Reply to "My Brother's Keeper" and at-risk kids... thoughts?

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Reply to ""My Brother's Keeper" and at-risk kids... thoughts?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote]Brown or black versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person's problem. We have got to take the neighborhood back. People used to be ashamed. Today a woman has eight children with eight different 'husbands' — or men or whatever you call them now. We have millionaire football players who cannot read. We have million-dollar basketball players who can't write two paragraphs. We as black folks have to do a better job. Someone working at Wal-Mart with seven kids, you are hurting us. We have to start holding each other to a higher standard. [/quote]

Yeah...a rant isn't really going to help.  Ask Bill Cosby.

When there is no access to a higher quality life and no one around to model it, then kids are working with an entirely different standard than the ones you'd like to hold them to.  A different set of values, different goals and objectives, different life strategy--completely removed from the standards you think they should be working toward.  You talk about shame, but imagine the development of an 8 year old boy who sees everyone and everything around him as shameful (and an 8 year old knows).  What can he do about it?  What does it turn into as he develops?  And then everyone in and out of his own community is calling him a knucklehead.  It takes a pretty extraordinary kid to buck that trend.  All others? Not a shot in the world.

The only upside to segregation was that a poor kid could live down the street or attend church with educated profeesionals and he could see what was possible.  He could believe it was attainable.  For kids today, it's about as realistic as life on the moon.

So, have your rant, cluck your teeth, complain about what parents aren't doing.  But know that you're joining in on the downward pull.  I'm glad someone with real influence is trying to do something and, from what I read in the press release, the effort is designed to come from the communities where these kids live.  So you can sit in the comfort of your home and not have a hair on your head bothered about it.  And if it's one less kid who might be knocking you over the head, be glad for it.[/quote]

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