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<p>…Says one of CC’s posters most famous for his condescending generalized comments concerning the “the failings of black people”…:rolleyes:</p>
<p>“This from the same poster who had this to say about the blacks on the South Side of Chicago”</p>
<p>Hanna, in case you have not noticed, I am black, and I volunteer a lot of my time in black neighborhoods and schools talking to kids about the importance of going to school, about HIV, getting summer jobs and saving their pay to pay for things they need, etc. </p>
<p>I meet a lot of people who blame the system for everything wrong with them (racism and other institutionalized housing policies have really played a role in this, but that is another topic altogether). No one is teaching these kids about personal responsibilities. Some of them are doing absolutely nothing to change their lives. I am concerned about them because their future does not look really bright. They have been left behind by politicians who promised so much but have delivered so little.</p>
<p>Minorities (except Asians) are behind in every economic indicator (check the Bureau of Labor Statistics), they are incarcerated at a much higher rate than the rest of the population (There have been some studies done on the biases of the judicial system against minorities, so this might be a contributing factor)</p>
<p>I am not saying that I can fix south side chicago , but if you are running for the president on a platform of fixing the problems facing the country; shouldn’t we judge on how well you have been able to fix the problems in your backyard? </p>
<p>I don’t live there, but if you love him and are satisfied with what he did that is fine with me. </p>
<p>I think I also have to make it clear that you don’t have to live at a place to care about the people. I have a professor (he is an economist) who has set up a foundation to help the departments of finance in African countries to come up with ways to run their economies better. He does not live in Africa but he cares about the state of the economy in African countries, and about the people. </p>
<p>I care a lot about all poor and minority neighborhoods that is why I volunteer a lot in these neighborhoods. In an ideal world, there will be good schools for the poor to help them move up the social ladder, but this is not what we currently have. The next step is how best can we put to use the limited resources available at our disposal. </p>
<p>I am not blaming the people that live in some part of south side chicago (especially the minority populated areas). I am blaming the system(especially the politicians) that have left gang violence, and other crimes uncheck making life uncomfortable for the poor people who live in these areas. I strongly believe that if you are a senator representing these areas the most important thing on the agenda should be reducing gang violence and crime. </p>
<p>I am not a hypocrite,and I don’t claim to be better than anyone. I am actually investing my money and time in these neighborhoods hoping that I can at least make a difference in just one person’s life. I am willing to help as many people as I can because I don’t want them to be left behind any further than they already are.</p>
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<p>I posted a question earlier, but got no response. Perhaps you can answer it…</p>
<p>How have the people of Chicago and/or Illinois benefitted from having Obama as their senator?</p>
<p>(I’ve heard/read that he was instrumental in ensuring that babies who survived abortions can now be left to die on their own. I’m sure the people of Illinois are relieved about that). </p>
<p>Any other noteworthy accomplishments??</p>
<p>You all are paying his salary; what have you gotten for your $$?</p>
<p>tega, thanks for that nice and informative post. personally, i think certain people owe you an apology. and i agree with you about pbs. i also like npr.</p>
<p>"Says one of CC’s posters most famous for his condescending generalized comments concerning the “the failings of black people”.</p>
<p>some times the truth is hard to swallow, when the black people always “CLING” to slavery of the past as their main culprit. Whatever happened to personal responsibilities.</p>
<p><a href=“%5Burl=%5D#83%5B/url%5D”>quote</a> …How have the people of Chicago and/or Illinois benefitted from having Obama as their senator?
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<p>Obama tried to get a [$1</a> million federal grant](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/14/us/politics/14campaign.html?ref=politics]$1”>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/14/us/politics/14campaign.html?ref=politics) for the hospital his wife works at. Does that count? :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Part of it went to Obama’s pocket. His wife got an astronomical raise.</p>
<p>tega, as one person, do you think you’ve had a measurable impact on the levels of gang violence in the areas in which you serve? How about teen pregnancy rates, drop out rates, murder rates? Do you feel as if you’ve made much of an impact on unemployment or poverty?</p>
<p>I ask you these things because all of the above have been complex and intractable problems in America’s inner cities for decades, and even the most aggressive attempts at intervention, from the state, from community organizations, from church groups (such as Trinity Church of Christ), and from individual community organizers such as yourself (I assume), and Obama, have yielded frustratingly little in the way of overall improvement. Do you think that Hillary Clinton or John McCain can, in their role as United States Senator, stem the rise in inner city murder rates, drop-out rates, teen pregnancy rates, drug use, gang violence, unemployment? How much do you think a single state senator can accomplish to these ends? A single community organizer? </p>
<p>Why is it that you blame Obama for not making measurable improvements to long standing, and socially complex problems that will take nothing less than decades of concerted individual, community and national will to address? Seems to me that Obama has not ignored the inner city’s problems. As a young man straight out of law school, he was presented with countless offers to join high powered legal firms that paid money, unheard of for a person of his background. It has also been said that, as a young AfAm at the top of his Harvard Law class and President of the Harvard Law Review, he could easily have clerked for The Supreme Court. But he turned his back on all these opportunities in order to work for the disadvantaged in inner city Chicago. When Hillary Clinton graduated law school, she went for the most powerful and lucrative positions she could find. Yes, to her credit, she performed pro-bono work, but that was a side line. I do not blame her for embracing her greatest opportunities. To be honest, I would have done just the same, especially when, Like Obama, I would most likely have had many thousands of dollars of student loans to pay off. But, Obama worked full time as a low payed community organizer for the space of two years. Why is it that you seem to expect Obama to have accomplished as a lowly Illinois State Senator, what Lyndon Johnson’s ambitious “war on poverty” failed to accomplish?</p>
<p>I understand that Obama is promising a lot during this campaign. So is Hillary Clinton. So do all politicians running for office (from senior class President to POTUS). That’s what politicians do. Would you be more inclined to vote for him if he were to say, “the problems of the poor in America are complex and intractable, and improvements promise to prove exasperatingly slow, no matter what we do.”? People want the candidates to promise change that a single individual alone can never deliver. We demand it, and the politicians tell us what we want to hear. You blame Obama for saying what campaigning politicians have to say in orcer to be elected? Really?</p>
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<p>Case in point. And you call Obama “elitist” for his comments?:rolleyes: Mr. Pot, meet Mr. Kettle.</p>
<p>Yeah, but like some posters, I don’t go about writing thesis about a 15 year old girls motivation.</p>
<p>and I knew “Cling” would get your attention.</p>
<p>Thank you mercymom. </p>
<p>I think more should be done for the poor in inner cities and appalachia. We are wasting money on a lot of things that are not necessary. The GAO recently released a report about some of the waste in the Defense Department. These wastes could be used on the poor. </p>
<p>I think everything should start at home, helping parents get good jobs and not depend so much on welfare. This will help parents invest more in their kids education, so that they can eventually break this cycle of poverty.</p>
<p>“I think everything should start at home”</p>
<p>I think that is they key theme.</p>
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<p>In which case phenomenally successful blacks like Obama ought to have your utmost respect. But of course, I’ve yet to see any indication that any blacks have earned anything other than your scorn and condescension, whether they take “personal responsibilities” or not.:rolleyes:</p>
<p>For the last time, Simba. It WAS NEVER about the motivations of a 15 year old Hillary Clinton. It might do you well to go back and reread what I wrote. It WAS about the motivations of a middle aged Hillary Clinton, running for office to create a false impression about her 15 yr old self, to a gullible audience.</p>
<p>But I will grant you that, in the overall scheme of things, it was a virtually insignificant thing to get worked up over, and that my vehemence at the time was reflective of my personal disdain for the Clinton political machine. In this same way, you insist on inflating the grand scheme importance of Obama’s “bitterness” quote.</p>
<p>Well, tega, instead of an apology you got a lecture.</p>
<p>"To be honest, I would have done just the same, especially when, Like Obama, I would most likely have had many thousands of dollars of student loans to pay off. "</p>
<p>I am so tired of hearing about the Obama’s student loans! If he wanted to go into community organizing then he didn’t need to go to Harvard Law. He could have gone somewhere lots cheaper and just as good. If he was such a hotshot he could have gotten a scholarship and gone for free, thus having NO student loans. And don’t tell me the poor won’t be served well unless they get a Harvard trained lawyer to do their community organizing. That is so bogus. There are lots of really, truly great law schools that won’t sink you six figures in debt and you can serve the poor just fine from any of them. This is all a prelude to the “student loan agenda” of having the gov’t write off your student loan debt (no matter how large) if you “serve the poor” when you get out. And it’s an insult and condescending to all the good schools in this country that don’t cost a fortune to say that they’re not good enough to do that job.</p>
<p>well poet: You might be surprised, but I did have some respect for you. It is gone though.</p>
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<p>Well there, we certainly can agree, tega. The availability of good jobs is key. The problem is how to create them. Decent paying jobs that require little education are rapidly going the way of the Dodo Bird, gone to Mexico, Indonesia and China. The best minds on the subject have already declared that those jobs are never coming back. So at a time when education has never been more important, those lowest on America’s economic ladder are not only not keeping up, but are falling behind. At the same time, we are seeing a massive influx of illiterate workers from south of the border who only qualify for our lowest paying jobs, often placing them in direct competition with our native born poor and minorities for those same jobs. </p>
<p>These problems are incredibly hard to solve. It will take a multi-pronged approach over a great many number of years. It will involve not just the insistence that people “take personal responsibility” (though that most certainly plays a big part), not only that self-destructive cultural mores need changing, but that Government stop enabling these behaviors, and favoring policies that ultimately hobble the poor and incentivise business to abandon social reponsibility. </p>
<p>Government aid policies that demanded the absence of fathers from the home was the beginning of a devastating spiral whose repercussions in today’s inner cities are difficult to reverse. That’s just one example of how poor economic policy has played a part in strengthening a permanent underclass.</p>
<p>Mercymom:</p>
<p>I looked up the tuition for Harvard Law School (39,325) and for the New England School of Law ($33,500). The difference is not that great that one would automatically choose the lesser school. </p>
<p>Some of my sons’ k-12 teachers had degrees from HYPS. I am thankful that graduates of the top universities have gone into teaching. By the same token, I am glad that the folks on the South Side of Chicago had an advocate who made the Harvard Law Review.</p>
<p>Poet: I agree with most of what you wrote. I have gone subbing for 4 days (so this is not a huge experience base, and I also realize that with subs the kids are ‘super-active’ ). What I saw is minority males (both AA and Hispanics) have no interest of doing anything in the class room. In one of my classes, I was helping a girl - when I turned around after few mins. 4 kids were missing from the class.</p>
<p>It was a 9th grade math class. The girl I was helping could not divide 19 by 2. I asked her what would be 16 divided by 2, then 18 divided by 2 and then 17 divided by 2. It took her a min. to answer that. I thought she would get the idea and would be able to do 19 by 2. But, no - she was clueless. So we start with 18 by 2, then 20 by 2 and then finally 19 by 2. Then there was another kid who could not subtract 1/2 - 1/3.</p>
<p>And this is 9th grade.</p>
<p>when i moved to my current location i was placed in lower classes for high school. the things simba notes are not uncommon, even in higher grades. however, this is not race-exclusive, in my experience. unfortunately, many students are apathetic, and have been for a very long time, too long to really change their habits.</p>