the biggest loss for American blacks has not been that they don't become lawyers or doctors, its that so few actually go into well-paid yet hard work that you could be guarenteed to stay with for 30 yrs.....
Blacks have not had a significant middle class up until just recently....
IMO....you change your family tree by climbing from the the solid work type jobs that most of our fathers had after WW2 and then the subsequent generations get up into the professions.....
its one step at a time....
I don't think there's anything wrong with those professions provided it's your own choice. You have to live here to know what I'm talking about with respect to the cops and firemen thing. I do think that the best thing for black people to become very independent and be entrepreneurs and start their own businesses. Don't answer to anyone else but one's self.
My parents both came from blue collar backgrounds, yet their parents pushed them to get out of the parochial (literally and figuratively) environment they were raised in and to eventually succeed in the professional world.
Unfortunatly, there are white folks in areas such as where Cy and I grew up who expect nothing from their kids, and whose kids know that they will have a nice patronage job when they finally grow up.
Yep. My grandfather was one of the first black master plumbers in DC when the unions began to open up. My grandmother was a practical nurse. My mother went to college and became a school teacher, later getting a masters and teaching at community college. I'm a lawyer, now completely demented and getting a Ph.D.
My stepfather's people came from the islands. His father worked as a servant for a wealthy man, his mother was a housewife. My stepfather became a lawyer.
One step at a time. It's too bad that so many black kids expect to strike it rich playing ball or singing when there are so many more avenues to building a good life.
btw - my mother and I can do some of our own plumbing, too! It was a happy day when I got my own plumber's snake!