Success In Black America
Black success has been a very controversial and debatable issue over the past several years. First, we have to ask ourselves, what exactly does success mean? Well, according to Webster’s dictionary, success is the achievement of something desired or attempted. Some people believe that black America has not achieved success. They deem that if any blacks have, it is because white society has let them through the cracks to pacify and quiet down the rest of black America. (Figueroa 559) This may be true, but another group of people trust that in order for the black race to progress and succeed in America they have to attain respect by getting rid of the bad African-Americans that give the good ones a terrible reputation. (Kennedy 594) What exactly does Randall Kennedy mean when he says, “get rid of the bad Negroes.” We all have our different interpretation of this phrase. Whichever the case, another perspective on this hot topic is that blacks have improved their quality of life not because of the economy, but because of a strong resurgence of black self-confidence and self-determination. (Cose 585) After carefully evaluating all of these different perspectives, I accept as true that society will label an individual or a group of people successful or total failures. Thomas Jefferson said the American Dream is the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. If you look into his words, I think you will find that what he really means is that in order to have “success” you must go through endeavors and come out on top and where you want to be.
The flaw in claiming that an individual or group of peoples to be successful is that society compares the claimant of success to an icon who has already achieved the American Dream. For example, can one not achieve the level of accomplishment as Oprah Winfrey has and still be successful? I do not know. In my eyes, that decision will come from society. I believe this notion is all wrong. What many people are failing to realize is that there are different levels of success depending on the person achieving it and what he or she had to go through to get where they are now. A person who was raised in a home where their parents brought home one hundred thousand annually more than likely will not be labeled as one that made it in life if when they grow up, they too start a family and the household income in their family is forty thousand. This rule applies to many black Americans. If a black man or woman was brought up in a home where they could not get almost anything they wanted because the annual household income that their single parent brought home was only sixteen thousand, then if that same child grows up to make sixty thousand a year and have a beautiful family filled with joy and happiness, I will claim that this individual has been successful and made it in life because they have pursued and achieved the American Dream which is life, liberty, and happiness, not how much you make. Society on the flip-side will compare this person to someone like Bill Gates and say that because Gates makes billions of dollars and this nobody makes a measly sixty thousand a year, this nobody cannot be successful because they do not make enough money. I hate the fact that America will not acknowledge the different levels of success. Some people’s success may be greater than others, but nonetheless, success is still present. To those who say that black America has not accomplished success over the years, I just cannot and will not agree with you because true enough, not all black families have achieved the American Dream, but the numbers has increased overwhelmingly since the mid twentieth century.
