<p>My god simba, that has to have been a totally frustrating and demoralizing experience. You have my respect (yes you do, despite our continued disagreements. Respect is easier if it’s mutual, but reciprocity has never been an absolute requirement for me;)) for so patiently attempting to teach mind bogglingly simple math to that woefully unprepared young girl. I thank my luck stars that I have never been faced with trying to teach a classroom full of singularly unmotivated, and shamefully undereducated kids. I think—heck, I know—that I would have gone home each night and dissolved into tears of (“bitter”;)) cynicism. Perhaps I better understand how some of your experiences inform many of your posts. Are these examples of “black failure” the only AfAms with which you’ve had personal contact? If they are, no wonder you’ve never had anything positive to say about African Americans. You’re perspective is as skewed as if you were viewing an image through a shattered mirror.</p>
<p>This absolutely does not apply for me. I suspect that many people who do not like Obama (repeat, many), are not comfortable with the kind of leadership style he practices. I am amazingly astonished at people who voluntarily give their loyalty and trust to leaders who choose a style of top down leadership. Obama doesn’t use the fear card as McCain and Clinton do (what do you think that whole 3AM phone call commercial was about? But I think McCain has an edge on it)), and I absolutely despise the fear card. Many people don’t know how to do anything but fear, so they relate to someone ‘taking care of them’.</p>
<p>Bush actually got a higher gpa overall (by one point) and Bush only got one D; Kerry got five. So that is additional ammo to me for the dyslexia argument. He’d probably have had better grades w/o the disability. Rather than go to such pains to hide it, he could have been a spokesperson for overcoming it. But maybe his folks didn’t realize what it was, or maybe he just thought it was a weakness. Instead he stumbles around with that messy lanquage and people laugh at him.</p>
<p>poet: Thank you. I started subbing only 4 wks ago. It is one of my retirement activity. I will go another half a dozen time and decide if it is right for me. I may start tutoring. At least the kids who will come to me would want to be there -I can handle slow learners. Actually, bulk of my af american impressions come right from here - on CC.</p>
<p>Wow, that’s interesting. I guess that means you are addicted to CC (along with the rest of us) huh, simba? </p>
<p>Are you also saying that CC provides your primary impressions of black Americans, also? If so, that wouldn’t seem to square with many of your critical assessments about AfAms in general (and you do generalize to a great degree). AfAms who post on CC are among the most educated, most successful, most self-reliant black people in the country. The same can be said of posters representing every racial and ethnic group here. There’s no “lack of success” for us to “blame on the government” or “racism”, because, despite our history and challenges, we are among you who are also law abiding, tax paying, and responsibly raising our own children to aspire to success. So when you seem to jump at every opportunity to lecture us about our short comings (as if we’ve all “tapped into the hive mind” and become a single organism), it is comes across as quite “elitist”, and frankly condescending. This is the crux of my biggest disagreement with you, simba. Believe it or not, I actually like you. But, nobody likes being talked down to. Blackness is not a pathology.</p>
<p>Simba: I read your story of four days subbing in the classroom and thought back to my first experience teaching in East San Jose, in a course called “general science” which was what the students took if they had already flunked introductory science. They needed to pass it to graduate from high school, and some of my students were taking it for the fourth time.</p>
<p>In that school, huge and overcrowded, about 1/3rd of the students were black, 1/3rd Hispanic, and 1/3rd white and Asian (mostly Vietnamese). 80% were on food aid (AFDC). There were metal detectors and four ON DUTY police officers on campus. The faculty parking lot had its own security and razor wire on the fence. I drove every day from my nice neat white well-educated suburb into urban poverty.</p>
<p>And when I showed my students some respect, they started to learn. When I gave them break after break after break–accepting late work, redone work, retake of tests, oral testing, extra help, whatever it took–they learned. </p>
<p>Their work ethic didn’t have anything to do with being black or being Asian or being Hispanic. It had everything to do with having been told over and over that they couldn’t do the work. Their teachers had told them they were failures, and they believed it. Why try if no one believes you’ll succeed?</p>
<p>When they were distracted by hunger, they were told they couldn’t eat in class; I brought snacks and we ate at the beginning of class. Many of them did not eat breakfast–why not? No food at home, and they didn’t get to school for the breakfast program because they took their siblings to school.</p>
<p>Maslow’s hierarchy, mayhaps? (sorry, I just learned it a few weeks ago in AP Psych and it immediately came to mind when I read the last few posts)</p>
<p>"I guess that means you are addicted to CC (along with the rest of us) huh,:</p>
<p>Guilty.</p>
<p>AfAms who post on CC are among the most educated, most successful, most self-reliant black people in the country. The same can be said of posters representing every racial and ethnic group here."</p>
<p>Right - and the traditional blue-collar/working class Democrats haven’t been voting Republican in large nos. the past election cycles on the basis of social issues (since the Dems, ironically, under Clinton w/ NAFTA, etc. had in effect, abandoned them w/ regard to economic issues).</p>
<p>This may just be a coincidence and the tv commericial was already in the can, but we have a local election coming up and the democrat ran an ad tonight all about what a just folks family values guy he was and how he and his family love to go hunting, his dad taught him to hunt, walking around with the hunting dogs under the trees and the words “supports the 2nd amendment” running several times across the screen.</p>
<p>This either says this guy can get a tv ad done up quick or it illustrates my point about what’s impt where I live. btw - this is a guy who probably does hunt; i doubt he’s pandering, but he sure is emphasizing.</p>
<p>…because we all know that whether a politician hunts or not is far more important than whether he’ll launch an ill-fated and pointless war, drive more Americans into bankruptcy, or (God forbid!) balance the budget. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Ok, I just had a great experience for this thread. Driving home from having sushi with a friend (oh the irony) and coming down the semi rural road to the not rural looking subdivision where I live, I see a deer writhing on the side of the road bleeding from the neck. There is a woman waving a big garden shovel standing next to the deer trying to attract a car’s attention. She is making signs at me to see if I have a gun so we can shoot the deer to put it out of its misery and yelling stuff I can’t hear (there’s traffic mind you; two lane road), so I drive up into the garden nursery lot near by and call 911, who puts me thru to the sheriff. The shovel lady said stuff about a car hitting the deer and a dog attacking. I tell the sheriff; they say they’re sending someone.</p>
<p>I circle back, tell the lady the sheriff’s on the way, and then go park in the Pentecostal Church lot up the road and walk back. The sheriff has called me on the cell to confirm the location. The lady with the shovel shows me a dog circling across the road thru the rural like yards. She says the dog is feral and chased the deer out of the nearby woods and a woman hit the deer with her car (she’s injured and in the nursery parking lot), then the dog attacked the deer in the throat, but the lady beat it off with her shovel.</p>
<p>We wait about 20 minutes - no sheriff yet. A hunter in a pickup drives up. Shovel lady says, “thank god, it’s a hunter”, and he checks - the deer is now dead. The feral dog we see has tags, but is now in the woods. The hunter calls a buddy to come help him load the deer into the pickup. The shovel lady (works at the nursery) goes to check on the injured driver. Don’t know if the sheriff ever came, 'cause the nursery lady said the police aren’t coming to stuff like this but with an hour wait now 'cause (according to her) the police say they have too much stuff to do with Katrina evacuee crime to come to car accidents any faster, esplly ones with animals. So I drive home. True story. Just happened.</p>
<p>Guns, hunting, dogs and deer are a part of everyday life here. It has nothing to do with being bitter, unemployed, poor or scared. This nursery lady just assumed I had a gun in my car and wanted me to help her help the deer. The local democratic politician is a hunter himself, as are most of the wealthy lawyers and doctors in town. I don’t understand why they like spending cold wet weekends in a duck blind, and they don’t understand why I like driving to Houston for a Broadway show, but we respect each other and help each other the best we can.</p>
<p>btw - they are going to try to catch that dog, cause if he has tags the nursery lady says the woman in the car can sue the owner under the leash law for causing the accident, and since he’s feral they will try to have him taken away and put down before he goes after someone’s kid. She says once they taste blood they are dangerous to everybody.</p>
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