Yet her stupid senior thesis at Princeton was about Black and White (her descriptions with Black & White capitalized.) One thing I know about the white folk — putting everyone who looks white into a White category is meaningless. Of all the black/AA I know — lumping them into one Black category is also meaningless.

There were no sports — athletic programs for girls in most public schools until fairly recently — there were no athletic scholarships for women until fairly recently. There were PE classes — but no big sports program. Girls were not encouraged to take science courses — short hand and “secretarial” were pushed on girls. The males of color in the schools I went to WERE encouraged to take science courses — girls were DISCOURAGED.

The discrimination against women has been huge and it still is.

Interesting — Obama didn’t have a background in education — he wasn’t a product of the public education system. He really doesn’t have a clue from being in any public school HOW the public school system works. I don’t seen anything in his background which made him uniquely qualified — EXCEPT that he was an place holder — a face to put in the Chairman’s seat.

My advantage: my mother and father gave a shit. And, my mother worked, part-time, outside the home (commercial illustrator) while my father pounded nails.

No, “Country Day School,” for this little Scots-American. SAT’s were, nonetheless, a single point shy of 1500 combined, in 1966. Charge it off to a single Jewish grandparent with a brain the size of an asteroid.

School was boring as hell for me, all the way through my Sophomore year at university, when I was sent to the Southeast Asia Conference for a couple of seasons.

Given the degree to which all the curricula have been Dumbed Down (my daughter has an Engineering degree, cum laude, 1991, and I swear the kid can’t fold a road map) it surprises me not a whit that the Indians and Chinese are eating our lunch.

But they can’t touch us for sheer Jingoism, can they?

Then on top of it, they use another term: “Educational debt”. Which means, “We want another handout, suckers!”

Worse, even the author agrees that this debt needs to be paid.

I want to point out here that I actually believe, as a legal scholar, that there is, in fact, some credible basis to argue that the current black American population, almost all of whom are descendants of slaves, and many of whom continue to suffer from the legacy of that experience as well the many years of discrimination that followed the end of slavery, should receive financial compensation for the impact of that experience. However, the argument faces significant hurdles, some legal, some intellectual and many that are political.

At one time I agreed that Affirmative Action was needed, a handup approach to get minorities in the door. What I learned that changed my mind though, was that instead of getting in based on academic achievement, the system lowered standards so certain groups without academic merit can get in.

Meanwhile, across the aisle in Asian communities, there was a push to keep them out higher education (especially in California), not because of lower standards, but because they aced even the HIGHER standards, and outperforming even Whites.

It doesn’t jive folks.

The MOST qualified should get those choice seats at choice colleges. The MOST qualified are those, that instead of playing around in their youth — and not even bothering to crack a book, but use crack instead — slaved over their academics, and aced not only the exams, all other requirements.

Look what they’re doing to our school system today. In the metro Atlanta area, there’s a pilot program TO PAY STUDENTS TO LEARN. It shows that there’s not really a learning or resource divide out there — as Blacks from the 19th century onwards showed that if you took your education seriously, you could still get into college [Morehouse and Paine Colleges existed since the mid 19th century, folks].

The problem isn’t the lack of “getting there”, or there wasn’t colleges around for Blacks EVEN BEFORE JIM CROW, it’s the culture of under-achievement and handouts.

Look around and ask what the Black community sees as their heros and it’s value. It’s not the “house niggers” like Booker T. Washington and Washington Carver or even Thurgood Marshall, it’s 50 cents and any “kewl” dude in their bass thumping Mecedes with those gold chains, and “hos”.

You can’t help a community to lift up their lot, if they continue to put themselves down. No handout in the world will help them, as it MUST come from within their own culture and society.

This is a main ideological difference between liberals and conservatives. Where liberals believe the “State” can right wrongs, and especially with the help of money. Where conservatives believe you must not only pull yourself up, your community by hard work and dedication — the “State” isn’t sugardaddy, and money can’t buy braincells and self-pride. For liberals, everyone is equal in intelligence so everyone will benefit with throwing money around; for conservatives, they don’t see everyone as equal — as an 18 year-old Olympic athlete is going to trump a 18 year-old field and track player, as the Olympic athlete trained harder; and like Lance Armstrong, may have even been born with an advantage of unusually larger lungs and heart — some things are just inheritant.

Sigh.

and they probably have the goods on who paid for his party at the Convention..the most expensive party at the dem convention..i might add..not bad for a guy who was running for the senate for the first time eh???????

fly..a 2004 Delegate who was at that party……and have been asking Questions about this guy..and who paid for the party … ever since!!

They see it as weakness.

The actual teachers in the Title I classrooms will never see a dime.

See the game?

If you keep pushing this, you will cause another backlash AGAINST Obama for over-reacting.

What Obama needs right now is to HEAL the party he has divided.

You aren’t helping him with that.

The success of the hardworking, wanting to learn students had EVERYTHING to do with their homes, and how parents or grandparents encouraged them to study to succeed.

All the money in the world can’t change that.

And I, as a white citizen whose ancestors never owned slaves, am not accountable for their homes.

THIS is why Obama can’t get the “Appalachian” votes (and I hate that the word has now come to mean “racist”). Appalachians are the origninal Scots-Irish settlers who believed in hard work and academic achievement. Their children were NEVER taught to play the victim, or to expect any government to “fix” everything for them.

And here’s the irony: Ayers had the luxury of a very, very rich Daddy during his “rebellion” days in the 60’s. His rich Daddy hired the best and most expensive lawyers to keep his spoiled rich kid out of prison.

I don’t accept that he has one clue how to help poor kids–Black or White–work hard to move up and out.

….at least one advisor on education policy to the Obama campaign advocates a form of reparations to black and other minority Americans for hundreds of years of alleged “education debt” owed them by white Americans. And Bill Ayers is an advocate of the same policy.

And that proves… what, exactly? That’s like saying “John Kerry and John McCain both advocated normalization of relations with Vietnam. Ergo, John Kerry supports McCain’s Iraq policy.

“It would make sense that…”
“That suggests that…”
“it is possible…”
“Presumably…”

This is not “precise and scholarly”. This is borderline tinfoil hat territory – nothing but speculation based on conjecture based on guesses. But I’m sure the argument appeals to the basest feelings of some of you – which was the entire point.

He was abandoned by the Black side of his family.

But his White side gave him the chance to achieve, knowing education would matter.

Frankly, I want to know how many times people like Obama or Ayers or Dorhn or Oprah or Sharpton actually went down in those ghetto schools to HELP a poor Black student.

My guess would be, NONE.