Why white America's life plan for the "American Dream" doesn't work for Black America

Married at 25. Two cars in the garage. A house with a white picket fence and 2.5 kids.

That’s the dream America sells. All you need to do is work hard, go to school, get good grades, graduate from college and you can live the life you see on tv. Simple. Easy. Straight forward.

Except we all know it doesn’t work like that. The educational system in this country is slowly eroding before our eyes and well-off most middle-class families can’t afford to send their kids to college. Even those kids who do go to college end up graduating into a workforce that is saturated leaving them jobless and living at home with their parents.

So, if the “American Dream” is just a myth within White America, for Black America it is a nightmare. I’m hoping this post will shed some light on why the “American Dream” doesn’t work for Black America.

My goal isn’t to explain the seemingly never ending list of systematic flaws and hurdles that make it nearly impossible for Black Americans to enjoy the spoils of America’s riches, to do that I would need to write an entire textbook, instead I want to bring to light a more fundamental problem with the “American Dream” as it relates to black America.

The real problem issue with the “American Dream” is that it creates an artificial timeline of perceived “success.” It promotes the belief that to live a successful life you have to have your shit together by the time your 30, a career, a home, a family. In my opinion this artificial timeline is problematic for Black America because it doesn’t take into account the subconscious struggle African American’s have in order to develop a positive self-image. Let me explain.

White America gets fed its own ideals of positive self-worth in a never-ending feedback loop from the minute they are born. From the history they are taught, to the images and media they consume, they are reinforced to their position of masters of their own universe. By constantly reaffirming their self-worth in a positive manner they never have to spend any energy investigating their position of power in the world. This frees them to focus their energy on the accumulation of wealth in their pursuit of the “American Dream.”

The story is much different for Black America.

Black America is fed negative ideals of their self-worth. We learn we were slaves. We see the police harassment of our people on the news. We listen to music designed to glorify murder and violence within our own communities. All of these create a feedback loop of negative associations towards Blackness that every African American experience’s subconsciously. The struggle Black America faces is in having to create a positive self-image independent of White America, and this takes time. It requires separation from White America’s systems to purge the subconscious Black Identity from the instilled element of White superiority. Often this process can’t take place until the mid-twenties, which means that while White America is having babies and buying houses, Black America is learning to love themselves for who they are.

In America, White people are born with two-thumbs up, while Black people are born with two thumbs down.

It is my belief that by trying to keep up with the White American timeline for the “American Dream” Black America does itself a disservice by believing that achievement of the “American Dream” will somehow bring them the satisfaction of knowing they made it. The problem is without the extra step of creating a positive self-image independent of White America, the Black psyche will always be restless, searching for completion.

So, to Black American I say, slow down. 30 without a house is fine. Spend time learning to love yourself.