"The floor of the white man's failures is the ceiling of the white man's expectations."

In our society, although it has drastically changed over the years, African Americans and many other people of underrepresented races have been looked upon as being way under the superior "white man." This quote implies that the black men are only able, if lucky, to amount to what a white man's failures are. This is an awful quote and it bothers me in many ways-- especially because I've seen this to be false before my eyes. In high school I was part of a program at Columbia University called SPREP. This program accepted students from underprivileged economic and racial backgrounds. My program was mainly filled with students who were African American. My program made students who were accepted go to college leveled science courses every Saturday morning at 8 AM. Students traveled from as far as Long Island for this program, waking up as early as 5. Many of my friends in high school would wake up around two in the afternoon on Saturdays and by that time I had taken a Into to Neuroscience class and an SAT prep class. This shows quiet the opposite of "The floor of the white man's failures is the ceiling of the white man's expectations." These students worked ten times harder than any white student in my high school ever did.