"Blacks better off during slavery?"

As i scrolled through the Chicago Tribune website looking for an interesting article, i come across a headline that says, "Blacks better off during slavery?" i suddenly stopped and thought "... What?" The first  sentence reads, "Rep. Trent Franks, a Republican from Arizona, told video blogger Mike Stark of StarkReports.com  on Friday that blacks are “more devastated” today than when they were enslaved because of the high rate of abortion among some blacks." Now this simply could have been some random conservative radical blogging about his feelings but it wasn't... It was from a congressman in Arizona. But then i thought again, I'm just a 17 year old kid and this man is probably a highly educated man so he probably has learned through extensive years of education that abortions are the same as being enslaved and working nearly all hours of the day, being treated like dirty, being poorly fed, being whipped and beaten, and threatened and scared for your life every day. During slavery many blacks were brutally beaten and whipped and cut and burned and hung. To me slavery and abortions are nothing alike. Not even close. Not even remotely close. I think this man is so rediculously ignorant and nieve. African Americans were FORCED into slavery and made to do dirty work and were treated worse than lets say a capture skunk from under my portch and i hired someone to kill the skunk and take the family out from under my portch. Abortions are a choice made by a woman, and its a choice that can help stabalize their life if they are not able to take care of a child. A woman who gets an abortion is not whipping and beating and burning and hanging their possible child.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=459Dny0aabI&feature=player_embedded

"White Like Me"

I have just read a chapter called "Privilege," from the book called "White Like Me." The author, Tim Wise, states his thesis/question in this chapter, "that to be white is to be born to certain advantages and privileges that have been generally inaccessible to others-it would still be possible to argue that, unfair as that may be, we should just move on. Such persons might argue that the past can't be undone, and anyway, the fact that white folks in previous generations created a system of racism and white supremacy is not the fault of whites living today. so why should whites today have to deal with the residue of other folks' actions?" After reading through this extensive chapter, i agree with Tim, white today are privileged because of Americas past, because we are the majority, and because of racism and prejudice. I think it is unfair and wrong but it's something that needs to be faced head-on. We cannot just look past our problems of race and act like it isn't there because it is and its very real. Tim says, "Rather, the most commonly heard refrain from educators, in my experience with them, is something to the effect that they 'treat all kids the same and don't even see color' when they look at them. Putting aside the absurdity of the claim itself-studies have long indicated that we tend to make very fine distinctions based on color, and that we notice color differences almost immediately-color blindness is, in fact, not the proper goal of fair-minded educators in the first place. The kids in those classrooms do have a race, and their race matters, because it says a lot about the kinda of challenges they are likely to face. To not see color is; as Julian Bond had noted, to not see the consequences of color." Now i know that's a very long quotes but i find it very important. The goal is NOT to see everyone the same because nobody is the same. It is obvious that a white man and a black man are not the same, and even two white men are not the same. To look at everyone the same is to be ignorant and it is taking away from what people do to make them be unique. If a teacher sees all their students the same, then they cannot see the students that struggle and need help in their class because they put all of the students on the same level. Tim Wise talked about teachers and how if you attatched them to a polyograph and asked them questions refering to racial groups, if the teacher was honest and said that they see no racist or classist views then they would be thanked and sent away; but if they endorsed that then the school sees it as a potential danger and fires them. What do teachers think? I have no idea, But i want to end my post with this quote... "It doesn't matter, by the way, if you're a white kid who grew up around black and brown folks. It doesn't matter if you had black freinds-I mean  really  had them, and really friends, not just acquaintances. If you're white you simple will not, cannot, understand race, or even see that race matters at that age. there is no reason that you should; no experience would have forced the issue; and few parents would have sat you down to begin the lesson."

Affirmative Action

In my personal opinion i think that it's up to the school to decide what kind of student (race,ethnicity, gender) they want to accept into their university. Whatever the university puts into its mission statement is what the university should stand by. If the university decides to only accept Asians into their college then so be it, that's completely up to them because its their university, their rules, so they can make whatever kind of decisions they want whether its fair or not simple because its THEIR university, not the governments or the courts or the peoples university. Someone owns the college and they view their college in a certain way so they are going to have it that way despite what some people think of it. In all honesty why would someone even want to go to a college that doesn't want them... it doesn't make sense to me.

Stepping back though and going back to the main point, I think its more fair for the university's to look at students as a whole, rather than tear them apart and break them down to numbers. I would rather a university look at me as a student with a decent GPA, bad ACT score, a student who has improved through his high school career, an athlete, and an employed student. To me that sounds a lot better than being classified as... 25? 37? 7? Both ways have the possibility of giving the university what they want but i would rather someone be able to tell me I can't go to their university because my scores weren't good enough and I wasn't a dedicated student, instead of telling me i fell 3 points short of being accepted because to me that means absolutely nothing.

side note: I applaud the students who fight university's because they find it unfair that they don't accepted, but the way i see it is that i would much rather go to a worse school that wants me to be there, than a better school that doesn't want me and doesn't think I'm good enough for them




Mr. Kramer i hope you read this

Terrol Swift

On January 17, 2012, Terrill Swift was released from prison for being wrongfully convicted of rape and murder. On February 14, nearly one month later the same man came to Deerfield High School to share his story with a group of teen aged students. His story was not only compelling and inspiring, but it also taught me that sadly our rights must be fought for. Terrill's story told me that we can't take our every day virtues for granted, especially our rights. The whole point of Terrill's visit was to teach us about how important it is to know what your rights are because when your in the heat of the moment like Terrill was, you have to know that if you want an attorney with you that you have the right for that and no police officer can take that away from you. Terrill wasn't wrongfully convicted because he was stupid and there was certainly not a lot he could do about the situation/ This man was set up by the Chicago Police because when theres a murder/rape on their table, they have to arrest somebody and in this case that somebody was Terrill. Most 17 year-old boys in Terrill's position wouldn't know what to do or how to act. In Terrill's mind he was cooperating to help find a murderer, but in actuallity he was helping convict himself and this was made possible because his rights were taken away and he had to do as the police ordered. I wish i had the skills to be an attorney beacuse this story taught me how easily a mans life can be taken away. Sadly, I just don't see my future going in that direction.

"If I Were a Poor Black Kid" - responce

I think Mr. Gene Marks is an over thinker... It's obvious he put a lot of thought into his responce. But, coming from a middle class white boy in north chicago, i can say im almost positive no normal student would go out of their way to do all those tasks. How often do you remember wanting to come to school to learn?! I'm not saying kids hate school but school is the base of a teenagers social life. Teenagers across America don't wake up in the morning to learn, they wake up to go see all their friends. I think Mr. Marks agruement is good and makes complete sense and i think a lot of people would be able to succeed by following his advice, but i personally think that no normal student would be able to go through all that work. I think it takes special people with minds to do great things, regaurding your race or skin color. I also think that Mr. Marks just can't come to grip with reality. He says he'd be able to afford a comupter and internet, be able to afford getting to and from every place he needs to go to study and learn, be able to afford the time to learn all these programs and system and codes when he might have to use that time to get a job and work to support his family. This world isn't perfect and your life plans are not going to turn out the exact way you want them to be. Only an adult who has been exposed to all these opportunities would know about them and would know how a young poor kid can succeed. No kid would ever think of think of it on their own.