Can You Help Me????

"My piece of bread only belongs to me when I know that everyone else has a share, and that no one starves while I eat." Which is how the world suppose to be. We, as human beings, and esp African Americans I feel, should always be willingly to help the next person, esp if you are in the condition in which you can help someone who you knows needs the help. But what if you don't even know that the next person needs help?

I had a recent convo with Jonathan, and we discussed the topic of help and African Americans. How us African Americans are so hesitant to ask for help, and why is that? We both came to a conclusion that it is two reasons that us Black folks are not so willingly to put out our hand and ask for help, one being our pride and the second being the fact that some of us are just not using to having the help available there for us.
African Americans, esp males, do not want to ask for help because we scared to be looked upon as weak. The pride always comes before the fall. Don't be afraid to ask someone for help if it is truly needed. Some men I know we will go sick or starve before they ask their fellow peer for some help. We all need someone to help us along this journey in life at one point of time in our lives. The pride can be a very nasty thing when it gets in the way of asking for help. It plays tricks on your mind and make you think that people will look at you in a different light when that is just not true. For example, if a man has no money and know that there will be no money coming in, and he has a child, he will steal, rob, and maybe kill before turning to a "friend" and just simply explaining the situation to him and asking for help. Now do not take advantage of a person and always ask them for something if you know you can get it on your own and you just don't want to, or if you are not helping yourself! You ask that friend for help, but you also ask that friend does he/she know anyone that is hiring or anyone that you can do some work for so that you can get some extra cash in your pockets. There is a difference between needing help and just being greedy and/or lazy!
The second reason being that us African Americans are just not used to having help there for us. If you went to any type of public school in a big city, just as Chicago, New York, Philly, etc etc, you may know this from experience. I can only speak on behalf of Chicago Public School systems and no one else because that this the only public school system I have been in, but those teachers do not care to really help you out. The teachers pick their "favorites" and try to help those people out along the way, and if you aren't one of them, than you are S.O.L. For example, I had a teacher in high school, who gave me nothing above a C in her class! I would go to her and try to ask her could she help me to see what she was expecting from me or what better I could do, and she never had any time for me after school. But one of her suppose to be "star" students, always got As and Bs and she always made time for them! As a result I had to find help else where....but some people aren't as fortunate as I am to be able to have the resources to go elsewhere to get help. For some students, these public school teachers are all they have. And it may be sad and unfortunate and not the teacher's fault, but the fact of the matter, is that it's our reality. I know friends and family members who were simply passed along...so now they are grown but only reading and operating educational wise at a 3rd or 4Th grade level. So these people prolly figure what's the point of asking for help if they are always being told no. This is a sad and dim reality for some people and I am so sorry that they have been dealt that deck of cards for their lifetime.
It's always hard to ask for help, no matter who you are...but sometimes, you just have to swallow your pride and ask, because you just may get what you were looking and/or asking for.