Welcome to the Jungle

[wmfinck]

Will they ever learn that only animals are found in the jungle, regardless of how many legs they have?

This is from http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2009/06/ ... is-it.html

What is it Like to Teach Black Students?

by Christopher Jackson

Until recently I taught at a predominantly
black high school in a southeastern
state.

The mainstream press gives a hint of
what conditions are like in black schools,
but only a hint. Expressions journalists
use like “chaotic” or “poor learning
environment” or “lack of discipline” do
not capture what really happens. There
is nothing like the day-to-day experience
of teaching black children and that is
what I will try to convey.

One of the most immediately striking
things about my students was that they
were loud. They had little conception of
ordinary decorum. It was not unusual
for five students to be screaming at
me at once.

It did no good to try to quiet them and
white women were particularly inept at
trying. I sat in on one woman’s class as
she begged the children to pipe down.
They just yelled louder so their voices
would carry over hers.

They seemed
to have no conception of waiting for
an appropriate time to say something.
They would get ideas in their heads and
simply had to shout them out. I might be
leading a discussion on government and
suddenly be interrupted: “We gotta get
more Democrats! Clinton, she good!”
The student may seem content with that
outburst but two minutes later, he would
suddenly start yelling again: “Clinton
good!”

Anyone who is around young blacks
will probably get a constant diet of rap music.
Blacks often make up their own jingles,
and it was not uncommon for 15
boys to swagger into a classroom,
bouncing their shoulders and jiving back.

They were yelling back and forth, rapping 15 different sets of
words in the same harsh, rasping dialect.
The words were almost invariably
a childish form of boasting: “Who got
dem shine rim, who got dem shine shoe,
who got dem shine grill (gold and silver
dental caps)?” The amateur rapper usually
ends with a claim—in the crudest
terms imaginable—that all womankind
is sexually devoted to him. For whatever
reason, my students would often groan
instead of saying a particular word, as in,
“She suck dat aaahhhh (think of a long
grinding groan), she f**k dat aaaahhhh,
she lick dat aaaahhh.”

So many black girls dance in the hall, in the classroom,
on the chairs, next to the chairs, under
the chairs, everywhere. Once I took a
call on my cell phone and had to step
outside of class. I was away about two
minutes but when I got back, the
girls had lined up at the front of the
classroom and were convulsing to the
delight of the boys.

Many black people, especially
women, are enormously fat. Some are
so fat I had to arrange special seating to
accommodate their bulk. I am not saying
there are no fat white students—there
are—but it is a matter of numbers and
attitudes. Many black girls simply do not
care that they are fat. There are plenty
of white anorexics, but I have never met
or heard of a black anorexic.

“Black women be big Mr. Jackson,”
my students would explain.

“Is it okay in the black community to
be a little overweight?” I ask.
Two obese girls in front of
my desk begin to dance, “You know
dem boys lak juicy fruit, Mr. Jackson.”
“Juicy” is a colorful black expression
for the buttocks.

Blacks, on average, are the most directly critical
people I have ever met: “Dat shirt stupid.
Yo’ kid a bastard. Yo’ lips big.” Unlike
whites, who tread gingerly around the
subject of race, they can be brutally to
the point. Once I needed to send a student
to the office to deliver a message. I
asked for volunteers, and suddenly you
would think my classroom was a bastion
of civic engagement. Thirty dark hands
shot into the air. My students loved to
leave the classroom and slack off, even
if just for a few minutes, away from the
eye of white authority. I picked a light-skinned
boy to deliver the message. One
very black student was indignant: “You
pick da half-breed.” And immediately
other blacks take up the cry, and half
a dozen mouths are screaming, “He
half-breed.”

For decades, the country has been
lamenting the poor academic performance
of blacks and there is much to
lament. There is no question, however,
that many blacks come to school with a
serious handicap that is not their fault.
At home they have learned a dialect that
is almost a different language. Blacks
not only mispronounce words; their
grammar is often wrong. When a black
wants to ask, “Where is the bathroom?”
he may actually say “Whar da badroom
be?” Grammatically, this is the equivalent
of “Where the bathroom is?” And
this is the way they speak in high school.
Students write the way they speak, so
this is the language that shows up in
written assignments.

It is true that some whites face a
similar handicap. They speak with
what I would call a “country” accent
that is hard to reproduce but results in
sentences such as “I’m gonna gemme
a Coke.” Some of these country whites
had to learn correct pronunciation and
usage. The difference is that most whites
overcome this handicap and learn to
speak correctly; many blacks do not.

Most of the blacks I taught simply
had no interest in academic subjects. I
taught history, and students would often
say they didn’t want to do an assignment
or they didn’t like history because it was
all about white people. Of course, this
was “diversity” history, in which every
cowboy’s black cook got a special page
on how he contributed to winning the
West, but black children still found it
inadequate. So I would throw up my
hands and assign them a project on a
real, historical black person. My favorite
was Marcus Garvey. They had never
heard of him, and I would tell them to
research him, but they never did. They
didn’t care and they didn’t want to do
any work.

Anyone who teaches blacks soon
learns that they have a completely different
view of government from whites.
Once I decided to fill 25 minutes by
having students write about one thing
the government should do to improve
America. I gave this question to three
classes totaling about 100 students,
approximately 80 of whom were black.
My white students came back with
generally “conservative” ideas. “We
need to cut off people who don’t work,”
was the most common suggestion.
Nearly every black gave a variation on
the theme of “We need more government
services.”

My students had only the vaguest
notion of who pays for government
services. For them, it was like a magical
piggy bank that never goes empty. One
black girl was exhorting the class on
the need for more social services and I
kept trying to explain that people, real
live people, are taxed for the money to
pay for those services. “Yeah, it come
from whites,” she finally said. “They
stingy anyway.”

“Many black people make over
$50,000 dollars a year and you would
also be taking away from your own
people,” I said.

She had an answer to that: “Dey
half breed.” The class agreed. I let the
subject drop.

Many black girls are perfectly happy
to be welfare queens. On career day, one
girl explained to the class that she was
going to have lots of children and get fat
checks from the government. No one in
the class seemed to have any objection
to this career choice.

Surprising attitudes can come out in
class discussion. We were talking about
the crimes committed in the aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina, and I brought up the
rape of a young girl in the bathroom of
the Superdome. A majority of my students
believed this was a horrible crime
but a few took it lightly. One black boy
spoke up without raising his hand: “Dat
no big deal. They thought they is gonna
die so they figured they have some fun.
Dey jus’ wanna have a fun time; you
know what I’m sayin’?” A few black
heads nodded in agreement.

My department head once asked all
the teachers to get a response from all
students to the following question: “Do
you think it is okay to break the law if it
will benefit you greatly?” By then, I had
been teaching for a while and was not
surprised by answers that left a young,
liberal, white woman colleague aghast.
“Yeah” was the favorite answer. As one
student explained, “Get dat green.”

There is a level of conformity among
blacks that whites would find hard to
believe. They like one kind
of music: rap. They will
vote for one political party:
Democrat. They dance
one way, speak one way,
are loud the same way,
and fail their exams in the
same way. Of course, there
are exceptions but they
are rare.

Whites are different.
Some like country music,
others heavy metal, some
prefer pop, and still others,
God forbid, enjoy rap music. They have
different associations, groups, almost
ideologies. There are jocks, nerds,
preppies, and hunters. Blacks are all—
well—black, and they are quick to let
other blacks know when they deviate
from the norm.

One might object that there are important
group differences among blacks that a white man simply cannot detect. I
have done my best to find them, but so
far as I can tell, they dress the same, talk
the same, think the same. Certainly, they
form rival groups, but the groups are not
different in any discernible way. There
simply are no groups of blacks that are
as distinctly different from each other
as white “nerds,” “hunters,” or “Goths,”
for example.

How the world looks to blacks
One point on which all blacks agree
is that everything is “racis’.” This is
one message of liberalism they have
absorbed completely. Did you do your
homework? “Na, homework racis’.”
Why did you get an F on the test? “Test
racis’.”

I was trying to teach a unit on British
philosophers and the first thing the students
noticed about Bentham, Hobbes,
and Locke was “Dey all white! Where da
black philosophers’?” I tried to explain
there were no blacks in eighteenth century
Britain. You can probably guess
what they said to that: “Dat racis’!”
One student accused me of deliberately
failing him on a test because I
didn’t like black people.

“Do you think I really hate black
people?”
“Yeah.”
“Have I done anything to make you
feel this way? How do you know?”
“You just do.”
“Why do you say that?”

He just smirked, looked out the window,
and sucked air through his teeth.
Perhaps this was a regional thing, but
the blacks often sucked air through their
teeth as a wordless expression of disdain
or hostility.

My students were sometimes unable
to see the world except through the lens
of their own blackness. I had a class
that was host to a German exchange
student. One day he put on a Power Point
presentation with famous German landmarks
as well as his school and family.

From time to time during the presentation,
blacks would scream, “Where da
black folk?!” The exasperated German
tried several times to explain that there
were no black people where he lived in
Germany. The students did not believe
him. I told them Germany is in Europe,
where white people are from, and Africa
is where black people are from. They
insisted that the German student was
racist and deliberately refused to associate
with blacks.

Blacks are keenly interested in
their own racial characteristics. I have
learned, for example, that some blacks
have “good hair.” Good hair is black
parlance for black-white hybrid hair.
Apparently, it is less kinky, easier to
style, and considered more attractive.
Blacks are also proud of light skin.
Imagine two black students shouting
insults across the room. One is dark
but slim; the other light and obese. The
dark one begins the exchange: “You
fat, Ridario!” Ridario smiles, doesn’t deign to look
at his detractor, shakes his head like a
wobbling top, and says, “You wish you
light skinned.”

They could go on like this, repeating
the same insults over and over.

My black students had nothing but
contempt for Hispanic immigrants. They
would vent their feelings so crudely
that our department strongly advised us
never to talk about immigration in class
in case the principal or some outsider
might overhear.

Whites were “racis’,” of course, but
they thought of us at least as Americans.
Not the Mexicans. Blacks have a certain,
not necessarily hostile understanding of
white people. They know how whites
act, and it is clear they believe whites
are smart and are good at organizing
things. At the same time, they probably
suspect whites are just putting on an
act when they talk about equality, as if
it is all a sham that makes it easier for
whites to control blacks. Blacks want a
bigger piece of the American pie. I’m
convinced that if it were up to them
they would give whites a considerably
smaller piece than whites get now, but
they would give us something. They
wouldn’t give Mexicans anything.

What about black boys and white
girls? No one is supposed to
notice this or talk about it but
it is glaringly obvious: Black
boys are obsessed with white
girls. I’ve witnessed the following
drama countless times. A black
boy saunters up to a white
girl. The cocky black dances
around her, not really in a menacing
way. It’s more a shuffle
than a threat. As he bobs and
shuffles he asks, “When you
gonna go wit’ me?”

There are two kinds of reply.
The more confident white
girl gets annoyed, looks away
from the black and shouts, “I don’t wanna
go out with you!” The more demure
girl will look at her feet and mumble
a polite excuse but ultimately say no.

There is only one response from the
black boy: “You racis’.” Many girls—all
too many—actually feel guilty because
they do not want to date blacks. Most
white girls at my school stayed away
from blacks, but a few, particularly the
ones who were addicted to drugs, fell
in with them.

There is something else that is striking
about blacks. They seem to have
no sense of romance, of falling in love.
What brings men and women together is
sex, pure and simple, and there is a crude
openness about this. There are many degenerate
whites, of course, but some of
my white students were capable of real
devotion and tenderness, emotions that
seemed absent from blacks—especially
the boys.

Black schools are violent and the
few whites who are too poor to escape
are caught in the storm. The violence is
astonishing, not so much that it happens,
but the atmosphere in which it happens.
Blacks can be smiling, seemingly perfectly
content with what they are doing,
having a good time, and then, suddenly
start fighting. It’s uncanny. Not long
ago, I was walking through the halls
and a group of black boys were walking
in front of me. All of a sudden they
started fighting with another group in
the hallway.

Blacks are extraordinarily quick to
take offense. Once I accidentally scuffed
a black boy’s white sneaker with my
shoe. He immediately rubbed his body
up against mine and threatened to attack
me. I stepped outside the class and had
a security guard escort the student to
the office. It was unusual for students
to threaten teachers physically this way,
but among themselves, they were quick
to fight for similar reasons.

The real victims are the unfortunate
whites caught in this. They are always
in danger and their educations suffer.
White weaklings are particularly susceptible,
but mostly to petty violence. They
may be slapped or get a couple of kicks
when they are trying to open a bottom
locker. Typically, blacks save the hard,
serious violence for each other.

There was a lot of promiscuous sex
among my students and this led to
violence. Black girls were constantly
fighting over black boys. It was not uncommon
to see two girls literally ripping
each other’s hair out with a police officer
in the middle trying to break up the
fight. The black boy they were fighting
over would be standing by with a smile,
enjoying the show he had created. For
reasons I cannot explain, boys seldom
fought over girls.

Pregnancy was common among the
blacks, though many black girls were
so fat I could not tell the difference. I
don’t know how many girls got abortions,
but when they had the baby they
usually stayed in school and had their
own parents look after the child. The
school did not offer daycare.

Aside from the police officers constantly on campus, security guards are everywhere in
black schools—we had one on every
hall. They also sat in on unruly classes
and escorted students to the office. They
were unarmed but worked closely with
the three city police officers who were
constantly on duty.

There was a lot of drug-dealing at
my school. This was a way to
make a fair amount of money but it
also gave boys power over girls who
wanted drugs. An addicted girl—black
or white—became the plaything of anyone
who could get her drugs.

One of my students was a notorious
drug dealer. Everyone knew it. He was
19 years old and in eleventh grade. Once
he got a score of three out of 100 on a
test. He had been locked up four times
since he was 13.

One day, I asked him, “Why do you
come to school?”

He wouldn’t answer. He just looked
out the window, smiled, and sucked air
through his teeth. His friend Yidarius
ventured an explanation: “He get dat
green and get dem females.”

“What is the green?” I asked. “Money
or dope?” “Both,” said Yidarius with a smile.

A very fat student interrupted from
across the room: “We get dat lunch,” Mr.
Jackson. “We gotta get dat lunch and
brickfuss.” He means the free breakfast
and lunch poor students get every day.
“Nigga, we know’d you be lovin’
brickfuss!” shouts another student.

Some readers may believe that I
have drawn a cruel caricature of black
students. After all, according to official
figures some 85 percent of them graduate.
It would be instructive to know how
many of those scraped by with barely a
C- record. They go from grade to grade
and they finally get their diplomas
because there is so much pressure on
teachers to push them through. It saves
money to move them along, the school
looks good and the teachers look good.

Many of these children should have been
failed but the system would crack under
their weight if they were all held back.

How did my experiences make me
feel about blacks? Ultimately, I lost
sympathy for them. In so many ways
they seem to make their own beds.
There they were in an integrationist’s
fantasy—in the same classroom with
white students, eating the same lunch,
using the same bathrooms, listening to
the same teachers—and yet the blacks
fail while the whites pass.

One tragic outcome among whites
who have been teaching for too long
is that it can engender something close
to hatred. One teacher I knew gave up
fast food—not for health reasons but
because where he lived most fast-food
workers were black. He had enough of
blacks on the job. This was an extreme
example but years of frustration can
take their toll. Many of my white colleagues
with any experience were well
on their way to that state of mind.

There is an unutterable secret among
teachers: Almost all realize that blacks
do not respond to traditional white
instruction. Does that put the lie to environmentalism?
Not at all. It is what
brings about endless, pointless innovation
that is supposed to bring blacks up
to the white level. The solution is more diversity—or put
more generally, the solution is change.
Change is an almost holy word in education,
and you can fail a million times as
long as you keep changing. That is why
liberals keep revamping the curriculum
and the way it is taught. For example,
teachers are told that blacks need hands-on
instruction and more group work.

Teachers are told that blacks are more
vocal and do not learn through reading
and lectures. The implication is that they
have certain traits that lend themselves
to a different kind of teaching.

Whites have learned a certain way for
centuries but it just doesn’t work with
blacks. Of course, this implies racial
differences but if pressed, most liberal
teachers would say different racial
learning styles come from some indefinable
cultural characteristic unique to
blacks. Therefore, schools must change,
America must change. But into what?
How do you turn quantum physics into
hands-on instruction or group work? No
one knows, but we must keep changing
until we find something that works.

Public school has certainly changed
since anyone reading this was a student.
I have a friend who teaches elementary
school and she tells me that every week
the students get a new diversity lesson,
shipped in fresh from some bureaucrat’s
office in Washington or the state
capital. She showed me the materials
for one week: a large poster,
about the size of a forty-two inch
flat-screen television. It shows
an utterly diverse group—I mean
diverse: handicapped, Muslim,
Jewish, effeminate, poor, rich,
brown, slightly brown, yellow,
etc.—sitting at a table, smiling
gaily, accomplishing some undefined
task. The poster comes with
a sheet of questions the teacher is
supposed to ask. One might be: “These
kids sure look different, but they look
happy. Can you tell me which one in
the picture is an American?”

Some eight-year-old, mired in ignorance,
will point to a white child like
himself. “That one.”

The teacher reads from the answer,
conveniently printed along with the
question. “No, Billy, all these children
are Americans. They are just as American
as you.”

This is what happens at predominately white,
middle-class, elementary schools everywhere.
Elementary school teachers love All
of the Colors of the Race, by award-winning
children’s poet Arnold Adoff.

These are some of the lines they read
to the children: “Mama is chocolate …
Daddy is vanilla … Me (sic) is better …
It is a new color. It is a new flavor. For
love. Sometimes blackness seems too
black for me, and whiteness is too sickly
pale; and I wish every one were golden.
Remember: long ago before people
moved and migrated, and mixed and
matched … there was one people: one
color, one race. The colors are flowing
from what was before me to what will
be after. All the colors.”

Teaching as a career
It may come as a surprise after what
I have written, but my experiences have
given me a deep appreciation for teaching
as a career. It offers a stable, middle-class
life but comes with the capacity
to make real differences in the lives of
children. In our modern, atomized world
children often have very little communication
with adults—especially, or even,
with their parents—so there is potential
for a real transaction between pupil and
teacher, disciple and master.

A rewarding relationship can grow
up between an exceptional, interested
student and his teacher. I have stayed in
my classroom with a group of students
discussing ideas and playing chess until
the janitor kicked us out. I was the
old gentleman, imparting my history,
culture, personal loves and triumphs,
defeats and failures to young kinsman.
Sometimes I fancied myself Tyrtaeus,
the Spartan poet, who counseled the
youth to honor and loyalty. I never had
this kind intimacy with a black student,
and I know of no other white teacher
who did.

Teaching can be fun. For a certain
kind of person it is exhilarating to map
out battles on chalkboards, and teach
heroism. It is rewarding to challenge
liberal prejudices, to leave my mark on
these children, but what I aimed for with
my white students I could never achieve
with the blacks.

There is a kind of child whose look
can melt your heart: some working-class
castaway, in and out of foster homes,
often abused, who is nevertheless almost
an angel. Your heart melts for these children,
this refuse of the modern world.

Many white students possess a certain
innocence; their cheeks still blush.
Try as I might, I could not get the
blacks to care one bit about Beethoven
or Sherman’s march to the sea, or
Tyrtaeus, or Oswald Spengler, or even
liberals like John Rawls, or their own
history. They cared about nothing I
tried to teach them. When this goes on
year after year it chokes the soul out
of a teacher, destroys his pathos, and
sends him guiltily searching for The Bell
Curve on the Internet.

Blacks break down the intimacy that
can be achieved in the classroom, and
leave you convinced that that intimacy
is really a form of kinship. Without
intending to, they destroy what is most
beautiful—whether it be your belief in
human equality, your daughter’s innocence,
or even the state of the hallway.

Just last year I read on the
bathroom stall the words “F**k
Whitey.” Not two feet away, on the
same stall, was a small swastika.

The National Council for the Social
Studies, the leading authority on social
science education in the United States,
urges teachers to inculcate such values
as equality of opportunity, individual
property rights, and a democratic form
of government. Even if teachers could
inculcate this milquetoast ideology into
whites, liberalism is doomed because so
many non-whites are not receptive to
education of any kind beyond the merest
basics.

It is impossible to
get them to care about such abstractions
as property rights or democratic citizenship.
They do not see much further than
the fact that you live in a big house and
“we in da pro-jek.” Of course, there are a
few loutish whites who will never think
past their next meal and a few sensitive
blacks for whom anything is possible,
but no society takes on the characteristics
of its exceptions.

Once I asked my students, “What do
you think of the Constitution?”
“It white,” one slouching black rang
out. The class began to laugh. And I
caught myself laughing along with them,
laughing while Pompeii’s volcano simmers,
while the barbarians swell around
the Palatine, while the country I love,
and the job I love, and the community I
love become dimmer by the day.

I read a book by an expatriate Rhodesian
who visited Zimbabwe not
too many years ago. Traveling with a
companion, she stopped at a store along
the highway. A black man materialized
next to her car window. “Job, boss, (I)
work good, boss,” he pleaded. “You
give job.”

“What happened to your old job?”
the expatriate white asked. The man replied in the straightforward
manner of his race: “We drove
out the whites. No more jobs. You give
job.”

At some level, my students understand
the same thing. One day I asked
the bored, black faces staring back
at me. “What would happen if all the
white people in America disappeared
tomorrow?”

“We screwed,” a young, pitch-black
boy screamed back. The rest of the
blacks laughed.

I have had children tell me to my face
as they struggled with an assignment. “I
cain’t do dis,” Mr. Jackson. “I black.”

The point is that human beings are not
always rational. It is in the black man’s
interest to have whites in Zimbabwe but
he drives them out and starves. Most
whites do not think black Americans
could ever do anything so irrational.
They see blacks on television smiling,
fighting evil whites, embodying
white values. But the real black is not
on television, and you pull your purse
closer when you see him, and you lock
the car doors when he swaggers by
with his pants hanging down almost to
his knees.

I have been in parent-teacher conferences
that broke my heart: the child
pleading with his parents to take him
out of school; the parents convinced
their child’s fears are groundless. If you
love your child, show her you care—
not by giving her fancy vacations or a
car, but making her innocent years safe
and happy. Give her the gift of a not-heavily black
school.

Mr. Jackson now teaches at a majority-
white school.

[PILGRIM]

.

Sho nuf, deys jes no keepin' deys chilluns still ! , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,







/////

[PILGRIM]

//
//But seriously, sort of - negroes are negroes, they just don't have the material to work with. It is universal, it is unmistakable, it IS undeniable! For those who missed this, it is a great read.

URBAN LAW 101
ADVENTURES WITH BLACK CLIENTS.
by Donald Williamson, Attorney
published in American Renaissance Vol. 14 No. 9 (September 2003)

I grew up in a suburb of a large northern city, and had no real contact with blacks until I became a lawyer. After I got my law degree I naively looked forward to a rewarding legal career. Little did I realize that 25 years later I would be a self-employed attorney doing domestic and civil litigation for a clientele that is overwhelmingly black. I didn't plan it that way. I just wanted to do a lot of work in the courtroom, and the best offer I got out of law school was with a small firm that specialized in bankruptcy. Most of its clients were black. Several years later, I set up an independent practice and many of my former clients came to me for domestic work.

Most people do not realize this, but outside the world of corporate or securities law, in any big city the legal profession is to a large degree fueled by the pathologies of blacks and other Third-World people. Of course, whites hire lawyers, but in any city, especially one with a good-sized black population, most of the people who need lawyers are black. In this respect, lawyers are like police officers or social workers — they rarely deal with ordinary white people. To a large degree, I became racially conscious because of my black clients, who eventually destroyed all my preconceived notions about race. My awakening did not come from one or even a few incidents, but from the accumulation of thousands upon thousands of small interactions.

My black clients eventually destroyed all my preconceived notions about race.
Day after day my clients continue to amaze me. There is no racial education quite so thorough and convincing as spending time with blacks, and my clients are far from being the poorest and least competent blacks. They are not indigent criminals for whom I am a court-appointed lawyer. They are people who can afford (or think they can afford) a lawyer to get a divorce, contest a custody judgment, beat a traffic ticket, etc. Some are government employees who make $60 to $70 thousand a year, yet even this group is vastly different from whites.

THEY DON'T KNOW

One of the most striking things about my black clients is the things they do not know. Many blacks, for example, do not know their own telephone numbers. They may think they do but they don't, and the problem has gotten worse with the proliferation of cell phones. At least a third of the numbers they leave with my receptionist or on my answering machine are wrong numbers. Often, a potential client will call several times, each time leaving a variation of the same phone number. I keep calling until they get it right. At first I thought I was taking down the numbers incorrectly, but now I know better. With caller ID, it is clear when what the client says does not match the digital display. Some callers don't even leave a number. About a quarter of the messages blacks leave do not include either a name or a number. Needless to say, many calls are not returned.

More than a handful of blacks who have come to my office do not even know their own home address (they move often). Many cannot tell me their own spouse's names. Now I know to tell clients ahead of time that they will need this sort of information when they come in. Otherwise, if I ask for someone's address he may look hurt and say, "If I'd known you were going to ask me that I would have come prepared."

Many black men know their children's names but do not know how to spell them. With the proliferation of unusual names among blacks, I can only guess at how they are spelled. One client who told me he couldn't spell his children's names said I would need an encyclopedia to look them up. Many men have admitted to me they are not even sure how to pronounce their children's names. Black woman, on the other hand, often become incensed if you mispronounce the very unusual names they have given their children.

The most unusual name I ever came across was Iisszzttadda. I have never met a person, white or black, who could pronounce it correctly. To my surprise the name is pronounced, "I seize the day." Iisszzttadda had siblings named Raheem, Utopian, Desiorme, Sid-Timothy, Kizzma, and Larilaril. I have occasionally asked clients the reasons for such unusual names, but the most common answer is "I don't know. It just sounded good." This is the answer I got from a mother who named her child Latrine. (See sidebar for actual names of blacks I have encountered in my practice.) I once had a client in my office who did not know his own name. He had been called by his nickname for so long he couldn't remember his given name. This is not as shocking as it sounds. Some black names, like Phe-anjoy or Quithreaun or JyesahJhnai, are so odd, it would be no surprise if they were never used and eventually forgotten.

Article Sidebar Note: Some Names of Blacks Encountered in My Practice
Aaja (pronounced Asia), Acacia, Ajeenah, Akai, Aquanita, Aryan White, Baleria, Barbertha, Callie (pronounced Kelly), CaAndi, Chetiqua, Cloteal, Curly Top, Darhies, Dayphine, Debrasharme, Derecio, Dertiteriesa, Dikueria and Dikuria (twins), Dildree, Dishon, Dovanna, Duanita, Dyiamond, Dwendolyn, Effillyne, Elizabeth Taylor, Endrissa, Equandolyn, Esaw, Everage, Floyce, Franshawn, Ghia, Godzilla Pimp, Ivier, Jartavious, JyesahJhnai, Keithen, Kentnilla, Lafondra, La,poo (yes, contains comma), Latronia, Lemonjello and Orangejello (twins), L'Tonya, Machoda, Nau-Quia, Mayima, Minute, Miquel, Nethel, Omnipotence, Ondra (pronounced Andre, Ozro, Padraic, Pecola, Phe-anjoy, Precious Unique, Queen Esther, Quithreaun, Rincesetta, Sanja, Saranus, Shanieja, Sharicus, Shiquipa, SiJourna'i, Silquia, Sinetra, Summer Love, Termicka, Tequilla, Timphanie, Tryphenia, Tywana, Tzaddi and Tzavvi (twins), Ulheric, Undlia, Undrea (pronounced Andre), Wsam, Xiomara, XL, Yaw, Yuvodka Sharice, Wilida, Zaquan, Zufan, Zyneene.

Since appointments mean so little to my clients, I decide each day when I am available, and tell everyone to show up at the same time.

Names are not the only things blacks do not know. Once when I was filling out a form for a female client I asked if she knew how old her husband was. She told me she didn't know. I asked her the next question on the form, which was her husband's birth date. Amazingly, she knew it — and was genuinely surprised when I told her she could figure out her husband's age from his birth date.

When potential clients call for the first time, often the hardest part is to figure out why they are calling. Usually they begin in the middle of the story. If you let them, they will go on and on, and say nothing. Clients may call about papers they got in the mail, but never have the papers in front of them. They may call for information, but never have a pen or pencil ready to take it down. I have learned to ask direct questions: "What is your name?" "What is the problem?" If a client cannot tell me in three minutes or less what the problem is, I tell him to come to my office and bring a small retainer fee. That way at least I will have to listen to their ramblings only if they are prepared to pay.

Blacks with whom I have already spoken seem to think I should know instantly who they are when they telephone. After I get on the line, a typical conversation may go like this:

• "Who am I speaking to?"
• "I am your client."
• "I have many clients, can you tell me which one?"
• "I am your divorce client."
• "Can you tell me your name?"
• "Rufus."
• "Rufus, can you tell me your last name?"

The conversation may go on for some time before I finally figure out who is calling.
I do not take personal injury or product liability cases, but blacks are always asking about bringing suits of this kind: "My vacuum cleaner broke. Can you help me?"
Most of my clients who are not black either show up on time for appointments or call if they must reschedule. Amazing as this may seem, only about five percent of my black clients show up on time, and by that I mean within an hour of the appointed time. Only one in five show up on the appointed day. A few trickle in a day or two later. Most just never show up. Missing an appointment never embarrasses black people. They call repeatedly for new appointments, making four, five or even six appointments and then miss them all. I had one client who called more than 50 times before he finally came to my office. Rarely do I ever get a call from a black client canceling an appointment.

When I first started out as a lawyer I would call clients in advance to remind them of their appointments. They thanked me, but it made them no more likely to show up. Also, I used to call clients and potential clients who missed appointments, and try to have them reschedule. This did very little good. The most common response was, "Why are you calling me?" and it was never their fault that they didn't show up. They had many different excuses, but I never heard, "I forgot," or "I'm sorry I didn't make it."
Since appointments mean so little to my clients, I decide each day when I am available, and tell everyone to show up at the same time. On Saturday afternoons I can have as many as twenty appointments for the same time. Usually it is not a problem because few show up and even fewer show up on time. Only once in the last 20 years did everyone show up.

Many of my clients are unable to explain even the most basic facts. Often they must take the witness stand, and no matter how many times we have gone over the testimony in advance, I can be surprised by what they say. Some are simply lying and get tangled up in their lies, but most have such low IQs, they cannot describe even the simplest things. Often they seem to say the first thing that pops into their heads. When they are questioned further they cannot remember what they said previously.
I once had a client whose wife was suing him for child support. In discussions before trial he told me he had two children from a previous marriage. This was favorable for him because it meant he would probably owe his current wife less money. At trial, his wife testified that my client had no children outside of their marriage. When I asked him on the stand how many children he had before he married his current wife, he said he had none. Later I asked him why he had answered that way, when he told me before that he had two other children. "Did I say that?" he asked. I never found out which version was true.

Many of my clients have a hard time following simple directions. Once I appeared in traffic court with a client. In lieu of a conviction he was to see a traffic safety movie. The courtroom was on the second floor of the courthouse, and the traffic safety movie was shown on the first floor. The client was to come back to the courtroom with proof (which would be given him on the first floor) that he watched the movie. Both the judge and I explained this to the client. At the designated hour my client did not come back to the courtroom. Later that afternoon I got a call from the judge, who told me my client had completely misunderstood the instructions. He went to the nearest commercial movie house, saw a movie, and brought back his movie ticket stub.
Long ago I stopped asking my clients why they did something. It is not worth the effort. Most don't know. The ones who know usually cannot give a coherent answer. Even if they can give a coherent answer, it usually changes every time you ask.

For example, one of my black divorce clients tried to hide assets from his spouse. This is not uncommon. Through discovery it came to light that he had secretly bought a piece of property after the divorce had begun. He put his wife's name on the title, a very odd thing to do, since he was trying to hide the property from her. I made the mistake of asking him why he did that. True to my previous experiences, he could not give an answer that made sense.

Clients sometimes tell me they knew they were being cheated, but signed the papers anyway. I have given up asking why they signed, because I know I will not get an intelligible answer.

My clients make mistakes in written and spoken English that are often comical. One client in a criminal case told me he was telling the truth, and was willing to take a "polyester test" to prove it. Another told me he desperately wanted to see me, and needed an appointment "between Tuesday and Wednesday." One who bounced a check told me the problem was "insignificant funds" in his account. I have had clients who have "profiteering" plans at work, want an "uncontestable" divorce (or a "detested" divorce, or an "untested" divorce), had "insects" (incest) in the family, need an "annoyment" (annulment), want a free "flirtation" (consultation), ask about my "container" (retainer), want to "consultate" about a divorce, or had to meet with "media people" (mediation counselors). One man told me, "I own a car but it is not mine," and one who was accused of indecent exposure insisted, "I didn't take my stuff out of my pants."

It took me some time to understand certain kinds of black slang. Within the first month of my independent practice a man called to ask if I could "put a suitcase on a cat." After much inquiry I realized he wanted to know if I could file a law suit against someone. Within the week I got another call asking if I "did luggage." Since I now knew about suitcases, I said yes, I do luggage. I pride myself on doing good work for my clients, but I cannot remember even once being thanked or complimented by a black client. They do not observe even the most common courtesies. Also, with rare exceptions, blacks will never admit they made a mistake. When things go wrong, as they inevitably do, it is always someone else's fault. The most common excuse blacks give is, "They are putting me through the changes." I have yet to figure out exactly what that means.

Most people tell lies because they think a lie will help them. I have come to the conclusion that most of my clients cannot distinguish between a plausible lie and a wild fairy tale. They are convinced people will believe anything they say. Clients often tell me some fantastic story I cannot possibly defend in court. If I tell them what they are saying is unbelievable the usual reaction is anger and screaming. Typically, they will add, "I'm paying you. You have to believe what I say."

One client was willing to take a "polyester test" to prove he was telling the truth.
Sometimes, despite my warnings, clients will get on the stand and tell obvious, outright lies. The judge may interrupt the testimony and tell me to go outside with my client to "get your story straight." They are not going to sit in court and listen to fairy tales. I take my client outside and tell him he has got to tell the truth, or at least say something believable. My client then starts screaming. "Why are you talking to me this way? You're supposed to be on my side."

I once had a client testify about his assets in a divorce case, in which the court was to determine whether he should pay his estranged wife temporary support. My client was a store-front preacher, and testified that he lived in the marital residence with his wife, though in separate quarters. His wife testified that he was out living with his "ho." My client went on and on about how this was impossible because he was a Man of God. I thought he was lying. The judge ruled that if my client was living with his wife he should share household expenses, which he was not currently paying. At this point, my client realized there was a cost to pretending to be a Man of God living with his lawful wife, and changed his tune. "Judge why are you believing me?" he said. "Believe my wife. I am nothing but an old lying nigger." No one in the courtroom could stop laughing.

OUTSIDE KIDS

"Outside kid" cases are one of my specialties. For those not in the know, blacks call any child born out of wedlock an outside kid. Black men are good at making children but not at supporting them, and this can be a terrible burden under laws written with white people in mind.

In my state, the parent who does not have custody is almost always the father who pays a percentage of net income to the parent with custody (almost always the mother). The mother gets 20 percent of the father's net income for the first child, 25 percent for two children, and up to 50 percent for five or more children. What if a man has children by several women? Each mother gets 20 percent for the first child, so a man with five children by five different women is supposed to be paying 100 percent of his income in child support. I once had a client who had 12 different children by 10 different women. Theoretically, he owed 250 percent of his income. These laws simply don't make sense for blacks. Judges have to decide each case as best they can.

Not surprisingly, the average black client will not pay child support unless it is deducted from his paycheck. Many refuse to work, or leave a job to avoid paying. Job turnover is very high among blacks, and the court system has a hard time keeping up with them. Some blacks quit on purpose, and move to another job so as to keep one step ahead of the collections.

Whenever I ask a potential client whether he has paid court-ordered child support he will almost invariably answer with one or more of the following: "I always helps my kids." "I gives the mother money whenever she asks." "I am always there for my kids." "I buys my kids whatever they needs." It almost always turns out they have paid no support, haven't seen their children in years, and at best may have paid for some basketball shoes.

Children do not always seem to have the same importance for blacks that they do for whites. I was in bankruptcy court once waiting for my client's case to be called. A black debtor — not my client — was before the judge trying to convince him to approve his bankruptcy repayment plan. The judge told him he could not afford both his Cadillac and his children, and had to give up one or the other. The debtor immediately said he could not give up his car, and therefore the judge would have to take his kids. The judge threw up his hands and walked off the bench. On another occasion, the same bankruptcy judge told a black debtor he could not afford both his Cadillac and his house. The debtor replied, "You can live in your car but you can't drive your house. Take my house." This was many years ago and tastes in cars may have changed, but I learned how important Cadillacs were to blacks.

In one respect my job is very different from that of a policeman or social worker: I have to make sure I am paid. I try to get paid in full before I agree to represent a client. If I am not paid in full before the case is over I know I will never get any more money. Clients have a hard time understanding they are paying for an attorney's time. Invariably, if a client drops a case before it is over he asks for a full refund. Their reasoning goes something like this: "I paid for a divorce and I didn't get one, so I should get all my money back."

Once I sued a client who didn't pay me.Ifinallygarnishedhiswagesandwas paid in full. About six months later he called to ask me to take his next case. I told him I didn't want a client that doesn't pay his bills. He became indignant. He said I got all my money, so what did I have to complain about.

To hear my clients tell it, banks are constantly "messing" with their checking accounts. At least that is what they tell me when their checks bounce. Most of my clients do not have checking accounts, and pay cash. The ones who do have accounts have no idea how much money is in them. Many clients have written me checks on accounts that were closed.

Black clients yell and scream at me every day; I have learned that this is normal. They are like young children who don't get their way. I usually ignore these outbursts, though screaming back at them is usually more effective. I have been threatened with physical violence only twice, and once I had to call the police to escort a client out of my office.

My experience is hardly unique. Most of the lawyers I know have practices similar to mine. Most lawyers therefore are racial realists even if they do not admit it openly. Their actions and comments are no different from mine. People who have daily contact with minorities, who know first-hand that there are racial differences, are likely to be the best prospects for any movement that promotes racial consciousness. They don't like dealing with blacks, but that is simply part of the business. If they can't take it anymore they get into some other line of work.

One lawyer I know moved to the country so he would have white clients. He had lived in the big city all his live, but was willing to pull up all his roots to get a different clientele.

Recently the supreme court in my state ruled that a lawyer can be disciplined for communications that racially denigrate litigants. For that reason I cannot write this article under my own name, much as I would like to. I must hide behind a pseudonym for fear of falling victim to our politically-correct supreme court.

Donald Williamson practices law in the Midwest.
[Back to Realities of Race and Discrimination]

SOURCE ARTICLE: http://www.thebirdman.org/Index/Others/Others-Doc-Blacks/+Doc-Blacks-Intelligence&Competence/TheTragicomedyOfLawyeringWithBlacks.htm

[mouthypatricia]

Thank you Bill and Pilgrim for those amazing essays! I've mainly lived amongst other types of non-whites so those first hand accounts are a real education for me. Although- other non-whites were pretty amazing too.

Seeing all this I wonder how any black person gets enough of an education and social skills to be a newscaster on CNN, lawyer or doctor or other functional person. It makes me marvel at the ones I've known personally.

Thanks again for the great posts.