Quote from Aapex:
Your still not dealing with fact that years of oppression in this country have led to this degeneration of society.
Your also not dealing with the fact that the inner city schools don't have the same budget and advantages that the suburban schools have. Ofcourse the inner city kids don't want to go to school. Would you? Right now in Washington D.C. we are having 98 degree temperatures. In D.C. public schools (among the worst in this country) manyof the schools don't have air condition, the walls are literally crumbling around them. Many rooms have no ventilation. No computers or access to technology. Poor curriculum. Nobody cares.
As for Eminem and 8 mile. He makes more money than you or I so I guess that would make you the pig?
My point in making that comparison was to illustrate how whites fair much better than blacks in any economical situation or geographic area. People are much more likely go hire a white guy than a black guy. Eddie Murphy proved it when he dressed up like a white guy. Ice Cube proved it with his show "Black & White".
You can continue to deny that racism does not exist in America but your only deluding yourself.
And for me, you too are denying a significant point. Our people have never had a level playing field. My folks, who had very little in the way of material advantages,
DECIDED that they would commit to better. That they would do what it took to make sure the kids got and achieved better. They planned their moves and made the long term sacrifices.
Now before you go there, I have several relatives from single parent homes who also made the decision to do better. There were men in the family who just, left. And never returned, worried or cared. And their children too made the difference. The family pulled together. Cousins, uncles, aunts, and grandparents made the difference. No government plays there.
And they too were young and unwed. They had little if any education. Many of them put themselves through G.E.D programs, night school, nursing school, trade schools, etc. They didn't blame the system for its failures. They played the cards that they were dealt. And they achieved!
They took the cheap labor, the hard dirty jobs. The unskilled labor need was the lifeblood of the people. And they hustled two and sometimes three jobs. Many had two full-time jobs. I can't tell you how many of my relatives worked at the mill, the auto plant, the meat packing plant, the post office as the main job and had a little hustle on the side. And the achievement came. Not at the pace of their white peers/counterparts, but they came non-the-less.
In our family, we were the first to have two brand new Cadillacs at the same time. Pop never graduated high school. Mom had only two and a half years of college. In the early years of their marriage, mom was a home body. That's what dad wanted. Liberation didn't kick in at our house until the Blacksploitation years. Mom loved Pam Grier! Said she should have stood up many years earlier. Got herself a job despite pop's grumbling and all. Couple of years later ~ two new Caddy's at our house!
Air conditioning? What the hell was that? I'm old enough to remember when there was none at all. And we didn't call it a day from heat either. Ventilation was a hall fan. The teachers left the classroom door open so that sorry ass excuse for a breeze would come in. Air conditioning!! Air conditioning!!! Arrrrggghhhhh!
Poor class conditions and materials? You're joking again right? We shared books!! In our school they collected the school dictionaries at the end of the class periods so the other rooms could use them. The teachers had to request them in advance from the school library for us to use.
My parents made sure at the beginning of the school year, when mom was stockpiling supplies, that we each had our own dictionary, slide rule, compass, notebook, lunchbox, pens, pencils, pencil sharpener, ruler and book bag (of our own choice, anybody remember the thermos inside the box?). Every parent did a good part of that back in my day. The new parents learned it as they came in contact with the veterans. They learned parenting on the fly.
In the sixties, my parents dedicated themselves to making sure we had what we needed. I remember when we got that set of World Book encyclopedias. You got a set of Childcraft Workbooks to complement them. Mom wanted to make sure we had it all. The local grocer, Kroger, had a promotion where as you bought groceries you could get a discount on Funk & Wagonals (I think that's right). You bought one or two volumes per biweekly shopping trip. Damn I'm old!
Poor buildings? When it rained hard at our grade school, the janitors placed buckets in the halls and classes to catch the water. In the winter they tacked plastic around the windows to combat the drafts. Our gym floor as tile over concrete! Our school over crowding was dealt with by bringing in mobile trailers. And with all that, our attendance figures put todays clowns to shame!
You know, rather than complain aloud, sounds like the youth today need to do more listening!
