So an option that provides them with a way out, all needs met for housing, etc and they have 10K in the bank after 2 years is a bad choice too? So how much money would they have in the bank with no skills, poor housing, food, no jobs, and crime infestations and staying in that environment?
So we finally have your preferred single option of choice. FREE education. Which is an option that doesn't exist. I provided no less than 4 FREE things that do exist. They won't work for your community.
But lets for a moment choose your choice.
Do kids that have felony records, don't believe in God and don't like the idea of hard work for little money get to go that utopia of freedom from oppression qualify for that FREE education? Just wanting to get that idea pondered a bit too. Because essentially you will sound like, we want to have made all bad choices and still have access to the same thing everyone else does. But lets set that ponder aside for the time being.
This FREE EDUCATION cry that seems to another rally call these days. Call it anecdotal if you like. Much like the story of my father or where I live if you actually wanted to see how "anecdotal" my "good stories" are, you could find that there is more fact in all of it. Just makes it convenient to say they sound great but it isn't true since you don't think it is. Having said that now I get to roll up my sleeves for the beginning of grade school lessons.
We can move on to your proposed lack of a good education system. Which I will agree to, but not for the same reasons you do.
Back in 1899, in Washington, D. C., there were four academic public high schools. One black and three white. In standardized tests given that year, students in the black high school averaged higher test scores than students in two of the three white high schools.
In the 85 years of the history of this black high school, from 1870 to 1955, it repeatedly equaled or exceeded all the norms on standardized tests. In the 1890s, it was called The M Street School and after 1916 it was renamed Dunbar High School but its academic performances on standardized tests remained good on into the mid-1950s. You don't have to believe me. Look it up yourself. You learned how to research while you were in school.
Attendance records and tardiness records showed that The M Street School at the turn of the century and Dunbar High School at mid-century had less absenteeism and less tardiness than the white high schools in the District of Columbia at those times. The school had a tradition of being serious, going back to its founders and early principals. So again its not about whether or not a race is inferior or can't apply themselves given the opportunity. I hope on these points we can agree. In fact they applied themselves better than their white counterparts and had the results to prove it.
Some M Street School graduates began going to Harvard and other academically elite colleges in the early twentieth century. As of 1916, there were nine black students, from the entire country, attending Amherst College. Six were from the M Street School. During the period from 1918 to 1923, graduates of this school went on to earn 25 degrees from Ivy League colleges, Amherst, Williams, and Wesleyan. Over the period from 1892 to 1954, Amherst admitted 34 graduates of the M Street School and Dunbar. Of these, 74 percent graduated and more than one-fourth of these graduates were Phi Beta Kappas.
The first blacks to graduate from West Point and Annapolis also came from this school. So did the first black full professor at a major university (Allison Davis at the University of Chicago). So did the first black federal judge, the first black general, the first black Cabinet member, the first black elected to the United States Senate since Reconstruction, and the discoverer of a method for storing blood plasma. During World War II, when black military officers were rare, there were more than two dozen graduates of M Street or Dunbar High School holding ranks ranging from major to brigadier general.
Another black school. P. S.91 in Brooklyn, New York. Even worse conditions than Dunbar High School had. Yet the students in most of the grades in that school scored at or above the national norms on standardized tests as well.
I can cite many more examples all over our country if you like. Hopefully you get the point.
You can see I'm pointing out how horrible (insert sarcasm emoji here) black people are when given the opportunity at an education. I have proven to you thus far anyway that for a good part of our history they got not only free access to it, they excelled in the results they got from that education. But bear with me because we are just getting started here.
1954 was the year of the famous racial desegregation case of Brown v. Board of Education. There was strong resistance to school desegregation in many white communities, including Washington, D. C. Ultimately a political compromise was worked out. In order to comply with the law, without having a massive shift of students, the District's school officials decided to turn all public schools in Washington into neighborhood schools.
When Dunbar became a neighborhood school, the whole character of its student body changed radically. As did the character of its teaching staff changed very soon afterward. Prior to 1954, many Dunbar teachers had continued to teach for years after they were eligible for retirement because it was such a fulfilling experience. Now, as inadequately educated, inadequately motivated, and disruptive students flooded into the school, teachers began retiring, some as early as 55 years of age. Inside of a very few years, Dunbar became just another failing ghetto school, with all the problems that such schools have, all across the country. Eighty-five years of achievement simply vanished into thin air. Why do you suppose that is Mr. Brown? What does your education teach you about that Mr. Brown?
Let me help you a tiny bit but allowing some more real data here. That has nothing to with how "poor" or "rich" a school is.
St. Augustine high school in New Orleans. It was established back in 1951, during the era of racial segregation in the South, as a school for black boys. It achieved stellar academic success despite its conditions as well was a particularly striking example of achieving academic success while going against the grain of prevailing opinion. It was presided over by an all-white staff from the Josephite order. None of these young priests had ever taken a course in a department or school of education. To the horror of some outside members of the order, the school used corporal punishment. There was no unifying educational theory. The school simply kept doing things that worked and discarded things that didn't.
The first black student from the South to win a National Merit Scholarship came from St. Augustine. So did the first Presidential Scholar of any race from the state of Louisiana. 20 percent of all Presidential Scholars in the history of the state had come from this school with about 600 black students.
Test scores were never used as a rigid cutoff for admission to St. Augustine. There were students there with IQs in the 60s, as well as others with IQs more than twice that high. For individual students and for the school as a whole, the average IQ rose over the years-- being in the 80s and 90s in the 1950s and then reaching the national average of 100 in the 1960s. To put that in perspective, both blacks and whites in the South during this era tended to score below the national average on IQ and other standardized tests. So again a FINE example of how black children can do just fine given the right circumstances.
Ironically, today schools manadate so-called "prerequisites" for good education that never existed in the heyday of Dunbar High School, P.S 91, St Augustine.
I know I know, now you're gonna say Tom all this was a great story but now its because we don't give them enough money. No books. No academic helper programs. Unequal access to whatever white kids must be getting at their schools.
Today the per pupil expenditure is higher now than it ever was before 1954. And you and I can both agree that black schools got far less funding than white schools did back then. During its heyday, you know that part I discussed before 1954, Dunbar was starved for funds and its average class size was in the 40s. Its lunchroom was so small that many of its students had to eat out on the streets. Yet despite all of these so called disadvantages it had its stellar record of success. At that point, it had 80 years of achievement behind it. It is now a failing ghetto school today. So how did we improve anything since 1954? We threw more $$ into our school systems than we ever did before that.
So I going to make a few key points from my under a rock, white privileged, silver spoon in my mouth, ignorant to understanding perspective.
None of these successful schools had a curriculum especially designed for blacks. Dunbar High School, for example, throughout the 85 years of its academic success, it taught Latin. In some of the early years, it taught Greek as well. Its whole focus was on expanding the students' cultural horizons, not turning their minds inward towards the lack of opportunity they lived in and were convinced could never change because of systematic oppression by the white race. Which by the way is taught today in the school system. But you of all people know that.
We already know that the POC and their horrible living conditions were given a free education from an early time in our history. And we learned that they can excel, IF they apply themselves. It requires a CULTURE of work, discipline, both self discipline and an environment of one. A CULTURE of accountability.
You touched upon something in one of your responses to Mythos I believe it was. That is CRITICAL in this. The lack of a nuclear family in the black community. You yourself stated that if it weren't for that father that your life would be a vastly different one. So along those lines I'll put some more data out there for you.
The percentages of black children born under and living under the same roof as both of their biological parents were 90% in the late 17th century in America. In 1960 the last census data available before the passing of the CRA of 1964 it was 78%. In 2014-18, its 25%. I don't have any data to go past 2018 lets just hope that trendline didn't get worse.
So now we have to wonder why it is that under times of the most oppression in our country the blacks ever had to endure, they did better than how they are doing now. The very act that lifted that was supposed to eliminate that oppression, has done what good?
I gave you one way to get out. Oh but we are poor and can't.
Followed by Oh but we have criminal records, so we can't.
Followed by We don't believe in God so we can't.
Followed by, wait that too much work for not enough money so we can't.
We can't, we can't we can't.
Followed by we need FREE education. Which you have had.
Followed by they don't put enough $$ into our system. How much more do you need before you get as good as you were a century ago?
So to obstacle #1. Yes absolutely being poor in America sucks. I will never penalize anyone because they were born poor. Madam C.J. Walker was the first black millionaire in America. She was born in 1867. Her parents were slaves. Her brothers and sisters were slaves. She died in 1919. Who kept her from becoming a millionaire? Who held her back from success?
So obstacle 2. Well we can't do that because we broke the law and have a record. Who made that choice? Guess what white people that have a record can't do things either. They made bad choices too.
So obstacle 3. I don't believe in God so therefore it limits another choice. OK. Well how did the white race cause this?
Obstacle 4. Why should we work for free housing, food, clothing, etc and only have 10K in my bank when I'm done? That's too bad. But how is that another races fault? I have done just this same thing, but not with the Peace Corp. I was never more thankful in my life for that opportunity. That was 10K I had and got me past a time when I had no place to live or food to eat. That cheap Indian SOB that took advantage of me, probably saved my life long enough to find my next "way out".
Obstacle 5. Well we need free education. You've already had that.
Obstacle 6. But they don't give us enough money to get ahead. Umm. I hope the previous paragraphs will help you help your people on that. Cuz y'all did way better when we left you alone and you showed us how you could do just fine by every standard this country had for education, opportunity, and access to them. How much more money will it take for the blacks to get as successful as they were 100 years ago? Because the more that has been spent the worse things seem to be getting thus far.
Call them obstacles all you like. Y'all had no problems overcoming them before. You yourself know that having a father in your life, made a difference.
None of my black neighbors have ever been arrested. All of them have been approached by cops because of the color of their skin at some point in their lives. They were unfairly stopped where white people probably would not have been. Not all of the cops were white. When you live in a city where the deomgraphics are known to the cops for problems, yeah you're gonna get stopped more frequently. One of my black friends is a retired prison warden. Before that he was a cop. He as a cop has been stopped by a cop. He as a cop has stopped black people on the streets. If the people they stop have no outstanding legal issues, display a good attitude and are generally telling them a story that seems to check out, they are probably going to make it home for dinner that night. ALL of my blacks friends had 2 parents that raised them. None of their kids have been arrested. ALL of them are 2 parent households. ALL of them have had their asses beat by their dad's or moms growing up. All of them were expected to do good in school or suffer the consequences by not only a school system that used corporal discipline but parents that did so to. Guess what. So did I. Guess what. I have also been stopped by cops for questioning. More than once.
They all have slavery in their recent backgrounds. Leon my oldest black friend had slave grandparents. We have all heard the term "dirt poor". That's an actual thing. They used to have to boil dirt in a pan in order to get missing minerals they didn't get from poor access to food. In 2 generations they have assimilated into what WORKS in our society. 2 generations. Yet vast majorities of others are on their 5th generations of "obstacles". Do I just happen to know only the gifted smart blacks? How did somehow I come to land with a group of "exceptional" blacks, as my neighbors? No they are not exceptional. They were in the same place of "oppression" that the rest of them were. We just all live under the same rock I guess. We just don't understand I guess. We are just not the right density I guess. We work hard, don't give the cops reasons to come to our houses looking for us. We go to school. Their kids don't have pants that hang of their asses. The kids say yes sir, and no sir to EVERYONE, not just the white man. We all want a safe place to live, a neighborhood that looks nice and a police force that helps us keep it that way.
George Floyd was murdered. He was a citizen that had the same rights as anyone that never committed a crime in that moment 2 weeks ago. You sir have my full support for the change that is required by the police in this country. And you might be surprised that I support the defunding of the police forces. But I won't burn down my hospitals because doctors killed 250,000 people last year due to incompetence. And I won't support a cause that claims a race of life matters as they disregard their own race in the process.
I'm just not sure a kid from the dis-advantaged 'hood wants to trade sleeping in till noon,playing a little X-Box for a couple hours,hang with the boyz,etc for getting up at 6AM for some heavy manual labor.I could be wrong thou.There are those that want to help.And the Peace Corps looks good on a job application when he gets home.
