Denial

              I read the chapter on denial, this chapter goes into detail of how white america denies the fact that there is still racism in the USA. Many whites believe that when the blacks got their civil rights, racism somehow ended automatically.  This, sadly is not the case, racism is  still out in America.  Another topic of this chapter is about the myth of reverse racism.  Whenever a white person doesn't get a job because they were competing against a black person, they say it's because they need to get more black people working for them to increase diversity.  At the University of Michigan, a white girl sued the university because about 100 blacks, Latinos, and American Indians who had lower grades and test scores were admitted while she was not.  She even won the case.  But also about 1000 white people with lower grades and tests scores were also admitted.  The article tells us hat what we think is racism against us is really just coincidence and others just being better at some things.
             Another part of this chapter is looking back on when the author traveled to give an anti-racism speech at a college outside Twin Cities, Minnesota.  When he got there the author asked three white liberals about racism on campus, they told him there was no racism on campus or anywhere in Minnesota.  The author then talked to blacks, Latinos, and American Indians, and as he thought, there was racism not only on campus, but in Minnesota.  There are no places with racism, racism will always be in America. 
              Personally I think that whites know that there is racism in America and they just either don't want to admit it, or they don't admit it in hopes that will hide the racism.  Everybody has slight stereotypes that they may even be unaware of, and therse stereotypes will never go away.  Racism will always be denied by whites, because they just don't want to believe that we havent gotten over things that began 500 years ago.

Response to the article on Forbes

I do agree with this post.  The key to being succesful is getting good grades.  There aren't too many succesful people that didn't get good grades.  Mostly everyone who got good grades tried hard.  Another way to be succesful is to try where others fail.  The resources for inner city kids are not always there, a way to help inner city kids is to give them the resources they need in order to be succesful, such as a library or teen youth center.  I think that for someone to do all the things the author of this article said he would do is highly unlikely.  He mentions using skype and other online services, the odds of being a poor kid with a computer camera to video chat or skype with other people is unlikely.  I do agree with the author on somethings but I feel like he just shouldn't talk about this unless he has been in the situation of being a poor black kid.  Because obviously if everyone knew all they needed to do was get good grades to be succesful  they would all do it, but there usually is something else that plays into the mix that prevents them from being succesful.
After reading the responses, I completly agree with some of the stuff they said.  What is the difference between being a poor white kid than being a poor black kid, the resources aren't there for either.  Its not as easy as just going to the library studying, and getting good grades.  I also agree that the author shouldn't have even written that article, it is just going to start a lot of contraversy that doesn't need to be started, it just sound ignorant of him to be talking about that kind of stuff because he has no idea what it would be like to be a poor black kid.

Racial Bias

The test that I took tells me that I have a slight automatic preference for white people compared to blacks.  I think that this just shows that there is a racial bias in a lot of people, making it take longer to associtate blacks with good things.  I grew up in a more diverse setting in St. Louis where there was still racism but people weren't uncomfortable around other races.  Here I find that people don't feel comfortable around people of other races.  I'm not suprised that it said that I was slightly biased towards blacks, almost everyone has some sort of bias.  I have no clue why it said I was bias, I guess I just took longer to select blacks with good words.  Obviously everyone has sterotypes, whether it be towards people of other races or people of the opposite sex, everyone has them.  Deep in the back of our minds we associate things together.  Like if we see on the news that a black man commited a crime, we start thinking that all black people are bad, even though they are not. I don't ever think that our sterotypes and bias' will ever go away.

Last Post

I'm finally done with this book.  Bill is finally done with cocaine.  He started a new job at a different publishing agency and still works there today.  He and his father have rekindled their relationship and talk frequently.  Bill is still with Noah even though he cheated on him many times.  The book doesn't go in depth in how he started using cocaine, just that he started in college.  I really enjoyed reading this book.  In a way it is a scare tactic to keep people away from hard drugs like cocaine.  I can't imagine how horrible it must be to use cocaine and to lose the trust of everyone you know.  This book is unlike any that I have ever read, because it's a memoir and everything in it is the brutally honest truth.  He tells us the worst of what happend to him during this time in his life.  He holds nothing back from the reader and just gives it to us straight.  I would definitly recommend this book to a friend just as a outside read because it's crazy what drugs like cocaine can do to you. 

Post 4

It turns out that Bill did go through with rehab.  He spends four weeks in rehab in Portlan, Oregon.  We find out that his family has a had many generations of drug and alcoholism on both his mom and dads' side of the family.  A few months after being clean he finds a used crack stem and smokes the leftover residue from the stem.  A few days later he calls up his drug dealer and spends $600 on cocaine.  Bill then asks himself why he ever left smoking.  This shows that a drug users abuse is usually reoccuring.  He blows off all of his appointments and lies to people.  He goes to a film festivle he promised to go to but only stays one day instead of two.  He is throwing away his life so that he can smoke.  He becomes increasingly paranoid that he is being watched by police and even questions suicide.  He overdoses and is sent to the hospital.  He then goes to a psychiactric hospital with a rehab center.  So far this book has had many twists.  Right when you think that Bill is finally going to turn his life around and do some good, he goes and smokes and everything just becomes hell for him and his family.

Post #3

Right now in the book, Bill is still a heavy drinker and uses cocaine.  But he is starting to go back to his publishing company that he owns.  His company is miraculosly making decent profit from a book that they recently published.  One night to celebrate a book publishing he drinks to much goes home wakes up and his boyfriend Noah tells him that his sister and two other close friends are there for an intervention sort of thing.  "I don't struggle, not yet.  I am quiet and cooperative as each of them, in turn-- Kim, Kate, Noah, David- tells me they will support my getting sober but won't support me, won't have anyrhing to do with me, if i continue to use." (Clegg 181)  I find this part very emotional and interesting mainly becuase I'm curious as to what Bill is going to do.  In the past they have told him to sober up but he has never gone through with it.  But now that they are all threatening to leave him, he realizes that he must make a choice to either keep using drugs, or to have his family with him.  The next couple of chapters will definitly be interesting.

Book Post 2

I am currently about 3/4ths done with Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man by Bill Clegg.  Bill is currently in a hotel room where he is with a man that he met at an airport.  They first begin drink alcohol and after a couple hours they start doing crack/cocaine.  While doing the drugs, Bills boyfriend calls him on his cell phone asking where he is.  His boyfriend, Noah, correctly assumes that he is doing cocaine, and demands that he go back home immediatly, thus showing that Bill does have people who care about him and want him to stop using the drugs.  Bill then hangs up on his boyfriend and starts a one night relationship with the man from the airport.  This shows that these kinds of drugs can destroy relationships with friends and family.  The next morning Bill discovers that alltogether he has less than $30,000 dollars in the bank.  He has spent all of his money on buying cocaine for himself and people that he does the drugs with.  He also somehow manages to help his mother with her finances that came with divorcing his father a few years before.  The drug abuse by Bill was a major factor in the downfall of his parents marriage.