First of all, read this. And props go out to the Black Youth Project.
I applaud Jada Williams for calling it as she saw it. That took guts, as well as the kind of honesty you can only get from a child. It was an analogy that I never even thought of, yet is so scarily appropriate.
One of the more poignant comments to that article raises the issue that we don't teach kids critical thinking anymore, so that they don't grow up to challenge anything. I was having this very conversation last night at work; the system has become less about education and more about training middle management. Creating cogs for the machine. And (inflammatory statement alert) part of the machine is creating inmates out of our underprivileged. This isn't just a black issue, this is a middle/lower class issue that isn't going to go away.
Until we stop listening to the people who want to phase out quality education at public schools, the people who can't afford private schools, charter schools, or the like will continue the cycle that does nothing for our society but keep cops and corrections officers employed. Don't get me wrong, students and parents have to do their parts. The information is out there, and in this day and age there is no excuse for not getting it. But we the working class have every right to demand a quality education from our system.
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