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1.) Cake is hardly a matter of poverty/life/death.
2.) There is an authority in the situation that can right any overt discrimination (principle, dean, school official). When the very leaders of society are the oppressors, then there aren’t many options for recourse.</p>
<p>EPTR, the schools I went to were just fine. I went to high school with a fair number of kids who came from families that were more affluent and lived in homes with three car garages. They lived closer to the high school and were given cars to drive there. ;-)</p>
<p>EPTR–</p>
<p>In the question of the cake, and MY child? Well, I fall so squarely in the “haves” column that I would be horrified if my child were willing to fight over cake. I would teach to “rise above,” and also to share. And, “we have so much.”</p>
<p>It’s legitimately not possible for me to understand a set of circumstances in which, barring criminal threat to my or my children’s lives, I wouldn’t teach my child to part with property. But, it is so easy to part with property when we have so much.</p>
<p>Let’s change the question: what if a small child who is impoverished comes to school on his birthday. It is a special day and so his mother has packed him the one lunch he will get to bring from home that year. It contains his favorite cookies. Somebody takes the cookies. Is this the same crime as somebody taking the cookies from my child? The law might say so. I’m not sure.</p>
<p>I used to walk four miles to high school, backwards. Uphill both ways, too! lol.</p>
<p>You act like it’s stealing I know several people who used family members address to get in distract. It’s a free public education</p>
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<p>Deborah, I live in a poor part of town. I drive 15 old year old car 180,000 miles. There are gangs in the school district where I live, I see gang graphitti and tagging when I go down to the store. At my local grocery store, people high on drugs and homeless hang out, I’ll see hookers on the street working the street on occasion. I think it’s safe to say that I live in a more poverty stricken part of town that most of the people posting on here, so please don’t think that I’m ignorant to poverty or lack compassion.</p>
<p>I also work in a place where we have a ton of Vietanese immigrant workers who are doing very well. All come from relatively poor families, but they work very hard, long shifts, and are very determined to do a good job. In fact, most of the foreign immigrant workers work a lot harder than American-born workers. </p>
<p>I see on an individual basis, it’s very possible to not be poor if a person doesn’t want to be poor and is willing to work hard. I don’t see that “poverty-stricken” is a title that a person must carry forever, but to be “not poor” they have to make sacrifices in life that they are not willing to make.</p>
<p>We have a lot of options for people not to be poor. For example, if a person wants a free education and doesn’t have the means to get it, they can join the military and will be given free education, plus free medical care for the rest of their life (if they end up not suceeding in life). But they have to make the sacrifice to enroll in the military for a few years.</p>
<p>Please don’t think that I’m unsympathic.</p>
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<p>Why do poor people say they can’t afford to pack their kids lunch?</p>
<p>I eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The cost is two slices bread, jam (made from blackberries picked at our house, so our cost is sugar and pectin), and peanut butter. I splurge by throwing in a yogurt in, $0.50 at Wal-Mart. So my lunch costs probably $0.75 per day.</p>
<p>If money was tight, I’d put carrots or celery instead of the yogurt, bring the cost down to probably $0.45 per day.</p>
<p>I cannot imagine any family that does not have $0.45 or $0.75 per day to pay for their kids lunch…</p>
<p>After all - what do the parents eat each day?</p>
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I agree with this, I have seen as much myself. Those who have been able to rise out of some poverty (who taken on some trade) and those who have not (migrant workers). Many of the nicest, hardest-working people I know are immigrants. Many people who work with my father are from the Philippines or Central America or Africa. Of course, I know many nice, hard-working poor natural-born US citizens. However, of the less hardworking people I know, none are immigrants, funnily enough.</p>
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Well, many are on free lunch at school. Then again, there are those on food stamps, but since food stamps often aren’t enough, taking advantage of free school lunch on top of it is very helpful for some families.</p>
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<p>I understand your point but I do think it is the same “crime”. It is the extenuating circumstances that are different. Those circumstances, IMO, cannot define the crime itself because they are too subjective in nature. How do you measure the worth of a cookie? I do understand what you are getting at but the specific impact of the crime needs to be considered in the judicial process, not in the determination of whether a crime has been committed in the first place.</p>
<p>Billymc,</p>
<p>I have a question for you. Am I obligated to buy school supplies for students in the classroom whose parents don’t, because they say they cannot afford them? If so, why do I personally have that obligation. Is it because my student and their student are in the same class.</p>
<p>Now, if the other parent drives a newer car than the one I drive, am I still obligated?</p>
<p>Or what if the other student wears designer jeans to class while mine does not? Do I still need to buy that other kid school supplies?</p>
<p>Or, what if the other parent spend time at the casino, gambling away money rather than buying supplies?</p>
<p>These are all examples of the shades of gray, and I think we’ve all seen examples similiar to these.</p>
<p>You know, our education system does perpetuate a broken society; it teaches students blind patriotism, obedience, and does not teach them to question society. Hell, kids are taught for years that the “pilgrims” came over and had a nice big dinner with the natives. And, from experience, I know that elementary school students are punished for being historically accurate when asked to tell the class the story of Thanksgiving.</p>
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You do not personally have that responsibility. And no, if the parent is otherwise living in affluence, society should not shoulder the burden of some pencils and paper. Only if the family is indeed deemed poor.</p>
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<p>And yet Billy, I will be shouldering that burden to some extent…classroom supplies are pooled nowadays, and some parents make sure to buy school supplies for their kids (as I will) and some parents don’t, and all of the supplies go into a big tub and are split by the kids in the class. Of course, we’ll make sure to send enough supplies to the school.</p>
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I neither see how to control that, nor how it relates to the horrid conditions of poverty in this country.</p>
<p>Botw - as per the other thread, you have got to learn to stop keeping score about how other people live. It will not be healthy for you to obsess that you bought pencils for the classroom but look, Janie’s mother drives a nicer car.</p>
<p>^^^
Is that fair? BOTW is making an observation about a societal issue that impacts him ad many others. Is that keeping score? Does it make him a bad person or an unhealthy person because he observes that, often, the people getting aid from the government in some form or another are also the ones driving the nicer cars or wearing designer clothes?</p>
<p>He has the right to his opinion and, his observations about society are as valid as anyone else’s here.</p>
<p>It was only 2 and 1/2 miles and both hills were up on the way to school and down on the way back. Good weather part of the country. My point was some have it very good, are born into it very good. Medium for others. And then there are the ones who aren’t so lucky…</p>
<p>I know Deborah. I was trying to lighten the mood a bit. My response was intended as a joke.:)</p>
<p>Meanwhile, you need to examine the criminal activity upon which this “affluence” is based. If you want a good primer to the crimes of Danbury, Stamford, and Greenwich, a good place to start is the Oscar-winning film “Inside Job”.</p>
<p>(The film also documents what happens when acolytes of Ayn Rand -starting with Alan Greenspan - end up running the financial services industry,</p>
<p>I am not in the <em>blame society</em> or the <em>redistribute the wealth</em> camp, nor do I believe earning money is a zero-sum game as a couple have indicated. Aren’t most of those just tired old excuses?
“Until we do away with the type of neighborhood that produced this boy, ten will spring up to take his place, a hundred, a thousand. Until we wipe out the slums and rebuild them, knock on any door and you may find Nick Romano”, to quote a very old movie…</p>
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<p>Why? Why do you need to examine it in order to determine that this, too, is a crime? All “affluence” isn’t based on crime. I’m guessing many of the people who come to this forum would be classified as affluent. Can we assume they are all criminals?</p>