rio wrote:
cry of the banshee wrote:
How quick you are to make that claim regarding the author, yet cannot believe that blacks have "a chip on their shoulder".
haha, no, you just hate it because it shatters your Marxist illusion of the benign, gentle black man struggling to do whats right in the face of Overwhelming 24/7/365 Evil, White Oppression™. Anyway, it is amazing how a Brit somehow has his finger on the pulse of not only American politics, but American race relations, as well... you yourself admitted you have no first hand experience in what the man writes about, I have, and I can tell you that's EXACTLY what it is like; boorish, violent, ignorant, arrogant, hypersexual, irresponsible...
You speak of Palin and Conservatism (which is irrelevant, and an attempt to whitewash the article by means of discrediting the author, OMG, he's a conservative, therefore he must be a "racist"), so let's not start with the Marxism and liberal excuse making, o.k.?
50 years of liberal excuses and throwing money at the problem has gotten us / them where? Things are worse than ever before.
Hah!
How quick YOU are to reel off a list of things you THINK that I think. I suggest you look beyond your own narrowly-conceived realm of political discourse. You really think a "Marxist" who has volumes of Eldridge Cleaver, Franz Fanon or leRoi Jones on the bookshelf really has a fetish for the "benign" black man? Oh wait, they are books, aren't they- I'll get out of my Ivory Tower.
It is true I've never taught in an urban American elementary school, but much as I'm sure you would love to think I have no experience of living and working in multiracial/multicultural environments, it ain't so.
The simple fact is, the writer has a transparent agenda. I mean, for starters he obviously has a huge problem with the syllabus itself. The entire thing drips with his urge to stereotype in as contemptuous a tone as possible the music black kids listen to, the clothes they wear, etc.
And hey, how about the fact that he implicitly identifies "conservative" political views with intelligence? Sure, you can tell us all how true what he is saying is til you are blue in the face, but how are we supposed to trust the testimony of someone like that?
When did this 50 years of "throwing money at it" happen? Seems to me like the last thirty years at least have been a process of GROWING economic inequality, DEindustrialisation, INCREASING work hours and STAGNATING wage rates. Social programmes/benefits/handouts/whatever have only ever been pissing into the wind. This is precisely the sort of thing that Marxists would
predict would cause exactly the situation we are now seeing. If you're going to (in part) attribute a problem to something, at least make sure that that something's actually been happening.
You brought Marxism into it, so let me say this: Marx said that the way people see the world and the way they behave, are products of the economic environment in which they exist. If you have a situation whereby people are relentlessly told that with a bit of "personal responsibility" they can get rich- which turns out to be a total lie, in which communities (e.g. Detroit) are laid waste by businessmen deciding it is no longer profitable there, then deteriorating communities with no sense of aspiration or service will emerge. Not as the result of some moralistic notion of "oppression", but simply as an inevitable consequence of the environment. And yeah, if class lines are as closely tied to race lines as they are in the US, then that is going to be the prism through which everything is seen. Of course, this leads both to white racism and, no doubt, a sense of entitlement or victimhood from black kids. Two sides of the same coin.
Sure, blame the kids who are misbehaving for their misbehaviour. But WHY do these patterns of behaviour increase and decrease at different times? These things have a deeper explanation than the typical "blacks are bad, ok?" which seems to be the message of our schoolteacher here.
I'm not going address all of that, because I'd just be repeating myself, but YES, throwing money at the problem. When did it occur? Ever since LBJ's Great Society programs were kicked off. I read somewhere that it has totalled into the trillions by this time.
Are you calling him a liar? Or is it just because he is a conservative that you don't trust him... what was that about an agenda? You want to talk about agendas? the liberals want to keep the black community dependent on the government, by constatntly feeding them the line that they are incacapable of bettering themselves without them (the liberal government); works out pretty well: the libs (who no doubt live in gated communities, have chauffeurs cart them around and send their kids to the best private schools money can buy) get to feel all warm and fuzzy, they keep their gravy train rolling, and they are assured the black vote.
Take about racist? Conservatives are of the opinion that every man is capable of making something of themselves, if they put out the effort. Liberals, with their coddling welfare politics, simply enable a state of a perpetual underclass.
But, what I really wanted to address is this:
Quote:
Marx said that the way people see the world and the way they behave, are products of the economic environment in which they exist. If you have a situation whereby people are relentlessly told that with a bit of "personal responsibility" they can get rich- which turns out to be a total lie, in which communities (e.g. Detroit) are laid waste by businessmen deciding it is no longer profitable there, then deteriorating communities with no sense of aspiration or service will emerge.
I don't give a damn what Marx said.
I came from the gutter, never finished High School, forget about college, (so much for that "white privilige", eh?) but by the time I was 24, I decided that a life of construction was not what I wanted, as it is very hard on the body and seasonal, to boot, so I APPLIED MYSELF, took out a student loan, went to school at night after working all day at a shit job, got an AS in electronics, started at the bottom and over 17 years worked my way up to an engineer. About a year ago, seeing
that I had gone about as far as I was going to go in that industry, I further APPLIED MYSELF, took a CCNA course (again, while working full time, and taking care of my two children) so that I could get into the IT industry, which is much more lucrative.
I'll never be "rich", but I can provide for my family.
In this day and age of scholarships, there is no excuse for being a fuck up.
Poverty? that never stopped blacks from excelling at things like football and basketball, did it?
Sounds another pathetic excuse to me.