What to do? My year of terror and abuse teaching at a NYC high school
He was dealing with unassimilated (but more historically-accurate, de-assimilated) people who mostly did not want to be there. So why were they there at all? Such stories are heart-breaking. I do blame the emergence of this urban subculture on LBJ, a racist at heart who figured that urban blacks could never succeed in civil life in any numbers, and so needed to be given money to vote and to shut up.
I sometimes wonder what I would be like had I been sent to a school like that. I doubt that I would be skiing in Vermont with a bunch of friends on the MLK long weekend.
That was a public school. Charter schools can be wonderful, but only with parental (ie maternal mostly) support. These kids are screwed - by their "parents" and not by any "system." It's hopeless, so give them free money to live on. And guess what? It's not just urban black people. It can be rural white people too. There is a bell curve in human nature. I just feel for the ones who have aspirations, talent, and abilities but are crushed by their destructive subcultures of dependency and sociopathy.
Obama had a great chance to change this game for all colors of skin, but never did. Politics.
