<p>haha, spidey, that sentence in the post was tongue in cheek… nice of you to remove the winkyface to make your point though.</p>
<p>momof2inca - I am continuing to observe the excellent examples of polite and civil discourse. Please - continue the lesson.</p>
<p>Or since I’m attempting to engage you on the issues, you might respond to those. :)</p>
<p>Billet
Speak for yourself! We welcome AA folks with open arms who makes anykind of effort to pull themselves up. Unless those dependants want to just sit back and play the race cards. </p>
<p>By the way look at the Vietnamese community. They pull themselves up. Stories of Vietnamese immigrant child who didn’t even speak the language becoming validictorians are too many to repeat. How does that compare to the “indigent population” Edvest talked about it. They started out not having to learn the language at least. Who’s keeping them down but themselves ?</p>
<p>Yourworld, </p>
<p>I was speaking for myself. And today, you are correct, we do support (and federally mandate) and welcome with open arms any member of the AA community who makes an effort to pull themselves up. I was talking about a not so recent past, and the policies in place then where we weren’t so “open armed”.</p>
<p>Let’s take your example. Imagine that it’s the mid-70s, and that Vietnamese family arrives in America to start anew. But they’re told, “sorry, you can work as hard as you want, even hold four jobs if that is what you want to do that. But you’re children aren’t allowed in this school. We have a school for THEM down the road. It’s that old brick place behind the dump. They’ll love it! The text books are the same ones our kids used 20 years ago. Oh, and by the way, don’t go into the hospital downtown. We have a hospital for YOUR KIND a town over. I even heard the doctor there might have some of the left over equipment from when the hospital downtown upgraded. And since your grandfather wasn’t here to vote, you can’t vote in any elections either, and niether can your kids.”</p>
<p>Think the Vietnamese family would still be able to pull off that miracle of the American Dream? Perhaps, but the odds would be further stacked against them. </p>
<p>Who was keeping the AA community down but themselves 50 years ago? Easy answer: the Good Ol US of A.</p>
<p>Spideygirl:</p>
<p>reading your posts I can’t help but feel you and other liberals got it all backward. High crime rates by indigents are just that - perpetrated by people who committed the crime. Since when is it the government’s fault that a large percent of a certain ethnic group prefer to make their living by robbing and stealing. Saturday night with a gun and a liquor store ? Five minutes you are out of there with the cash register money. Money honest store keepers make by their labor, money honest store keepers use to pay their employees, money honest store keepers use to pay taxes which fund welfare which their girlfriends and illegit child are depending on. No you got it all wrong. Government is not to blame. Hard honest working people are not to blame. White oppression is sad history and is not to blame, not today. You have to blame the people who choose this easy way out.</p>
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<p>Edvest–I have no idea what this means. I don’t know if you’re insulting me or praising me. Sorry. :(</p>
<p>HELLO! Hooray! Thanks, poetsheart! … The control-B doesn’t work on my computer, but bracketing the letter “b” does. I’m happy!</p>
<p>Spideygirl–Did somebody call you a liberal? 
</p>
<p>I think this discussion is pretty straightforward. I think we should help those who help themselves. And because a majority of the African Americans in the US don’t seem to help themselves, why should we help them? I think that if they don’t graduate from high school and can’t get a job, it’s totally their right. However, if they then claim that they’re being discriminated against or want our social programs to help them, I totally disagree with that. This goes with any race, any ethnicity, and any person. I have no sympathy for people who just live off of society. And if people do even worse and start breaking laws and robbing other people, I definitely have no sympathy for them and think they should get the death penalty. Otherwise, our tax dollars are supporting them in prison, where costs range but last I heard was $50k a year. That is just ludicrous. Instead of helping our hard working Americans, we’re wasting money on social programs because we “have faith that people can be better.” Stop dreaming America.</p>
<p>Compared to Edvest, spidey is a flaming liberal:eek:—and though you might view that assessment with a dubious eye, it is my considered opinion that you should take that as a compliment, spidey;)</p>
<p>Edvest and MSL2008 are right. What can you say about males in a certain group who walked out on their responsibilities - first for themselves, then the child they fathered. They also left a trail of legacy around because the child grows up w/o fatherly figure and intact family and look to the streets for discipline and support. Society did not failed them. They failed themselves.</p>
<p>Does Obama oppose reparations just like he opposed offshore drilling? Or just like he supported the full seating of delegates of MI/FL?</p>
<p>momof2inca: I am still searching for where you are trying to engage in debate. I’m known for being pretty good at picking up on debate opportunities. All I saw was a lot of distress because I criticized liberal wealth distribution policies.</p>
<p>But alas, I can no longer criticize anything liberal, now that I am one.:eek:</p>
<p>yourworld:
</p>
<p>What you can do is become educated about history, human psychology, sociology, and the like. Then the answer to “What can you say about…?” becomes much more well formed.</p>
<p>edvest1/yourworld: A few posts ago I challenged Poetsheart to please give examples of what she sees today to explain some of what is discouraging to AA’s. While she never responded to the question, almost immediately afterward you started posting. Now, either my leg is being pulled, or the Good Lord is working directly on Poetsheart’s behalf.</p>
<p>Which is it?</p>
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<p>You can’t possibly spend enough money to intervene. This holds for criminals as well as education. It all starts at home. Unless we are going to only allow responsible people to have children (not advocating that btw) we are going to always have these problems. Parents have to give a damn and set a good example and, heaven forbid, discipline their children. It’s all about environment and expectations.</p>
<p>It’s true, p-comm, as evidenced in our school district. We spend some of the highest per-student amounts in the country, yet we continue to have low test scores, low graduation rate & more discipline problems. At issue are the huge “cultural gaps” in our community. There is a huge segment of our population where education just isn’t a priority. No matter what the schools do, parents just don’t get involved. It’s particularly frustrating for our teachers b/c they continue to shoulder the blame for poor performing schools, yet it’s the non-existant family support which is a major contributor to the problem. What more can a teacher do if parents don’t show up for conferences, don’t return phone calls, don’t see that kids do their homework or even get to school on time?</p>
<p>We’ve got every kind of program you can imagine for early childhood intervention, family support & school readiness. I’m sure that helps initially, but when there is no follow-up at home by parents, the result is derelict & often disruptive HS students (to the detriment of the students who are actually at school to learn something). Obviously, as evidenced in our area, throwing more $$ at the problem isn’t going to solve anything. Parents & the students themselves have to start to take responsibility - but how to get them to do that is the challenge.</p>
<p>What if the parents are doing their very best, and it isn’t enough? What if people cannot do any better than they are doing? What if not everyone was dealt the same card in terms of prenatal care, upbringing, and personal development? Then it is their turn to parent. What will happen?</p>
<p>Disease is not only something that happens within the human body. It also happens within families, and within communities. Perhaps that analogy will help. </p>
<p>Since it has been relatively recent that AA’s have been given the benefit of the same laws as everyone else, and since only in my lifetime has that community been given any respect culturally, it is ridiculous to judge progress so harshly. Frankly, considering history, the positive mark that the AA community has made on this nation is astounding - no doubt about it. No community has suffered more, and done more with less, in a shorter period of time. In their forceful quest to carve out a piece of the American dream for themselves, they solidified for the entire nation the notions of equality and freedom that were originally intended by our forefathers.</p>
<p>It is fair to start to the clock in the early 70’s for AA’s and look at the situation. The Irish arrived here in the mid 1800’s. JFK became president in 1960 - it was amazing at the time for an Irish American to get elected. </p>
<p>We are talking about problems which have nothing to do with the AA race, or with the AA community. This is what happens to human beings of any race or community when there is so much abuse that it transcends generations.</p>