The Answer?
Karen Lewis is the head of the Chicago Teachers Union. Yesterday, she gave a speech in which she blamed "rich white people" for the city's education mess. She even suggested that the city follow the example of the Chicago Cubs to fix the problem!!* Daily Caller has the report.
http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/20/chicago-teachers-union-chief-faults-rich-white-people-for-citys-education-mess/
I don't live in Chicago, but I am sick and tired of that city's enormous problems being blamed on rich white people-just as Jeremiah Wright did in exactly those words. Are rich white people to blame for the rash of shootings that plague the south side of the city? How do you blame rich white people when black youth are killing black youth?
No doubt Chicago has always had corrupt leadership in City Hall. In addition, we have two former Illinois governors in prison as we speak. But the corruption in Chicago spreads throughout the city and includes black aldermen and women. That has been true for many years.
Maybe part of the problem has been the complete dominance of the Democratic party in Chicago politics. Maybe the problem is largely due to the selfish teachers unions. No doubt that the families on the South Side are being poorly served by Chicago government, but to reduce it to a white-black issue is outrageous and accomplishes nothing to improve the schools and make the streets safer for those families who have to live there.
* That is a bit of a tongue-in-cheek comment. As a long-suffering Cub fan I acknowledge the long term program to develop a quality farm system and go with youth.
Are rich white people to blame for the rash of shootings that plague the south side of the city?
ReplyDeleteIn a sense, yes, but one must show a little more sophistication in making the argument, marshaling facts and such-like tedious details, unless, of course, one is playing to the choir, which this lady probably is.
Contrary to what Dog Scoop and his ilk would have us believe, the culture of the inner-city ghetto is not authentic African culture. Men being brought over in chains on the Middle Passage did not while away the hours rapping about b's and ho's, although they probably heard the Anglo sailors manning the ship use such terms.
What is casually termed "ghetto culture" is the culture of the LAST wave of north and west bound migrations, in the 1950s, not of people who were ambitious to advance their skills and free themselves from Jim Crow, but people who were being kicked off the plantations because cotton was being automated and sharecropper labor was no longer needed.
In fact, White Citizens Councils were offering free bus tickets north so these no-longer-desirable people didn't hang around and perchance register to vote.
In the back quarters of plantations in the POST Civil War era, it was commonplace that the most attractive young ladies were deflowered by the first man to notice them, had their first babies at fifteen, never married, and men killed each other in fights over money, women, booze, etc. The police didn't care, and neither did Senator James Eastland, the owner, as long as a sufficient crew was present to pick the cotton.
So, yes, rich white men did create this culture, and did plant it in the northern cities. Rich white men also made sure that anyone with dark skin was penned in a ghetto where the children of the middle class had the most violent new arrivals as peers and role models, also insuring that the culture they arrived with perpetuated itself, rather than people spreading all over town and being absorbed by a new way of life.
Finally, rich white men have been starving the schools of money, keeping some schools more equal than others, to further perpetrate a more and more unequal distribution of wealth.
But, the solution is not for some loud mouth to get on TV talking about rich white men. She needs to offer a detailed program.
Siarlys,
ReplyDeleteThanks for clearing all that up.
You're welcome Gary. It is my simple duty to bring a modicum of factual information to your blog.
ReplyDelete