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I think the problem was in saying success and achievement. That was what I was talking about, but I didn't want to be talking about it in the way that it looks after the fact. I'm talking about the dominant culture in America in which a certain set of values tends to manifest results that display themselves in things like education, relative stability, safe neighborhoods, and a level of economic fluency (not always success or prosperity). The news isn't all good, in that materialism, a focus on self to the exclusion of others, and entitlement are also transmitted.
The parallel culture in particular that I referred to (and there are obvious problems with that characterization as well) is one in which values manifest themselves in behaviors and results that are quite different - higher crime, lower employments rates, lack of education, less economic fluency and mobility, etc...
I definitely used the word culture on purpose though. I'm not one that thinks that the problem is "self-victimization", which I saw in some thread around here. I guess that could be a part of it, but I tend to look at the system - what things are valued and the social pressures surrounding these people. A large part of this is media. We talk a lot here about the saturating power of media in the context of women's body image or commercial pressures, but there are other standards propagated to people who are just as susceptible. Hip-hop or thug culture are two examples among many more.
To be more succinct, I don't think what I'm talking about is determined or defined by race, although there is a huge overlapping incidence. It's more tightly encapsulated by geography and class.
Obviously I'm making a generalization - there are more finely defined strands of what I'm referring to as culture within the large streams. There are individuals who exist within these islands of culture and are able to exit. It's not a hard distinction.
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Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam
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