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This was an interesting thread. I feel like I've seen all sides on this one, but more as a spectator than anything else. I went to a predominately white school where no one bothered me or really bothered WITH me because of my color. I wasn't harassed, but no one paid attention until I was in high school and distinguished myself academically. I kept my head in the books and REALLY wasn't that attached to my peers- white or black (my best friend was Asian). As far as I was concerned, my friends were my family- they were the constant and the grounding force. My Mother is a teacher. I have three cousins who graduated from Harvard and NYU law. They all really went out of their way to teach me that the WHOLE POINT of me being where I was and who I was, was to excel. Of course the corresponding feelings that if and when you didn't excel (excel: to become a lawyer making at LEAST 100k per annum, driving a Volvo or a Mercedes, owning a condo, being married to an upwardly mobile black male by age 23) you were worthless have also stayed in my mind (I have a VERY hard time forgiving myself for messing up on ANYTHING- be it not taking out the garbage or forgetting something important at work- it all affects me equally.)
But what it really did was to alienate me from the entire mindset that what was going on in myneighborhood was cool. I was never comfortable with kids on the block, so we weren't friends. I would be friendly, but really, I would rather read a book because more often than not we didn't have anything to talk about.
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It may be said with rough accuracy that there are three stages in the life of a strong people. First, it is a small power, and fights small powers. Then it is a great power, and fights great powers. Then it is a great power, and fights small powers, but pretends that they are great powers, in order to rekindle the ashes of its ancient emotion and vanity.-- G.K. Chesterton
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