Fear of a Black President

We should go back to neighborhood schools... this busing everyone everywhere to achieve racial balance for what reason I have no idea... hasn't done ****. The money saved on buses, drivers, maintenance, etc... could insure that all schools received the identical amount of necessary tools for the job.

Then give teachers enough money to make teaching worthwhile. Then stop coddling kids and tell 'em "If you want to do the work we'll help... if you don't get out... you're disturbing the kids who want to learn. McDonalds is hiring.

When I was a boy you were either college material or not. College was not an automatic. You had to not only be smart enough, but you had to work for it. If not you could take shop or vocational training. If you chose t5o be a troublemaker or a serial school cutter...... you could take your sorry ass home and good luck.

Quit lowering the bar and f*ck Junior's precious self esteem. Learning to lose is an important life lesson as well. You do the work, you get the grade. You do a little extra, you get even better grades. You don't, or you're not capable.... you don't. Just like life.

lowering the bar and moving the goalposts constantly does them no favors at all.

What is your main advice for parents?

One, back off and give kids some credit and some leeway to demonstrate their competence.

Two, let kids play freely without monitoring.

Three, eat dinner together at least five nights a week: aside from the sense of cohesiveness, it gives all that security that is the breeding ground for success. No matter where you are on the socioeconomic spectrum, it is more correlated with school adjustment and achievement than any other single thing that parents can do.

Are American parents smothering their children? Hara Estroff Marano, an editor-at-large at Psychology Today magazine and the grandmother of three small children, is convinced that they are. In her provocative new book, A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting (Broadway), she writes, "Behold the wholly sanitized childhood, without skinned knees or the occasional C in history! Kids need to learn that you need to feel bad sometimes. We learn through experience, and we learn especially through bad experiences. Through disappointment and failure we learn how to cope."

I do not like that my children have to be taught at the lowest common denominator of the children in their classes. My son excels at school while my daughter just drifts along. I'd actually prefer some segregation at schools, though not for race, but by learning levels. That way the children that need extra attention can get it while those that do not are not being held back.

CJ, if you wouldn't mind C&Ping that to here? For some reason, it seems some people really want an explanation.

I honestly don't see any issues as truly specifically only "African American Issues", but only some issues that seem to be the ones that blacks are more concerned with on a regular basis - but I can name a couple of things...

He (Obama) already has addressed a couple of those things in his role as a State legilator in Illinois - for instance, he made the filming of police interrogation rooms mandatory, to cut down on the rampant (and disproportionately against black) police brutality in Chicago.

The tax cut for the middle class and ending the free ride for the rich (things he wants to do) are things I think ALL working people can benefit from, but I think he and Michelle can feel our pain more than say a Bush or a McCain, because they only just got out of debt 3 years ago.

His bold agenda for reforming education - centered on things like actually giving substantial increases in salary to all teachers, but especially the good ones, is something that I see as potentially very beneficial to young black kids whose schools don't pay enough to attract the best and brightest teachers.

Overall, from what I've seen and read of the man over the last 4 years, he has a heart for the common man - the disenfranchised and those who have been left behind - not just black but all kinds. Those kinds of things usually come out in political conversations as "black issues", so I just go along with that.

Diane wrote:

Obama hasn't played the race card . . .

But, increasingly, it seems that that is all Snood does.

Setanta wrote:

Diane wrote:

Obama hasn't played the race card . . .

But, increasingly, it seems that that is all Snood does.

Bullshit, Setantashit, ..., it's all one and the same thing.

snood wrote:

It makes me tired - I mean, it seems like the unspoken fear is that "Omigod! If he gets in there, there's no telling WHAT the blacks will do!"

This seems nuts. Can you explain it?--maybe after a rest.
quote]

I don't understand what you are confused about...
Do you think that kind of fear isn't out there, and that there are those who are fanning those fears?

It seems that everyone else on this thread has already stipulated that. Not you?

Well, Set did tell me that I have harped more on race since Obama's been in the picture - and I had to admit he's right.

My alibi is that race kinda takes part of the limelight just by virtue of his candidacy, if we're honest.

. . . that kind of fear [is] out there, and . . . there are those who are fanning those fears . . .

It seems that everyone else on this thread has already stipulated that. (edited from the original for purposes of elucidation)