If I Were A Poor Black Kid....

            I just read the article “If I Were A Poor Black Kid” by Gene Marks (http://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2011/12/12/if-i-was-a-poor-black-kid/) and I agree with some of what he said, but also disagree. Marks’s outlook on a poor black kid’s opportunities is very positive, but my question is if that is truly how it is? Marks did make the comment that most kids from inner city schools don’t know how to use the internet as a resource to help with their grades because of insufficient parenting or teachers. However, Marks failed to acknowledge the fact that in order to get to some of the places that offer computer services, a ‘young black kid’ might have to walk a long distance or take the bus alone. And as a nine year old kid trying to get to the library to read a book not provided at the school, or use the internet for help with math, walking to a library by her or himself in the inner city isn’t the safest situation. So, while I agree with Marks that opportunities are present, those opportunities aren’t as easily attainable as Marks leads us to believe. Another thing that greatly bothered me about Marks’s article is that how is being a poor black kid in the inner city any different than being a poor white kid in the inner city with equal disadvantages? It’s not.

            After becoming slightly agitated with Mr. Gene Marks, I read an article in response to his “If I Were a Poor Black Kid” spiel by Jenée Desmond-Harris (http://www.theroot.com/buzz/if-i-were-poor-black-kid-pushback). He was also befuddled by Marks’s need to affiliate a poor kid in the inner city with dark skin, and backed up my opinion that it’s not as easy as Marks wants to believe it is. He said how Marks “presented some now-infamous ideas for how he would personally rise to success if he suddenly found himself young, African American and poverty-stricken.” The response is generally sarcastic towards Marks and his ingorance to the reality of inner city schooling. Desmond-Harris made the point a kid who could barely access a computer would have no idea how to “’become an expert at Google Scholar’ and regularly peruse the CIA World Factbook….[and] get himself into a top school, and [then] ‘succeed.’” Altogether, while he made some good suggestions for a poor kid in the inner city who is familiar with using the inernet, Mark’s article was completely ignorant and did not consider the reality in the inner city.