White American Entitlement and Their Perception of African American Inferiority

The main misconception that whites in the mid-20th century had about blacks was the presumption that both races were getting what they “deserved”. What I mean is that while many whites believed that blacks should be treated as human beings by this point in time, they still refused to fund public housing for poor blacks or integrate with them in the same neighborhoods because they were perceived to be inherently inferior by their own fault.

Public housing was seen as a way for the lazy people to get housing without work, and integration was seen as a way for blacks to reap the benefits of living in a white neighborhood without deserving it.

Because blacks never had a chance to show their ability to be self-sustaining (at this point, and even up to this day, blacks have never truly had equal social and economic opportunities), whites just assumed by default that any group of people who could not live up to their standards of self-sustainability was just not working hard enough.

The flip side of this view was that whites perceived their own accomplishments as something that they purely earned (nothing was granted to them), and thus began to use the concept of “entitlements” to assert their “right” to choose who they live with. It does regrettably make some sense that the ignorant whites could see no other explanation for their comparative economic success other than the inherent inferiority of blacks, and also why they could not imagine an integrated society that would preserve their culture.

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Ultimately, I wonder why the “preservation” of culture is that important to them; as a second generation citizen in America, I have found that I very much enjoy implementing the best of Chinese and American culture and living my life in a way that brings out the best of both worlds (respect for authority/family combined with independence and self-sustainability. Culture does not have to be static and unchanging; rather, it can be constantly improving.

Finally, I find the notion of “entitlements” that many Americans have to be quite ironic. I have been down to the rural and impoverished parts of Central Mexico, and the residents there are much happier than average Americans, and are very grateful for what they receive, never demanding for rights or entitlements.

In contrast, I went to a high school in Seattle that staged student led walk-outs every month because the “rights of the students were being violated” when the school made budget cuts to some classes. Seattle is one of the best educated and highest income major cities in America, and some people still want to march to City Hall because the standardized testing isn’t great or because their advanced ceramics class was cut due to budget? How ironic that impoverished kids in Central Mexico don’t even protest their situation and learn to be grateful for what they have.