blacks minnesota_chris Today I was working again in an inner city school. Mostly poor, mostly black. Some of the kids were definitely smart. Some were acting oddly (although come on, they ARE high schoolers) and I wonder what will happen to them. Will any of them reach out for that brass ring? Will they always talk and act like poor black folk? Will they ever have any opportunities, the kind of opportunities that middle class whites have, or for that matter wealthy whites (such as becoming president). I'm afraid of becoming prejudiced, because I'm not really exposed to middle class blacks like I knew in high school and college. They all sound dumb to me now. 030128 ... minnesota_chris and no one has blathed on this before. 030128 ... . you are really predjudiced and you sound ignorant despite your concern 030128 ... minnesota_chris I am ignorant despite my concern. 030128 ... minnesota_chris if you are black, or minority, tell me why you think what you think... or even if you're white... nothing wrong with calling me a racist. If you're just somebody who thinks we shouldn't talk about blacks, or ignore their situation, then never mind... we're going to disagree on this one. 030128 ... MisterFunkadelic Trust me, Chris. As a black man, I can tell you what you said is something a lot of us would like to say. I see it all the time among some of my students...And I'm not saying that I don't have my own "Well-shit-Negro-that's-all-you-had-to-say" moments, but it's hard sometimes to get a young brother to sit and listen when you're telling him that if he keeps up the way he's going, he'll do every bit as much to keep himsef down as the system will. Especially with people like George "Nukular" Bush at the wheel. (And I'll tell you what, I was so proud of Colin Powell until he sold his soul and joined the Vegetable's cabinet. He should have run on his own - except for that whole Trent Lott "Solid South" agenda that the GOP won't admit to - I think he would have had a pretty good chance, though that's not to say I would have necessarily voted for him, I vote my conscience, not my color) Sorry, got off on a tangent Seriously, between Tiger Wood's denial of his blackness ("Cablasian?" please, give me a break), Johnnie Cochrane defending the guiltiest black man in the last 10 years and some of my favorite hip-hop artists (ODB? God, help us all - I love Wu-Tang, but, damn, that boy's got some issues), black America hasn't been doing itself any favors in the eyes of the public at large in the last decade or so. "And i'm black y'all yes, i'm black y'all i'm blacker than black 'cause i'm black y'all" [How many other high-school teachers will tell you that "CB4" just kicks way too much ass? That and Rusty Cundieff's "Fear of a Black Hat" are just entirely fucking brilliant] 030128 ... xle the things you said that caught my eye were "Will they always talk and act like poor black folk?" and "They all sound dumb to me now." so what it sounds like to me, is that you disregard their form of language as inferior to yours. how is it exactly that they "sound dumb"? i'll admit that i'm someone who is maybe oversensitive to racism/sexism/whateverism but it seems like this blathe is well intentioned and i'm curious what exactly it is that you mean. 030129 ... minnesota_chris Ultimately it doesn't matter what I think of their talk... I try to look beyond the surface. I think their potential employers will think they sound dumb. Same thing for everyone else who could give them a chance. They talk like poor dumb folk... even if they are quite bright. It's also a kind of racism to ignore race. Something we get a lot of in Minnesota, where we pretend to be all alike. 030129 ... scrwing for virginity how is it racest to ignor race? this may be a bit off topic, but i need to vent about this. i have come to a realisation a few weeks ago: as an b-c earning white male living in a midle income home i have no chance of a colege education without years of debt to pay off loans. i have yet to find a (decent) scholarship i can apply for. there are some for a and a-b students, and i admit that those are my fault for not getting, but i have found countless scholorships for mexicans only, mexican males only, mexican females only, blacks only, black females only, and black males only, but i have found no, i repeat, not 1 white male only scholorship out there. if this isnt raceissm, fuck that "reverse raceism" crap you see on tv (i mean how is it "reverse"?) then i dont know what is. dont get me wrong, i am all for equil rights, but when i say equil i mean equil. i say that all the race/sex specific scholarships need to be taken out, and the race and sex boxes on college forms need to be removed, as well as job forms but that is another rant. i also say that acceptance into schools or jobs should be base on a persons performance not who their parents are. 030129 ... screwing for virginity and when i say equil i mean equal. 030129 ... minnesota_chris I think that some of those programs were very necessary at first, to give blacks an opportunity. Now some blacks (and even more so, Latinos) are achieving, and quite often those are the ones getting the scholarships, while the ones who are truly in the pits have no chance at such a scholarship. I have no easy answer for that. I don't think they should have any scholarships simply for being a white male, since white males often have a better shot at other opportunities. I don't have any answers, I was looking for some actually. 030129 ... Blather Admissions Board Dear Mr. Virginity, Your application to our university has been denied, because you DON'T FUCKING KNOW HOW TO PROOFREAD! It has nothing to do with your gender or race. Thanks for your interest in the University of Blather. 030129 ... MDogMA Our system isn’t set up for an individual’s happiness. I just don’t think that they have come to grips with this, and for a first I’m not just talking minorities, I’m not racist I just hate idiots, percentiles say minorities have it, but in shear numbers whites still triumph. I don’t fashion myself an expert on poverty psychology just giving background, but I digress, we’re talking poverty. I’ve seen the welfare mom getting a brand new CD with no food, and I know a man fresh out of college on athletic scholarship for smoking weed, when he knew they test. Why…whywhywhy. Are these people stupid, are they imbalanced, simply lazy. I just don’t think they’ve resigned themselves to an existence outside of their learned misfortune. From our media driven lives we are told sharing files is supporting communism, when in truth since the 60’s we can no longer call ourselves a real democracy. Ever since the advent of welfare programs and equality issues, the drug laws that help only the problem, making them into more than they ever could be. The urbanite life style is suicide, even our rich have more dept then they could possibly support. Most never grip these conclusions, just watch their Toshiba flat screen some Asian man told them was good and eat their Mc Chicken lean. Is it going to take a redefinement of our social structure to bring all people around, a complete scraping of the old…Probably, but with the current system all the children of their politics are guaranteed high paying careers. Status quo usually pays, disruptions reduce time for trade negotiations, and without the mindless system maybe people would stop listening to how the RIAA MPAA say people are supposed to live, fight, have sex and every other social “innovation” that can be attributed to the conglomerate, and they defiantly don’t want that. Of course then maybe I’d be willing to say I like people again. 030130 ... minnesota_chris I didn't follow all of that. But I really wish that everyone had an opportunity to succeed. 030131 ... MDogMA they were idiots i let them walk their paths, and don't lose one minute of sleep. 030324 ... Novice As a black teenage, maybe I won't know what you see compared to what i see. I never went to school with more then 5 other black kids in my class. The rest of the school was white. None of us were pooor all from middle class families. But here in Jersey, everyone lives all over the place especially in a private school. So how would you tell who lived in the inner city? None of us sound dumb, and apparently I sound "whiter or the whitest" of everyone. (Sorry tangent) But look, you are prejude (I know thats spelled wrong) the fact that you think that those kids sound dumb is just going to force farther into it. And how do you think you sound to them. Like an idiot sometimes, trust me. Maybe its just a Jersey thing or an E.C. High School thing, but you can't tell the difference from how anyone talks. And for the middle class blacks that you know, how do you think they got there?? Because someone who started to think the way that you are, pushed and taught they better. Kids only know what they learn at home, and as a teacher you need to bring them to the next level, or refine the level they're at if it's the same as you. I know from my great-grandmother, what education she did and didn't have, but still she was a brillant person who talked correctly. And with every generation that you see everyone is on a different level. I wish I could say I was the highest, but I think I'm somewhere like an inch above my mom. You aren't quite racist yet...but your on the way. No went to private school, except for me. From ingorance to riches is all I can say. 030620 ... shorty i really dont see where ther is so much discrimination going on to day.i live in a large texas city andat least6 out of every ten,jobs is held by an afro-american. Or so it seems.When it comeshomeless, ist seems like there are every race ofhomeless. And about language,teacher ,since when do uyou pronounce the word "ask" axe.That may ot be iggnorant, but it is careless. 030620 ... blah novice; what's it like being black? do you see a lot of prejudice? are you regulary made aware that you are black? 030628 ... Novice Whats it like being black? I dunno is it supposed to be different from being a human, or a girl? I (thank God) really haven't experinced prejudice. I think it's because I go to a Christian school, but I know that has very little to do with it. I don't really see prejudice, I see a lot of annoyance but that seems to circulate throughout ALL of my friends. I hear a lot about it in my church (it's a Baptist Church) but I find that althought I hear it, I'll still ingore it, because I am determined to not become bias, against my best friend or any friends I've grown up with. Am I reguarly made aware you asked...hmm...no, maybe if one of the guys in my class is singing a Jay-Z song, when they get to the nigga part, they'll always stop and say sorry, but that doesn't really bugg me at all. The only time that I'm made aware of being black, is from older adults who proceed to list everything wrong with every race in the world, and how everything is a dagger to the throat for black people. 030703 ... ferret black_goths, that's where it's at ya'll 030703 ... Aimee I live right across the street from a black family. They are definitely what I would call "ghetto trash" and believe me there's plenty of white ghetto trash in this neighborhood too... guess that's what you get for living close to school... but i digress... This family is the reason why I get so scared I'm racist. I've listened to their domestic disturbances on a nightly basis for the last 4 months... the woman screaming at her boyfriend/husband/whatever at the top of her lungs that he's nothing but a cheating "nigga" and that she's tired of raising his children if he's gonna go run off and fuck some other ho.... in front of their/his 7 children... I mean honestly!!!! Who the hell needs to hear that... I would adore it if someone would just take those children away from them and force the adults to get jobs!!! I can't say anything about the "white" families (and I say "white" because most white people are varying shades of pink and olive and whatnot), because they're rarely around. I'm sure if we lived further into the ghetto, there would be plenty of instances that I would find completely appalling. I