Best post EVER.

[~weed~]

 hi

[chaos]

Do they do fireworks then too?

No but it would probably be jam packed with "those kind"

[The ChemistV2]

Here's how it is with regard to what you're speaking about. 

So that you understand I have full credibility and insight into this, I want to first mention that I'm black, and I want to secondly mention that I'm from Detroit, and I've seen and dealt with most of the aforementioned issues personally.

It's very easy (and understandable) to view the situation at hand as a bunch of 'predatory savages' running amok in the streets, but the reality is much more complicated.  You have to make sense of the fact that in most of the worst neighborhoods in the country, the educational system is useless.  The teachers don't give a damn, and at least in Detroit, strike at every opportunity.  I've volunteered for years in various schools as a tutor, and the kids are so dejected, hopeless, and depressed that they just don't give a damn about anything.  The ones that do care are so far behind academically that most of them end up running out of steam and dropping out.  Quite literally, it's easier make a living off of selling drugs than it is to get an education.  Only the rarest students even finish, let alone move on to college.  It's not a choice that most people have, which is what you inferred earlier by your tone and statements.

Next, I agree with you about the rap; it's gotten pretty ignorant, and there's underlying cultural issues that I won't get into here simply because it would be too long and drawn out.

Thirdly, no pride in neighborhood?  That's not something that you can just relegate to black people.  Part of the reason why Detroit and most other midwestern cities in particular got to the state it did is from racial and religious intolerance - (white) people refusing to live by blacks and jews, no matter how upstanding they were. So, especially in the D's case, well, they just moved out.  How is that for neighborhood pride?  When you think about it, if everyone would have just held their ground, the city would be a much better place:  diverse, more populous, and healthy.  It wasn't based on 'crime' - and there's documentation to prove it (read "Urban Crisis" by Thomas Sugrue), but really a complex web of excuses and justifications for picking up and leaving out of ignorance. 

Defenseless white college students?  Like the ones who get shot up by the closest thing you can imagine to the angry white suburbanite stereotype in the cases of Virginia, Columbine, and others?  Please.  We can go back and forth on this indefinitely because there's ample examples of violence across ethnicity, but the central point is that each race, still being a member of the human species, is flawed and acts according to the way evolution wired us; scared, territorial, irrational, and violent.

The sooner we can acknowledge this universally, the more prepared we'll be to use the pinnacle of our development - our brains - to change ourselves for the better.

That was a very insightful post. My ex-wife was a teacher who worked with innercity problem kids and she had a lot of compassion for them. I don't mean to denigrate and stereotype a whole race of people. I'm stating merely how this situation is viewed to most of the country but because people don't want to offend, nobody says what they really feel. I'm sure I was raised with advantages that many of these people I'm describing did not. I have some compassion but I think the black youth of today need more positive role models. The thuggery stuff  has to stop. I've already sent my girlfriend to get licensed to carry a concealed weapon. While I understand the plight of the "Hood", I still refuse to become a victim to it. And I refuse to let the people I care about get killed by these"misguided" youths. Not on my watch!

[technokc]

Here's how it is with regard to what you're speaking about. 

So that you understand I have full credibility and insight into this, I want to first mention that I'm black, and I want to secondly mention that I'm from Detroit, and I've seen and dealt with most of the aforementioned issues personally.

It's very easy (and understandable) to view the situation at hand as a bunch of 'predatory savages' running amok in the streets, but the reality is much more complicated.  You have to make sense of the fact that in most of the worst neighborhoods in the country, the educational system is useless.  The teachers don't give a damn, and at least in Detroit, strike at every opportunity.  I've volunteered for years in various schools as a tutor, and the kids are so dejected, hopeless, and depressed that they just don't give a damn about anything.  The ones that do care are so far behind academically that most of them end up running out of steam and dropping out.  Quite literally, it's easier make a living off of selling drugs than it is to get an education.  Only the rarest students even finish, let alone move on to college.  It's not a choice that most people have, which is what you inferred earlier by your tone and statements.

Next, I agree with you about the rap; it's gotten pretty ignorant, and there's underlying cultural issues that I won't get into here simply because it would be too long and drawn out.

Thirdly, no pride in neighborhood?  That's not something that you can just relegate to black people.  Part of the reason why Detroit and most other midwestern cities in particular got to the state it did is from racial and religious intolerance - (white) people refusing to live by blacks and jews, no matter how upstanding they were. So, especially in the D's case, well, they just moved out.  How is that for neighborhood pride?  When you think about it, if everyone would have just held their ground, the city would be a much better place:  diverse, more populous, and healthy.  It wasn't based on 'crime' - and there's documentation to prove it (read "Urban Crisis" by Thomas Sugrue), but really a complex web of excuses and justifications for picking up and leaving out of ignorance. 

Defenseless white college students?  Like the ones who get shot up by the closest thing you can imagine to the angry white suburbanite stereotype in the cases of Virginia, Columbine, and others?  Please.  We can go back and forth on this indefinitely because there's ample examples of violence across ethnicity, but the central point is that each race, still being a member of the human species, is flawed and acts according to the way evolution wired us; scared, territorial, irrational, and violent.

The sooner we can acknowledge this universally, the more prepared we'll be to use the pinnacle of our development - our brains - to change ourselves for the better.

pretty intelligent post. . . . . . . .



































for a black guy!









































LOL

[Moosejay]

That was a very insightful post. My ex-wife was a teacher who worked with innercity problem kids and she had a lot of compassion for them. I don't mean to denigrate and stereotype a whole race of people. I'm stating merely how this situation is viewed to most of the country but because people don't want to offend, nobody says what they really feel. I'm sure I was raised with advantages that many of these people I'm describing did not. I have some compassion but I think the black youth of today need more positive role models. The thuggery stuff  has to stop. I've already sent my girlfriend to get licensed to carry a concealed weapon. While I understand the plight of the "Hood", I still refuse to become a victim to it. And I refuse to let the people I care about get killed by these"misguided" youths. Not on my watch!

My sister is a teacher in the inner city.

She brought me in as guest-speaker. I did bodyfat tests, gave out wards and money, was not boring.

These kids could not shut up, pay attention, stop sleeping and drroling, and talking on cell phones.

Well, I turned off their phones with my cell phone jammer

But the rest, I spoke to my sister and said, "Tell these kids to shut the hell up..."

"Oh no, we can't..."

She went on to tell me that the parents don't care. BUT, if you give them something to care about...ie...discipline their kidss righteously, well, then, they will look for you, go past security, whatever. They will try to sue you or take you down or whatever.

[jonsande]

My sister is a teacher in the inner city.

She brought me in as guest-speaker. I did bodyfat tests, gave out wards and money, was not boring.

These kids could not shut up, pay attention, stop sleeping and drroling, and talking on cell phones.

Well, I turned off their phones with my cell phone jammer

But the rest, I spoke to my sister and said, "Tell these kids to shut the hell up..."

"Oh no, we can't..."

She went on to tell me that the parents don't care. BUT, if you give them something to care about...ie...discipline their kidss righteously, well, then, they will look for you, go past security, whatever. They will try to sue you or take you down or whatever.

That's true, a lot of the parents really don't care, but these days, there's a good two or three generations of families that have a very ignorant view of how the world works, only because they don't know better.

Its tough sometimes.  I know that black folks of my grandparents' generation (baby boomer's parents) that actually experienced Jim Crow and the Civil Rights movement firsthand are turning in their graves.  Us black people are in a strange place because we've managed to simultaneously better and worsen our positions at the same time. We're more 'privileged' than past generations have ever been, but there's strong pressure to behave stereotypically which is exactly what the MLK Jrs, Booker T Washingtons, and Thurgood Marshalls of the past didn't want to happen. 

I don't know what the solution to all of this is, but all I can do personally is not put to waste what was done for me in the 60's.

[chaos]

That's true, a lot of the parents really don't care, but these days, there's a good two or three generations of families that have a very ignorant view of how the world works, only because they don't know better.

Its tough sometimes.  I know that black folks of my grandparents' generation (baby boomer's parents) that actually experienced Jim Crow and the Civil Rights movement firsthand are turning in their graves.  Us black people are in a strange place because we've managed to simultaneously better and worsen our positions at the same time. We're more 'privileged' than past generations have ever been, but there's strong pressure to behave stereotypically which is exactly what the MLK Jrs, Booker T Washingtons, and Thurgood Marshalls of the past didn't want to happen. 

I don't know what the solution to all of this is, but all I can do personally is not put to waste what was done for me in the 60's.

It's called peer pressure, everyone experiences it, it's how you react to it that will dictate your future. Follow or lead.



but all I can do personally is not put to waste what was done for me in the 60's.

Exactly, quit living up to the expectations of the black community and branch out to succeed, although they will call you a traitor.....

[The ChemistV2]

That's true, a lot of the parents really don't care, but these days, there's a good two or three generations of families that have a very ignorant view of how the world works, only because they don't know better.

Its tough sometimes.  I know that black folks of my grandparents' generation (baby boomer's parents) that actually experienced Jim Crow and the Civil Rights movement firsthand are turning in their graves.  Us black people are in a strange place because we've managed to simultaneously better and worsen our positions at the same time. We're more 'privileged' than past generations have ever been, but there's strong pressure to behave stereotypically which is exactly what the MLK Jrs, Booker T Washingtons, and Thurgood Marshalls of the past didn't want to happen. 

I don't know what the solution to all of this is, but all I can do personally is not put to waste what was done for me in the 60's.

I have a tremendous amount of respect for you. Perhaps if people like yourself were able to lecture at middle schools before the real damage is done, some lives could be steered in another direction. There was a lot of negative racial sterotyping on this thread (which I contributed to heavily) and instead of responding in a  combative tone, you made some good points. Of course, if you now admit you're not really Black, then I've been punked!

[chaos]

I have a tremendous amount of respect for you. Perhaps if people like yourself were able to lecture at middle schools before the real damage is done, some lives could be steered in another direction. There was a lot of negative racial sterotyping on this thread (which I contributed to heavily) and instead of responding in a  combative tone, you made some good points. Of course, if you now admit you're not really Black, then I've been punked!

Unfortunately middle school is too late, elementary would be better.

[MAXX]

either way...continue with your hate, white men; the more you hate black women the more there are for me. 

black women are ugly most of the time anyway.

[Fatpanda]

it makes zero difference who lectures to these kids now and again in school, its their parents who have to lecture to them everyday through life to make any real difference, its them who are the problem, not the children, or the area they live or having no money.

i am a teacher, i see it first hand, junkie dead beat parents (black and white) have children who don't want to learn, who dont apply themselves, who try to distrupt classes. it all stems from the parents because their parents simply dont care.

[Paul Allen]

any colored kid in one of his schools that would try to answer a teacher's question, take notes, read...basically do anything other than threaten to cap niggaz all day long would get his ass kicked daily by his "peers".

of course, in true negroid fashion, they wouldn't fight the nerd kid one on one, they'd jump him in an alley and steal his wallet.

[jonsande]

I have a tremendous amount of respect for you. Perhaps if people like yourself were able to lecture at middle schools before the real damage is done, some lives could be steered in another direction. There was a lot of negative racial sterotyping on this thread (which I contributed to heavily) and instead of responding in a  combative tone, you made some good points. Of course, if you now admit you're not really Black, then I've been punked!

Nope, you haven't been punked. 

[jonsande]

Unfortunately middle school is too late, elementary would be better.

Yeah, elementary school is probably the best place to start.