(At Least) Two Schools

Many minority children are tought the axiom: "To be considered equal (with whites), one must be twice as good>" Not too long ago, I had a discussion on this topic with one of my oldest friends. Apparently his parents/grandparents/aunts/uncles had tried to inculcate this philosophy into his value system as well. My friend then proceeded to recite a litany of reasons as to why this school of thought wasn't true. We went back and forth on the topic and finally came to the conclusion that no idea/theory/philosophy was universal or applied in all cases. Even the generally accepted and simple "E=mc2" breaks down at the very micro and macro levels. The trick is in finding the philosophy that works for one's self (that does not harm or hinder others) and applying that theory or set of theories in any given situation.
I was first taught this old saying after a fight in the second grade. Mr. Anderson -the Vice Principal of my school- pulled me into his office and instead of the usual paddling - I had to sit through a long soliloquy about making one's self better than their situation. I understood and accepted most of what Mr. Anderson had said. He then ended this meeting with: "But I'll give you slack...because you're Black". I left this meeting feeling more confused than ever. One hour of; "You are better than your situation" killed by: "You're really not good enough to be treated equally, because of your race - but I'll let you go anyway". Mr. Anderson was a Black administrator so I don't think that it was intended as racism. I couldn't understand how a person could have seemingly opposing views. It was a lot for a seven year old to fully comprehend.
There have always been opposing views; God/the Devil, Sadducee/Pharisee, Catholic/Protestant, Malcom(activist)/Martin(passivist), Dynastic rule/Socialism (I think terms like capitalism, democratic rule, Republicanism, Communism, et. al. all fall somewhere in between these), Democrat/Republican (well at least in theory) and conservative/liberal for example.
Barak Obama's recent Father's Day speach brings up the even trickier dilemma of finding a cure while many refuse to do the requisite self examination to determine the cause of our social/political/economic malaise. Mr. Obama gave a similar speech in Houston while campaigning during the primary season. Some people heard the speech and understood the meaning - some heard the speech and wanted nothing to do with personal responsibility but instead settled into the old "Blame-Whitey" school of thought. The responses kind-of reminded me of Chris Rock's bit; "Blacks and N****'s" "What do you want... a cookie?"
I'm not sure how to solve all of our problems - in all of our communities. I'm not sure which answer applies to which situation. Maybe there are many answers.
Warren Buffet recently responded to a question in a USA Today article: "Someone once said that the word 'motivation' should never be used in the singular. Some combination of motives always exist and it's impossible for anyone to qualify the proportion of each that is involved in any given act".
To put everything that I was trying to get across into two quotes;
"We are not equally guilty but we are equally responsible". Rabbi Abraham Heschel
And from Matthew: 7, 1-5 (KJV) "...And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye...".
Admittedly, problems exist. How do we fix them? I'm of the school of thought that we start with ourselves. ~uglyblackjohn~