Considering the Conservative options have been to teach Creationism on par with Evolution, and to arm teachers, I’d say the Liberal pike is still the way to go.

Jesus, did you even hear what he said? He made several points about the Black community taking ownership of their destiny by being better parents and role models for young people; he said you ALL have a part to play in shaping the future of America, including but not exclusively government.

Why don’t you ask her?

And, irrationally, the vast web of economic and social influences can be completely summed up as “work hard = profit!”…

It is ridiculous that myths well-debunked twenty years ago are still being perpetrated and believed in today.

Why does the right demand these fairy tales are true?

Perhaps it is scary as hell to realize that a person’s economic success or failure is often completely out of their hands and in the hands of a vast network over which they have little-to-no influence, so superstitions about success and poverty must be created to keep hope alive and the specter of poverty at bay.

So, hard-work and responsibility! If so, well, where are all the rich lumberjacks again? (On Secret Millionaire Lumberjack Island..?) And why do the rich make as many bad mistakes and have as many interpersonal problems as the poor, having no greater measure of self-responsibility or ethic?

Joaquin: replying to “Kids perform better if they think they can do it” with “public schools make liberals” is an impressive leap, but was it meant to accomplish anything but illustrate what “non sequitur” means?

I see you didn’t make it to the point in the speech where President Obama defines community.

And while you’re at it, Joaquin, tell the truth and just say you don’t like the N*gra in the White House. We’d all have more respect for you if you did.

Just wondering why you feel the need to capitalize “Black”?

Good for you. Now piss off.

You get this guy.

Yeah, but look what we had before him. An ACTUAL bowl of porridge.
We earned this.

I’m a long-time teacher myself, albeit at the college level, and I’ve worked with both smart ghetto kids and those born to an exaggerated sense of entitlement (the latter at Princeton and Hampshire College) not to mention everyone in between. When people have a sense of self-worth, education is a breeze; when they don’t it’s hard sledding.

People are taught to be ashamed of being poor in this country (If there’s a level playing field, being poor is your own damn fault. see “Level Playing Field, Myth of”), and also to be black–not by their parents necessarily but by white society. If you’re poor and black, that’s a double whammy, no?

Jamaicans and others also taught me that if you’re a Caribbean black, ie a country with a majority black population (and in which being poor doesn’t carry the stigma of shame it does here), you have an easier time with self-esteem. This is true of second-generation blacks whose parents are from the Caribbean, too. Often they don’t know what gulf separates them from their home-grown North American counterparts. They can grow contemptuous, even.

I think you learn healthy self-esteem from the cradle onwards, or, conversely, low self-esteem. In the latter case, failing any kind of radical intervention, you grow up and pass it on to your kids. This creates the vicious circle we’ve got today, the circle Obama and others are trying to interrupt.

Individual bootstrap-ism is essential but needs help, anything to make the “level playing field” any less of a fantasy than it actually is. So: remedial or intensive education reform, health care reform, minority business incentives, government programs that may be flawed but beat what we’ve got now. It takes a lot to usher out the dregs of racism AND the cycle of poverty.

I know this sounds simplistic but I’m trying to cram a lot in a relatively little space. I’m willing to clarify if anyone cares.

I’m writing from StoryCorps, America’s largest nonprofit national oral history project. I thought you and your blog readers would be interested in listening to StoryCorps’ latest story to broadcast on NPR this morning. Mamie Todd tells her daughter, Ann Todd Jealous, and grandson, Benjamin Todd Jealous, President and CEO of the NAACP, about demanding supplies from the white school superintendent while teaching at an all-black school in the 1930s. You can take a listen here (about 4 minutes): http://www.storycorps.org/listen/stories/mamie-todd-with-her-grandson-ben-jealous-and-her-daughter-ann-todd-jealous.

StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit project whose mission is to honor and celebrate one another’s lives through listening. Since 2003, tens of thousands of people from across the country have interviewed family and friends through StoryCorps. Each conversation is recorded on a free CD to take home and share and is also archived for generations to come at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. Millions listen to the award-winning broadcasts on public radio and the Internet. Select stories have also been published in the New York Times bestselling book, Listening Is an Act of Love.

I hope you take the time to listen and share.

Thanks,
Amber Leigh

GOOD FOR YOU.
Seriously, go for it. I’m proud of ya.

Keep up the great work. Best regards.

It’s beautiful. It’s positive. It’s heart-warming. It also happens to be a big pile of bullshit!

That same speech has been given a thousand times by a thousand politicians. Nice flowery statements designed to tug at your heart strings, make everyone weepy-eyed, but at the end, there’s nothing but the same old same old.

You can buy into it. I choose not to.

I agree with Obama in his speech, and telling parents to reinforce learning that takes place in school, telling African American parents to be involved in the classrooms, FIRING bad teachers, and actually giving incentives for intellegent and competent people to enter the profession is advancing the status quo how?
As to my motives for teaching, I about spit my water on the screenLOL! I got into teaching for monetary reasons and Obama can send me some kickbacks. That is truly rich. If I cared so much about money, I would NEVER become a teacher. Its a calling not a job.