can line their fat cat pockets through idiots like you. I blindly thought at one point in my life that this country was full of people who stood up for what was right and who were hard to be lead around by their noses. But all I see on t.v, at work, and on the internet are sheep just baying for the next same lie soaked bail of hay. Talk about being "brainwashed". You all are just a bunch of trolls. A bunch of sheep and trolls willing to swallow up any new buzz word or phrase so you can feel like you belong, I don't care what you say or what you think and if you don't like it, I'm not one of these arm chair bullies that go on blogs and say some bull just to get people riled. But I will speak the truth. I challenge you to challenge ME. We can even exchange emails so that this could REALLY get interesting. But if you don't respond, then I know you're just another troll, arm chair chicken who only gets brave typing on a faceless computer. As for all the other trolls, get a life. Then we can really talk.
For all the "usual" brainwashed people who responses have been "Stop being a victim and step up." and "Foreign-born black people coming to the US haven't been brainwashed to think they are oppressed and abused, so they succeed", it is amazing to me how many opinions flood the internet about what African American "need" to do by so many non-African Americans and/or African Americans. I'm going to work a little backwards here so follow me if you can. To the latter, if at any point you think you made your success alllll on your own need to learn some of you African American history. If it wasn't for the action of African Americans who stood up and fought for the end of slavery, equal rights in education and in the work place, and also the rights to live, eat, the rights to walk down the street without getting lynched because some racist got a wild hair up their butt, the rights to live in our own homes without crosses being burned on our property or with them getting burned down all together and praying to God to get everyone out alive, the rights to not be spit upon the hallways of schools where we are the minority, the rights to just simply live in peace like every other person in this county, you wouldn't have the nice things you can sit back and relax and have today. Don't you ever think that whatever you have accomplished in your short life is not in great part to the hell that your ancestors had no choice but to go through so that their children and their children's children and so on and so forth would be able to have what they did not have then. This in no way mean the struggle is over. It has just taken a different form and shape. Now, to the "Stop being a victim and step up people. I will not go as far as to say that no one knows what struggle is because I don't know you nor do I know what it's like to walk in your shoes. Having said that, there is no possible way on God's green earth that you would know one iota about what African Americans in this country have had to endure let alone what Africans from Africa's experience is, has been or will be. How dare you. How dare you sit on whatever high horse you think that you are on and pass judgement over a whole race of people. Get a clue you dim whited idiot. I am so completely done with people who do know their butt from a hole in the ground sit online and be so willing to say the same bull jargon they see on these racist cable news shows that are on there just to get ratings so they can line their fat cat pockets through idiots like you. I blindly thought at one point in my life that this country was full of people who stood up for what was right and who were hard to be lead around by their noses. But all I see on t.v, at work, and on the internet are sheep just baying for the next same lie soaked bail of hay. Talk about being "brainwashed". You all are just a bunch of trolls. A bunch of sheep and trolls willing to swallow up any new buzz word or phrase so you can feel like you belong, I don't care what you say or what you think and if you don't like it, I'm not one of these arm chair bullies that go on blogs and say some bull just to get people riled. But I will speak the truth. I challenge you to challenge ME. We can even exchange emails so that this could REALLY get interesting. But if you don't respond, then I know you're just another troll, arm chair chicken who only gets brave typing on a faceless computer. As for all the other trolls, get a life. Then we can really talk.
Fantastic!!
I guess we all take offense when someone else opines on what they would do if they were in my shoes. Of course our shoes are molded by millions of factors, not just race or economic status. For these reasons I silently scream whenever political commenters start great thoughts with " ________ think or want blah, blah". They are only voicing their own prejudice , they have no insight on what anyone else truly thinks or believes! Speak only for yourself, and say what you truly believe!
This article is beyond awesome.
Great article. Had me chuckling through out.
Point taken, Mr. Thurston. But I was disappointed that your criticism ultimately lead to nothing constructive. Why waste your time tearing down wobbly foundations if you're not planning to re-build?
I am sorry the reason for all the hostility is because of how completely RIDICULOUS this guys suggestions were. Do you know how many POOR households actually have a COMPUTER much less the Internet in America. I actually am on the opposite end of this trend. I am a middle to upper middle class black woman surrounded by poor white families in Springfield, Missouri. My husband who is also black is a programmer with CarFax.... I see a MARKED difference in the resources granted to the POOR WHITE COMMUNITIES vs the BLACK POOR COMMUNITIES. Example, we are living here just long enough for my husband to graduate from the local university after he left the military, my husband is from DC, I am from Chicago; the schools in the poor communities did not have computers or hardly any technology that the students could use much less after school programs or access to the Internet. The poor school districts in many cases didn't have the resources to hold school for a full day either, there was one school that cut all the way back to the basic classes, math, science, english, etc. The kids were out of school by 12pm. At the "poor" school in the poor white neighborhood which ironically my kids attend as there is no school in our middle class neighborhood in the school district, the kids are CONSTANTLY being showered with resources by the large local employers here like JP Morgan Chase, provides Christmas presents, one on one tutors volunteers for the children, sponsors the school's field day, etc. In the classrooms the kids have smart boards, in the upper grades the kids have computers IN CLASSROOM, one computer for every child, there is also a computer lab for the entire school in which every student again gets use of their own computer. There are tutoring programs after school, the kids have field trips to corporate settings like the Chase building to see what it is like working for a major company as well as fun field trips too, going to places like farms. The children have access to food via the free lunch program, and it is hot cooked food, breakfast and lunch. In addition to that the kids are provided with "food bags" weekly to bring home to make sure they have food at home. Parents are given incentive to send their kids to tutoring which in a way is FREE child care two days a week until 5:20 pm, every 5 times they are picked up on time the parents receive a free $10 gas card. I could go on all day listing the benefits the the children receive at this school in a white poor neighborhood in which a household with mother and father working makes about $30,000 A YEAR! Oh wait there is more, the elementary school is a NICE building, comfortable with heat and air conditioning too. The kids are also afforded a QUALITY education, however because of the environment at home once most of these kids reach their teenage years they drop out of school. Less than 50% of the kids around here graduate high school by the time they get to the senior class. So despite all the opportunity these kids have they walk away from it. Kids in the poor black communities especially those who want to learn and stay out of trouble would dive in head first into these opportunities, being away from "the hood" and in a safe learning environment that provides heat and air conditioning, food, opportunities to advance, TECHNOLOGY, is what is LACKING. So again given the difference in the poor white neighborhood vs poor black neighborhoods it makes the original writer look like a complete ass because he is going off of what he saw is available to the POOR WHITE COMMUNITY not what is available for children in the poor black communities. It is comparing apples and oranges. Let's speak again when corporate America is jumping through it's behind to provide technology, opportunities, and much needed resources to the schools in the poor black part of town!
I love this dialogue – now my challenge would be partner with schools in lower-income neighborhoods and ask the kids there to write their own responses to the original posting in Forbes. I'd love to see what real kids in real situations would say after reading this article. It's such an opportunity to find out what is really going through the minds of these kids and figure out what we can all do – as a community – to help them get the best education and most opportunities possible.
ONE comment that might point the way to making a difference! Thank you Sara.
So what is the solution / solutions? Who is working towards the solution / solutions? What are you doing to help? What is anyone doing to help? It is clear that help is needed – how do we bring it? Let's look for real answers and help each other. When MORE people do well in this country then the country will do well. Help your fellow man, help your neighbor. Don't leave it to government or your place of worship. Take part.
This article was rather snarky.
Mr. Thurston,
This was good.. like really, REALLY good. Thanks for writing a great response. Some your commenters on here though, seriously need to chill...anger is one thing, but we can do without the nasty.
EXCELLENT RESPONSE MR. THURSTON!!!
Wow. I've never read the section where people make comments after reading articles before. It's not a very nice place. Being anonymous and not having a face-to-face conversation seems like it makes it much easier for people to say strange, unsupportable-by-logic, rude things to each other. Some people are speaking to others as if they were human beings that they respect as human beings even if they don't agree with them, but many are not. It's disheartening.
All I wanted to say was, "Thanks, Baratunde, for making a response to such a thoughtless piece of writing in a funny
way that highlights the hypocrisy of presuming to preach to people about whose lives you have no earthly idea and probably never will. Somebody needs to say out loud that it is mean-spirited and ignorant, and I thank you for doing it."
I'm going to leave this on-line forum now and never return. Very likely I will be insulted and put down by someone for having an opinion and perspective different from theirs and God knows our planet doesn't need any more negativity on it and I don't either. I will pray for us all before I go to sleep tonight that as humans we can rise above the fear, insecurity, and anger that we are currently engulfed in. Whether we like to admit it or not, the fact is that 3/4 of the world lives in poverty and it's not because they're lazy. But I don't think we are going to figure out what to do about it on this forum. Oh, well. Bless you all, and me, too.
I agree whole heartedly Jennifer. I wish I knew where the magic came from that has made millions of people believe that 3/4 of the people in the world are just lazy slobs, unable to learn and unable to acquire success in this world...Heck, it must be easy since 1% were able to do it, all on their own I'm sure, you know without inheritances or knowing the right people. In this world and in this country, we are all born with the same opportunities. All treated equally and looked at as equals.
Martin Luther King would have been proud of this Black Nation, although things look difficult now, times were a lot worse then... I am 54 and white, that is what Mr. King was all about, a peaceful struggle through life together, a life rewarded with special gifts for one another. Yes God Blesses People everyday, and blesses you with the power to change yourselves. Its entirely up to you what direction you must go. The true road is a foundation of knowledge. Stay in school...then teach others. LEARN ALL YOU CAN AND THEN SOME....... Thank you for Listening.
Merry Christmas Everyone...
Yay, merry x-mas to you and yours 🙂
...and God bless everyone!
Thanks, and Io Saturnalia to you!
you're right, this letter is a hypothetical letter from a poor black kid.........................or adult
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